United States of Africa Volunteer Work
UX Research
Overview
United States of Africa is a non-profit organization that aims to unify and provide better digital services to African descendants across different continents. It offers a range of products and services. I was mainly involved in the Zumaridi Team, which primarily focuses on providing a better online meeting experience for African people through a new online conferencing and broadcast platform. Due to confidentiality reasons, I won't go into the details of the project here but will only summarize my contributions and achievements till today (Feb, 2023) as the first UX researcher on the Zumaridi Team. If you would like to learn more about the project's details, please feel free to reach out!
My Role:
First UX Researcher on Zumaridi Team
Duration:
October 2022 - Current
Team:
Zumaridi Development Team
My contribution & achievements:
Acknowledge the value and process of UX Research
As the first UX researcher on the Zumaridi Team, I realized that most of my teammates did not understand the value and process of conducting UX research. To address this, I communicated and collaborated continuously with UX designers, product managers, and scrum masters while conducting my UX research work.
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What I bring to the organization:
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By increasing teammates' exposure to the process of UX research and sharing all useful UX research resources across different stages, my teammates realized that UX research helps them identify and address the problems they had previously overlooked.
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They also learned that UX research is not something that can be done quickly, but it is worth the effort. As a result, more people in the team now understand the importance of UX research.
Recorded all UX research resources and and share with the team
Execute both generative and evaluative UX Research
As a UX researcher, I conducted both generative and evaluative UX research, which included, but was not limited to, usability testing, desk research, and competitive analysis. Additionally, I was responsible for developing the UX research plan.
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What I bring to the organization:
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By having access to competitive analysis and desk research reports on various topics I created, UX designers and other team members had a clearer direction on how to improve the development of the product.
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The usability testing report provided the UX designers with direction for iterations. After considering my design suggestions, the task completion rate on the video conferencing platform increased by 40%.
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Appreciation words received from the UX designer on the team
Advocate for and guide more efficient UX Research
Being active on the team and continuously contributing to the organization, I was promoted to Senior UX Researcher in February 2023. Before my promotion, I always tried to help find approaches to conduct UX research more efficiently for both myself and other UXRs.
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What I bring to the organization:
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When I joined the NGO, the UXR department had just been formed and there weren't any spaces for the UXRs across different teams. I proposed having a repository (Google Drive) for all the UXRs to collaborate and share their work. This also serves as a space for UXRs who joined the organization later to have some references.
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Some of the volunteer UXRs who joined the organization were relatively new to the field of UX research, so I communicated with them via the organization’s communication channel to share helpful UX research resources and answer their questions.
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Promotion letter received from the organization
Reflection
There will be more challenges in the future, but here are the things I have learned from my work for the organization:
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Communication, and then collaboration
Before taking action and starting your job, communicating with internal stakeholders first will save you a lot of time later on when you begin executing your tasks. Effective communication is key to successful collaboration across different product development stages.
Help others is another approach to educating yourself
When you want to share useful UX research resources with others and answer the questions others might have, it’s also the time you educate yourself to continuously improve your UX research skills.
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Make your research findings easy to understand and practical to implement.
As UX researchers, we need to remember that research takes time, and design iterations also require time and energy. When developing design suggestions based on research findings, making them easy to understand and implement will encourage UX designers to take your suggestions into consideration much more.
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