Portfolio
Digital Marketing Platform Research
Our client was a digital marketing company that provides an integrated email and social media platform for non-profits and small- to medium-sized businesses. They wanted to understand how to help their “at-risk” users become more successful. Working as part of a four-person research team, we determined that the platform’s users feel successful when they are confident in their ability to improve their marketing knowledge and the success of their campaigns. Despite our customer’s extensive support resources, users turned to other sources for training and information. We recommended that the client re-evaluate how they provide support to users, including a usability study of their current resources.
Techniques used:
- Contextual analysis
- In-depth interviews
- Thematic analysis workshop
Portfolio Solutions Guide
Following the 2008 mortgage crisis, I along with my peers was how we might slash budgets while maintaining service levels. Our product guide, called the Quarterly Portfolio Review (QPR), was an obvious candidate as its production and postage costs accounted for nearly half of our annual marketing budget. The challenge was that our salespeople thought of the QPR as nearly sacred, they used it almost every meeting and didn’t want it changed. Using a mixed-methods research approach, I uncovered some needs that the QPR was not meeting. Meeting those needs became the central focus of a dramatic redesign that met our cost-savings target and increased user satisfaction.
Techniques used:
- Stakeholder interviews
- Market research
- Contextual inquiry
- User interviews
- Design workshop
- Usability Testing
- Post-release survey
Boston.gov/readyboston Research & Redesign
In 2019, I was hired by the City of Boston’s Department of Emergency Management to help them understand how Boston residents prepare for evacuation emergencies and to create a communications plan for a new evacuation awareness campaign. As part of my background research, I conducted a heuristic review of boston.gov/readyboston and redesigned the site, optimized for mobile.
Techniques used:
- Stakeholder interviews
- Heuristic review
- Desk research
- Prototyping
Advisor Dashboard Redesign
While working as a communications manager at Bank of America I became product manager for a communications dashboard. The dashboard designed to reduce email advisors received. My initial charge was to drive adoption, but despite a robust communications and education plan, adoption remained below 15% a year later. Using mixed-methods research and an agile development methodology, my team and I made incremental improvements to the dashboard, ultimately using the dashboard’s content management capabilities to create a personalized newsletter that better met the advisors’ needs and reduced email volume by 30%.
Techniques used:
- User interviews
- Focus groups
- Information architecture
- Prototyping
- A/B testing
