User Research for MTDParts.com

Challenge

To help the business team understand and empathize with their users in order to provide a better shopping experience.

Approach

I kicked off the project by interviewing each member of the team to understand their goals and constraints. Then, I married that information with the analysis I conducted on two years of Foresee survey data to understand the users and potential areas of improvement. I also wanted to learn more about outdoor power equipment parts purchasing behavior to further back the survey data so I interviewed five outdoor power equipment owners who perform their own maintenance.

 I led a proto-persona workshop to help the team put into to practice the information that I shared with them as well as the information they already knew about the user.

Final Product

I provided a report with recommendations about how to improve the experience that include updating search functionality, educating users about their product’s model and serial number, etc. The user data and proto-persona are used today to help prioritize functionality and to understand the user perspective. The stakeholder interview report was presented to upper-management as a tool to help restructure the team.

After reviewing the Foresee data, I reported out to the business team on my findings. This is one of the slides from the presentation.

I interviewed each person on the team to understand the business goals and current frustrations. I shared a report on my findings.

I led an exercise with the team to create a proto-persona. I divided them up into to two teams and each team created a persona based on the information I shared as well as what they already knew about the users.