Real Vision Platform
Increasing Real Vision's UX maturity by establishing a research practice
Overview
The Real Vision 2.0 platform was designed to give members a place to build community, access financial tools, and gain expert knowledge to support their learning journey. This project details how I supported a complete rebuild of the Real Vision product by creating a research practice.
My Role - UXR, UXD
I was the sole UX researcher on this project supported by the VP of Data & Insights, a Sr. Product Designer, as well as customer support. I was also involved in interaction design and UI decisions for several key experiences including: AI bot, Notes, Homepage, Search, and media consumption pages.
What is Real Vision?
Described as the “Netflix of finance”, Real Vision is a financial and investment media business offering in-depth analysis in the form of video interviews, educational courses, written reports, and community events.
In 2022, there was a push to learn more about our customers and how Real Vision helps them go about their financial lives. The intention for this research was to inform a full brand and product redesign that would then become internally known as "Real Vision 2.0".
Context & Challenge
When I joined Real Vision, there was no structured research practice which meant design and product decisions were often made without direct user input. Without usability testing or generative research, the team had little confidence in product direction and had no structured way to incorporate customer insights. I recognized this opportunity and took the initiative to introduce quick, scrappy studies to start building more confidence in design decisions.
Approach & Actions
Introducing usability testing
I started off by conducting quick usability studies on Real Vision 1.0's key features and interactions.
(Video playback study, checkout, thank you pages etc)
I created structured research plans, moderated user interviews, and synthesized insights into actionable recommendations for the product and design teams.
I also created reports and stored these insights in JIRA, making sure they were accessible for all internal teams.
Usability Testing
Ran 5 studies using moderated user interviews. A prototype was provided to the user to click through as questions were asked.
Feedback Surveys
Quick surveys around RV features and pages to gauge their usability and usefulness.
Synthesis & Reccs
Each study concluded with a thorough synthesis and report of findings which were presented to the various project teams.
Shifting to generative research for Real Vision 2.0 platform
As the business shifted toward recreating our product to offer more tools and services, it was necessary to dig deeper into our core user needs.
To begin, I created research plans and conducted interviews with a goal to better understand how our members learn and engage with financial content.
The information collected from these interviews were put into a Jobs-To-Be-Done framework to identify users key motivations and understand why they "hire" us in their financial learning journey. These would be used to shape our product offerings and ensure product fit with our members.
Findings from these studies were synthesized to help define Real Vision's transition from a content platform to a multi-feature SaaS product.
Implementing a research repository & continuous feedback loop
As the amount of data grew, it was clear that we needed a more sophisticated solution for storing all of that information.
We established a VOC (Voice of Customer) repository in Dovetail to centralize customer input and research insights.
(Dovetail - tagging, coding, grouping to find patterns, searchability, reports, centralized source of truth for internal teams)
I partnered with our customer service team to leverage their tools and import customer feedback as another channel for uncovering pain points.
I also worked with marketing and development teams to implement a feedback CTA on the platform to invite all customers to give input.
Feedback from customer support channels and from within the new platform were automatically imported into Dovetail for continuous sorting and synthesis.
Results & Impact
Increased UX Maturity
Research became more of an integrated part of the product development process, shifting the company from assumption-based decisions to user-informed design.
Confident design decisions
Insights guided key product updates which helped to reduce uncertainty before engineering handoff.
Scalable research practice
The repository provided a searchable single source of truth, enabling cross-functional teams to access and apply insights as needed.
Key takeaways
Flexibility is key
In a fast-moving start-up with daily changing priorities, research methods had to be adaptable and lightweight to fit within product timelines
Small wins help to build buy-in
Quick usability tests and low-cost research initiatives demonstrated value and helped to pave the way for a more structured practice.
Feedback loops
Leveraging customer service channels helped maintain an ongoing pulse on user sentiment, making research a continuous effort rather than a one-time initiative.
Ashley Blackwell
2024