Cathay Shop Experience Explorer
Create the habit of regular and recurring user research in the agile environment
Timeline-
2 months
Role-
Led the end-to-end setup of the community
Context-
Organization workflow, user research, community building
I joined the Cathay Shop team during a pivotal transformation phase focused on reforming our working processes. Our goal was to shift from a business-driven feature delivery model to a customer-centric product development approach. I spearheaded the creation of an internal user experience community, evolving it from a team initiative into a department-wide resource. This effort established regular user research practices across the department, empowering teams to make customer-informed decisions.
01
Problem of the current user research process
Where we were then
Our product development process faces two key challenges: First, our agile timelines don't allow enough time for proper user validation. Second, we build features that business teams request without proper prior user research. We recognize the importance of user research, but our current user research process is too cumbersome to integrate into our workflow, resulting in features that meet business requirements but often miss actual user needs.
Long lead time
The existing process took around 4 months from planning to the final report.
Lack product knowledge
User researchers not familiar with the product, resulting in missed opportunity to probe deeper.
Budget constraint
Budget constraints limited the number of large scale user research sessions.
Long queueing time
A bottleneck of 5–10 products waiting for user research created inefficiencies.
02
Create a habbit of research and iteration practice
Where we are now
We want to build a regular practice of research and design validation within our team. This will help us better lead new initiatives to revert the current business-driven feature delivery process. Our model focuses on three key areas:
Introducing user experience community
What it is?
A new internal community of passionate shoppers in Cathay.
Community members will regularly try out our beta products and provide feedback.
What are the benefits?
Gives direct access to real customer* perspectives, helping us make more user-centric product decisions.
Enables more frequent testing and feedback, allowing us to iteratively collect insights and improve our products.
Democratizing user research
Before Two user researchers run ALL the moderated research in the 150-people department
After Researchers guide designers and PMs to run lower risk / impact research by themselves
How can we find a larger pool of users for regular testing without the worry of company policy? By building an internal user experience community within our company, we can collect user insights more quickly and frequently. While employees may have some bias, they are still online shoppers themselves. This community would be suitable for basic usability testing and quick surveys.
03
Recruitment
Managing the community
Post on internal employee platform; poster at physical touchpoint
Promp participants to complete the demographic screening question. These information helps when we do further screening for diverse user testing recruitment through the community.
Onboarding message and an overview on the future activities
Communication
Cathay Shop’s primary users are frequent travelers and loyalty program members seeking a seamless shopping experience that complements their travel lifestyle. However, outdated interfaces,
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Only organizers can create posts. Participants can react and leave comments.
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Microsoft teams serves as a shared platform for Cathay employees.
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Scheduled beta-testing sessions
One-question survey
Continuous product feedback forms
04
Case study: validation of Cathay Shop 2.0
2
Viewports
How we conduct user testing through the community
1-to-1 moderated user testing
Validate design decision of the revamped Cathay Shop before the official launch.
Discover product opportunities to determine future roadmap post-launch
10
Interviewee
05
Potential future activities
“Happy to see there’s a space for everyone to openly comment on the product”
“It’s great to know that you are putting so much effort and time in understanding user’s thoughts.”
“Extremely exciting to take a sneak peak and contribute to the next generation product.”
“I’m really looking forward to more upcoming sessions.”
Next step for the community
Moving forward, our community will gradually support three levels of research. This structured approach will strengthen our product decisions and help us identify new opportunities.
Moving forward
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Introduce tiered incentives, including special discounts or early access to new features.
Gamigy participation through leaderboards.
Build a sense of exclusivity through events or webinars.
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Expand the community towards friends and family as the bias is less apparent in online shopping.
Explore other methods to manage participants efficiently as the pool grows.
Scale the community to become a shared pool across all teams, not exclusively for Cathay Shop team only.