User Hero · 2020 to 2021

Building a research repository around interview synthesis

User Hero helped UX researchers and product teams organize interviews and connect findings to their evidence. As co-founder and Head of Product, I led discovery, designed the product and managed two engineers through launch.

My work: Research, product strategy, product design and engineering management
Team: Two engineers; co-founder on go-to-market and sales
Product status: Public launch and early customers · Later closed

User Hero studies index with descriptions, team members, dates and a study-name filter

Product strategy

Problem: Past interviews were difficult to use for the next decision

At our previous business, each new set of product questions prompted another round of interviews. What we had already learned was scattered across notes, recordings and earlier studies. Answering a new question often meant starting again.

That experience gave us a starting problem. I needed to understand where other teams struggled, how they worked around it and which part a new product could usefully support. The opportunity became a repository connected to the work of interpreting interviews, so evidence could remain useful beyond the study that produced it.

Research and scope

Choosing interview synthesis as the starting point

I interviewed early-stage founders, UX researchers and product managers, recruiting through UX communities and my network. Affinity mapping, Jobs to Be Done, personas and journey maps helped me compare their problems and narrow the product’s scope.

Insight

Documenting interviews and assembling evidence was a shared problem.

Research operations varied by role. The work after an interview offered a more consistent starting point.

Research synthesis

Interviews and journey mapping surfaced different operational needs, from recruiting participants to coordinating sessions. Documenting interviews and preparing evidence for recommendations appeared across those workflows.

What I prioritized

Start with interview synthesis and knowledge management

I focused the product on studies, interviews and observations, connecting the act of doing research to the repository people would return to later.

Insight

A recommendation needed to carry its supporting material.

Colleagues needed to understand how the researcher reached a conclusion.

Research synthesis

Researchers described the work of pulling notes, recordings and observations together to make their reasoning inspectable. Conducting the interview was only part of that work.

What I prioritized

Keep findings connected to their source

I designed observations with supporting clips and transcripts, then a study-level matrix for comparing the evidence across participants.

The affinity map groups interview observations by theme. The product-manager board is qualitative persona synthesis, not a quantitative ranking.

Affinity map grouping interview observations into recruiting, pain points, desires, and tools — Research synthesis: observations grouped by theme, including difficulty revisiting notes, sharing findings and reviewing recordings. These are synthesis notes, not verbatim participant quotes.

Product-manager jobs, pains and gains ranked on three vertical scales — Persona synthesis: a qualitative ranking of jobs, pains and desired gains for the product-manager role.

The journey map follows research from the initial request through synthesis and delivery. We also tested proposed directions with landing pages, then interviewed respondents to examine how pressing their problems were.

Researcher persona journey from a project request through interviews, synthesis, delivery and evaluation — Research synthesis: the journey map connects the researcher's tasks, questions and tools with opportunities for the product.

User Hero landing page prototype introducing its research tools — Historical launch-page prototype, not a claim about production conversion performance.

Product structure

Connecting studies, interviews and observations

A study held the research goal and questions. An interview held a participant’s recording, notes and transcript. Observations captured findings and linked them to supporting material. Researchers could collect evidence as they interpreted an interview, then revisit it while comparing participants or reviewing a study.

Keep the research context inside the study

The study overview brought its purpose, questions and framing documents together with the interviews and participants. Illustrative study content.

Study overview with description and goal, tabs for questions and framing documents, and navigation to interviews and synthesis

I mapped tasks and relationships before working through the screens. Creating an interview meant connecting a participant, study, interviewer and recording, with paths for both existing and new records.

New-interview flow connecting account creation, participants, studies, interviewers and a recording — Flow design: reuse an existing participant and study, or create them as part of setting up the interview.

Task breakdown for accounts, participants, studies, research search, reporting, notes and tagging — Planning artifact: user stories and possible capabilities, including reporting ideas beyond the shipped scope.

Product design

Keeping the interview and its interpretation together

I explored the workspace through sketches, wireframes and clickable prototypes. The interface separated conducting an interview from reviewing it afterward, while keeping both tasks within the same interview.

Conduct

Keep questions and notes visible during the session

The question list sat beside the notes, with a timer available during the interview. Researchers could follow their plan while recording what they heard.

Conduct view with research questions, a note editor and a timer

Annotate

Add observations beside the source material

Researchers could review notes or a transcript and add an observation alongside it. Comments supported discussion of the underlying material. The screen uses example interview content.

Annotate view with notes, comments and an Add an Observation field

Synthesize

Compare findings across participants

The rainbow chart arranged observations in rows and participants in columns, with supporting evidence at their intersections. Researchers still decided which patterns mattered and what to recommend.

Rainbow chart with observation rows, participant columns, clip controls, tags and recommendation fields

The early workspace sketch brought recordings, notes, transcripts and observations together. Wireframes worked through conducting an interview and comparing evidence before the detailed interface designs.

Hand-drawn interview workspace with recording, notes, transcript and observations — Early sketch: explore how the recording, written material and observations could share a workspace.

Interview wireframe with timer and question list beside a central note editor — Wireframe: work through the layout of questions, timing and note-taking before the production interface.

Rainbow-chart wireframe showing observations by participant alongside highlight reels, tags and recommendations — Wireframe: the observation-by-participant matrix connects individual evidence to recommendations.

Design and delivery

Matching the design system to the implementation

The engineers and I chose React and Tailwind CSS for the web application. I built the Figma design system around that framework and specified the interface states. The engineers wrote the application code; I managed the team and resolved product and design decisions during the build.

We used prototypes of key flows for further user testing and refinement, and worked with AssemblyAI on transcription. The short build window had a cost: some interactions needed more exploration than we had allowed for, leading to false starts in the final designs.

Launch and learning

Early customers, followed by closure

#3 Product of the day on Product Hunt May 20, 2021

My co-founder and I worked on sales and go-to-market alongside the product, and we began working with early customers.

The pivot came too late for our remaining runway. We closed the company and returned the remaining money to investors. Launching a usable product and attracting initial interest did not establish a sustainable business.