The Problem
Basecamp hired me for a twelve week internship to help them determine if their premium product, Clientside, is effective for users that work with clients.
My Role
User Researcher
Hit the Ground Running
The folks at Basecamp design and build a great product. But they don’t regularly do any kind of user research. So, my first task was to figure out what to do. After meeting with my mentors, I devised a research plan for a small pilot study so we could better understand what it means to do “client work.”
Pilot Study
I designed the lightweight pilot study that would offer a large return on effort. I wrote an interview guide, recruited participants and conducted twelve half-hour phone interviews. Then I compiled the notes of any observers and transcribed chunks of text from audio recordings. I put these notes and chunks of text into an affinity diagram for analysis.
After some discussion with my mentors, we decided to focus on five themes that Basecamp could conceivably help with and return to them with more in-depth research. I reported our findings to the company.
We also decided to do a few verification interviews to make sure the five identified themes were on target. I recruited a few more participants and asked some more focused questions and found that the themes were known to the verification participants.
Contextual Inquiry
Now that I understood some of the basic tenets of client work, I wanted to dive deeper into how Basecamp users actually accomplish their client work. I knew that on-site observations would allow me to view how users actually used the product. I created an Observation Guide of seven tasks and a short interview. The tasks were focused on the five themes I discovered from the pilot study.
Since these sessions were more personal and more of a time commitment, recruitment was more difficult this time. But after several rounds of emails and message revision, I found six participants who would let me come to their workplace and observe what they do.
The observation sessions were really interesting and helped me understand the specific tasks users do with their clients. I recorded audio, took still pictures and wrote notes of each session. I compiled the notes and images into writeups so my mentors could follow along.
Next I did the analysis. I used an affinity diagram again to evaluate notes and images from the sessions. Clearer themes emerged from this diagram, though we chose to focus on three core themes that we thought were the most important for Basecamp users. I reported these themes to the team, showing them useful quotes and helping them gain insight into the specifics of client work. This insight should help them design a more successful product.
Lessons Learned
Check out my Signal v. Noise post about what I learned!
The Final Product
In the end, I reported my findings to the company via Basecamp, natch. Unfortunately, I can’t share the report,but if you would like to send me an email at I would be happy to talk about it!