In Part One, I wrote about the process that our team went through in order to generate a proposal for how to meet the business objectives UXPA NYC set forth:
- Increase Membership
- Increase newsletter subscriptions
- Encourage potential speakers to contact us
- Encourage potential venues to contact us
- Encourage potential sponsors to contact us
The proposed solution was focused on increasing membership. Our team believed that underlying all of the business objectives was the value of a large, active membership.
In this post, I will speak about next steps our team would take in order to test the proposal we came up with and the inherent assumptions about members, venues, sponsors, and speakers. The process would flow from identifying participants and goals, establishing the apparatus, establishing the procedure, and analyzing the data.
First, we would need to identify the key participants we want to attract and recruit. Since membership is assumed to be the core of what appeals to sponsors, venues, and speakers (VSS) it presents the biggest risk. In order to address that risk first, we will focus on VSS participants:
- Identify key demographics
- Recruit participants: contact VSS who've had business with UXPANYC in the past, contact successful UXPA chapters to gather recruitment information on their VSS relationships, contact target VSS
Next, we can identify the goals of the research
- Identify drivers for why VSS work with UXPANYC
- Describe the process of how VSS work the UXPANYC
- Describe the process of how the most successful UXPA chapters operate in regards to VSS
Next, the apparatus of the study. By apparatus I mean an umbrella term for equipment needed, the types of study methods, and the types of artifacts (website, prototype, etc...). For the above goals we would use:
- Remote and in person interviews
- Interview, note-taking, and recording applications to capture data
- Possibly use the UXPANYC website depending on the ways that VSS enter into contact with UXPANYC
Defining the procedure would include answering the questions such as:
- What do participants do when they go through the study?
- How will participants be briefed and debriefed during the study?
- Which interview questions will be asked?
- Which tasks and how many, if any, will we expect the participants to perform?
Lastly, Analysis---how we will synthesize the information and how to best communicate it effectively to stakeholders.
The UXPA NYC event was an excellent experience in learning how UX practitioners can move from general business objectives into a research plan that helps generate insights that could have a massive effect on the design of the organization's products and services. Our assumption was that membership was the core of achieving the different business goals. The impact to the business can be lessened by testing our riskiest assumption: that venues, sponsors, and speakers care most about the size and participation of the UXPA membership community.