Championing user testing for UX Writing community

Problem

  • Usertesting.com is a tool used company-wide by UX researchers, designers and writers. It is a crucial part of our UX processes and has helped us to learn and independently validate our hypotheses. 

  • Historically, the Usertesting.com steering committee did not have UX writer representation: writers were not allocated a proportionate number of seats nor trained how to use the tool.

  • I was the first UX writer to join the committee. My goal was to increase the number of writers using Usertesting.com across the company and empower my colleagues to do their best work. 

My slides from the UX Writing All-Hands where I shared the value of Usertesting.com, areas for improvement and a content-specific application.

My role

  • Bridged the gap between research and writing communities: worked with the Director of UX Writing & Content Design to create a plan for increasing awareness and engagement, and with a senior research coordinator to free up more seats (i.e. licenses that could be used by writers).

  • Nominated to share best practices for using the tool in the company’s first UX Writing All-Hands.

  • Presented at quarterly, company-wide Usertesting.com training sessions and hosted one-on-one co-working sessions for new UX writers.

  • Defined 2022 goals for this initiative and created a roadmap with the steering committee.

The whiteboard used in the steering committee 2022 brainstorming and planning session.

Outcomes

  • Established myself as a go-to person in the UX Writing community for ‘all things user testing’, giving us the ‘one source of truth’ we were previously lacking. 

  • Increased UX writer seat holders from two to nine which allowed us to cover almost all the areas of our business.

  • Overhauling seat allocation process company-wide, prioritising craft and business needs over a first-come, first-served approach.