Research is the foundation for any good design. Effective research comes from structured data gathering techniques from users. This will provide clear information regarding product requirements that can be tested with proper usability testing.
Customer Interviews
Market research and customer interviews are a crucial first step in building any new product. At WatchGuard I led customer interview initiatives to gather requirements and understand customer needs as a starting point for our design process. From this, I worked with the product team to narrow down and define product requirements..
Usability Testing
Usability testing is the authoritative method (in my opinion) of validating the usefulness and ease of use of any feature or product. Designers and developers alike can learn more about their product from usability testing than through any other method.
At WatchGuard I led the teams efforts in usability testing through various methods. Unmoderated testing tools like Userbrain were used to test new components and simple to understand features. For full product and feature testing we regularly ran moderated usability tests with internal and external testers.
Analytics
Once a product has been introduced it is crucial to setup and report on any usage analytics available. At WatchGuard I leveraged several third party analytic tools to monitor and improve our products. These included Pendo, Hotjar, Mouseflow and Google Analytics.
