In-Depth Interviews on Coaching & Safety

At this stage of the coaching project, our team's work was informed by foundational research conducted a few years prior. We needed fresh data that zoomed in on customers' actual coaching workflows, needs, and preferences, and we also had early-stage prototypes with myriad features that required validation and prioritization. Our team decided to kill two birds with one stone via interviews.

I was tasked with the challenge of constructing an interview format that succinctly addressed these many needs. The result was an hour long structured interview with three sections, described below:

Key Research Questions:

General Discussion of Coaching Processes

• Does your company coach drivers, and if so, what does that process look like?

• What would an 'ideal' coaching process look like using Reveal?

• Are you familiar with safety scores? If so, how are they incorporated into your process?

  • What factors should be included when calculating safety scores?

Prototype Walkthrough (Led by me via screen share)

• Take a look at [this prototype screen]. What are your initial thoughts about the information displayed here?

• What stands out as the most/least important information here? Anything missing?

• What do you think about [the way information is displayed]?

Free Exploration (Led by participant via screen share)

• (Observe) What draws the participant's attention the most/least? Are they getting stuck in the flow? What questions do they have?

Because we wanted a realistic look at our customers' coaching experiences—from large companies with established processes to micro family-owned businesses—I constructed my guide to accommodate for both 'yes' and 'no' answers, resulting in a thorough, responsive flow through key questions.

After conducting 10 interviews, 2 of which included an additional impromptu interviewee (a new and exciting challenge), I turned to Dovetail—Verizon Connect's new research repository—to analyze the data. I dove in headfirst and was the first member of the research team to analyze data and construct a research readout entirely using Dovetail (versus the team's traditional method of creating Google Slides powerpoints). This new format was a huge hit with my stakeholders on the safety team, because I could easily cite my sources directly to interview transcripts and incorporate far more customer testimonials than before. This format was adopted by the research team and became our standard readout methodology.

Regarding research impact, my readout gave our design and product teams a deeper understanding of customers' existing coaching workflows and their immediate and long-term needs concerning core features. It greenlit the core design of the prototype reviewed, offered noteworthy iteration suggestions, identified areas for further research, and helped prioritize future coaching roadmap items.

In-Depth Interviews on Mobile Coaching & Driver Experience

With the previous rounds of research complete, our team shifted priorities to specific research areas we knew the least about and would most significantly impact later phases of coaching platform implementation. Two of these areas, mobile coaching and the driver experience, became the responsibility of myself and my teammate Colin Smith.

In research planning, we determined that getting an unbiased picture of drivers' wants and needs from fleet managers, our typical interview participants, was impossible. We needed to talk to drivers too. To consolidate resources and speed up our research timelines, Colin and I combined these two topics into one interview. This allowed us to tackle both user groups without planning 4 separate research studies. In the end, I spoke to fleet managers about these combined topics while Colin spoke to drivers. I developed an 45 minute semi-structured interview, described below:

Key Research Questions:

• How do you and your drivers use mobile devices for coaching?

  • Do you use Verizon apps?

  • Walk me through a day of mobile coaching.

  • How often do you coach on mobile versus on desktop?

• How much Reveal data do you share with your drivers?

  • Do you think your drivers want to see their data?

While conducting 7 interviews, I shared initial reactions and highlights with Colin over Slack and in our 1:1s—a process I have streamlined using Gemini's note-taking features in my more recent work. We exchanged learnings and key insights as they formed so we could complement and reference each other's work in our eventual readouts.

After loading all the interviews into Dovetail, I once again constructed my research readout using an iteration of my process described above. Also, it was at this time that I first incorporated AI into my workflow: Dovetail had recently launched a beta for an AI summary tool, which I used to create high level overviews for each of my written insights. I was once again the first teammate on the research team to adopt and share my experience with these new features.

The impact of this research, in complement with Colin's driver research, helped our team to prioritize roadmap initiatives relating to mobile coaching and would serve as the foundation for driver needs workshops in future years of work.

Safety Score Task Analysis Evaluation

As research continued, so did design work. One designer on the team, Daragh, had been expressing an interest in diving deeper into research work, and his work on the coaching platform's safety score functionality needed validation. This was an opportunity for me to step in and assist Daragh in conducting task-based usability tests for his prototyped experience.

Since Daragh wanted to learn about the end-to-end research process, I walked him through developing a research brief, research questions, and selecting research methodology. We worked closely throughout this process via regular 1:1s, ultimately deciding to conduct 30 minute moderated interviews where a researcher would lead participants through a UserTesting-facilitated task analysis. We decided against an unmoderated flow because developing a prototype that supported free exploration required much more work, and facilitating an interview would give Daragh a higher-quality research experience.

We interviewed 5 participants during this work. After leading the first two interviews, I let Daragh facilitate the remainder. I also let him take charge of the bulk of the analysis, providing recommendations where needed. Ultimately, we developed a Dovetail research readout using my established processes and co-presented our research findings to the broader cross-functional team. I encouraged Daragh to take charge of the most important insights, including recommendations for next steps.

This research impacted roadmap decisions for safety score development and directly led to the customization research below, but it was also an important milestone for both Daragh and me: he elevated his experience with evaluative research, and I had my first experience with formal 1:1 mentorship of a junior team member. This experience directly prepared me for future direct mentorship roles, including my work on the Driver Exoneration Journey Mapping project