Transforming Airtasker’s Research Strategy

FEB - MAY 2023

While working as Associate UX Researcher at AirTasker, I noticed a problem in our research process: Research was viewed as a reactive validation step for existing decisions, rather than a core function that informed our future strategies.

To solve this, I set up a diary study, which would be a new foundational piece of contextual knowledge.

While planning this study however, I found that our existing knowledge wasn’t visible or usable.

This led to a redesign of our repository strategy and long term roadmap.

Role: Associate UX Researcher

Stakeholders Involved:

  • Reporting to: VP of Design

  • Collaboration with: Principal Designer

  • Consultation with all Design and Product teams.

Starting with the Diary Study:

Objectives & Research Plan

I conducted desktop research to create a research plan, with attention to resources and my research timeline/roadmap.

I identified two goals:

1. Contextualised Research

Past research was mostly interviews or surveys, so I wanted to diversify this typology and fill in knowledge gaps.

2. Creating an Artefact

Something engaging that will be useful to Product teams;

Also raising the profile of research to other teams at Airtasker.

Stakeholder Interviews

I drew upon knowledge of long term team members to find out:

  • What are each team’s gaps in knowledge or blind spots? What have they always wanted to find out? What assumptions need proving?

  • What form could the final artefact take, that would be of most use to PMs and designers? How much empathy do they feel we have for our users, and how could this be improved?

This was a really great way for me to build upon my relationships across product at Airtasker, and conduct a pulse check to ensure research is aligned with team & business objectives.

Synth & Pivot

The insights I gained from these internal interviews, however, pointed towards some pretty big gaps in knowledge and operational pain points:

Siloed knowledge

Research & findings have been very siloed between teams, with most projects very team specific & ad-hoc.

Info is hard to find & access

We collectively knew a lot, but this info was hidden in the depths of team folders.

Almost all stakeholders spoke about wanting visibility of our knowledge across the user journey rather than within the bounds of team remits.

No Motivation to write reports

Because of inaccessibility of past reports and fast paced schedule in sprints, there was little motivation for teams to document research.

Knowledge was instead locked away with a few individual people.

The Solution:

Mapping Past Research on the User Journey

It was clear that we needed a better way to view research, in a single place, centering it on the user experience rather than our internal teams.

I brought this together on a journey map, using Dovetail:

Columns = user journey stages

Individual “insight” documents = each past report.

This way of visualising research clearly shows gaps in our knowledge.

Each report is categorised to allow powerful filtering.

Impact

Creating a visual, searchable repository unlocked user knowledge, allowing product teams to prioritise previously unknown insights

How this informed our roadmap & research strategy:

Existing research applied to upcoming strategic planning & OKR’s

This garnered really positive feedback from senior product stakeholders.

Resources saved

Research that was previously lost no longer needs to be repeated.

New stakeholder interview schedule

I implemented this to monitor upcoming research goals, touching base with each product team to inform my roadmap.

Back to the Diary Study

Meanwhile, this consolidation of our existing knowledge base solidified the business case for conducting a diary study:

  • We were missing knowledge of the “offline” or “task completion” stage - this column was empty!

  • We were missing contextualised studies.

After completing stakeholder interviews, I now also knew the gaps in knowledge according to our current designers & PMs:

Matching stakeholders knowledge gaps with user journey stages:

The Finalised Research Plan:

I used this synth to finalise our plan, focusing on Taskers during the offline task completion phase. This included:

  • Establishing pilot study goals.

  • Initial onboarding interview scripting.

  • Event contingent protocol - prompting taskers to record their thoughts based on task phase + logistics of organising this.

  • Mixed-media entries - alternating between video, audio, short text and multiple choice submissions to retain engagement.

  • Phoning up customers on the receiving end of tasks, to gain more context in quick chats.

  • Online delivery using whatsapp, suiting many taskers existing daily routines.

Next Steps

  • Putting the research plan into action & kicking off a pilot study.

  • Aligning discovery research to upcoming semester planning, by conducting research at the end of each semester to align with upcoming OKR’s.

  • Planning further contextualised studies to cover other gaps in knowledge, and increase empathy.

  • Using this journey map to create an onboarding journey map, allowing newcomers to immerse themselves in the user experience at each stage, centred around the user rather than team remits and internal mental maps.

My Takeaways

  • Projects pivoting can unearth huge opportunities.

  • There is untapped value in existing research and knowledge that doesn’t need to be forgotten.

  • There is a time and place for conducting research quickly, but also value in stepping back to get the most out of long term discovery projects & strategies.

  • Strengthening relationships with more senior designers, PMs and product directors can lead to huge insights from combined knowledge, which were game changing for our research strategy.