Problem: NetApp’s UX team was tasked by Customer Support and Product Management to develop a greater understanding and to identify areas of improvement for the end-to-end experience customer experience for NetApp storage customers. As Lead UX Researcher, I was tasked with identifying issues related to NetApp’s storage management hardware and software products – from ordering, through packaging, delivery, unpacking, installation, and initial configuration.
In addition, I partnered with NetApp’s Information Engineering (IE) team to gather additional feedback relating to end user documentation/packaging instructions, with the goal of helping to reduce the number of customer complaints received while increasing cost savings through reduced calls to customer support.
Role: Lead User Experience Researcher
Tools: Microsoft Suite, Illustrator
Process:
- I was made aware of, and evangelized the opportunity to observe customer installations of our new hardware and software products by several Engineering organizations – garnering management support for the budget for two employees (UX and Information Engineering (IE)) to travel onsite.
- I developed an Out-of-Box-Experience (OOBE) Study plan to gather user feedback on all aspects of our product, working with the IE team to understand known/potential issues relating to end user documentation.
- I travelled to two customer sites together with an IE representative, and met with their respective installation teams – gathering baseline data on their roles, environment, and plans for the installation.
- We spent two days observing the complete installation process – documenting the entire process with video, photographs, and detailed transcripts of the user’s experience.
- Once the study was completed, I consolidated the data collected, and produced an OOBE report in collaboration with IE team members, identifying the issues noted and potential solutions. I reviewed my finding with the UX, IE and Development teams to ensure solutions were understood, and the solutions were supported.
- I then socialized the report to key stakeholders (Product Management, UX, Development, and Information Engineering) to share the voice of the customer.
- I continued to track action items through to resolution, ensuring I circled back with study participants to relay solutions in future product updates.
Outcome: 12 major usability issues were identified and were escalated to appropriate organizations throughout Engineering (including rail design, packaging, and shipping). 2 issues related to Information Engineering and Firmware were resolved immediately upon return – 6 remaining issues were placed into the backlog for resolution, and the 4 were deemed at outliers.
I worked with the IE team to update the Installation Guide, shipped with NetApp’s hardware, to resolve the issues that were identified during the study which resulted in reduced customer calls to support during the installation process.
