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Launching and accelerating UX Research at Driveway

My program accelerated research velocity by over 300%, from 1 study every ~2 months to ~1.8 studies per month

Synopsis

North star

Formally launch UX Research as a product development function. Steer Product and Design decisions through learning, data, and insights.

Program overview

I launched a comprehensive UX Research program in 6 months, from the first hire to the initial research roadmap.

The multi-method research program encompassed staffing, tooling, intake, roadmapping, execution standards, and best practices for cross-functional collaboration.

UX Research at Driveway supported 4 squads in the first 3 months and later informed design decisions for the homepage redesign (part of the brand refresh that I also orchestrated).

By the end of the 3rd month of the program, I had accelerated research velocity by 316%, with a single dedicated researcher conducting ~1.8 studies per month compared to the previous rate of 0.56 studies per month. By procuring dscout, we further increased the research velocity due to use of dscout’s Express Missions.

Value proposition

Driveway, the largest new-car retailer in the U.S., serves the full car ownership lifecycle, all from the convenience of your home.

  • Innovation hub within Lithia Motors (NYSE: LAD, currently #145 on the Fortune 500)
  • Competes with Carvana, CarMax, and Cars.com​​​​​
  • $28.2B in revenue in 2022

Team players

Supporting a distributed US-based team with 8 squads, my role was Product Design Manager + Design Program Manager, reporting to the Director of XD.

  • ~30-member Experience Design (XD) team, including product designers, content designers, 1 design system designer, 1 UX researcher, and 3 product design managers (including me)
  • Built partnerships with Product Managers, Head of Marketing, and Senior Brand Designer

Key results

The findings from the co-shopping study helped inform feature prioritization and de-prioritization for Account and Shop. – Amy C., UX Researcher​​​​​​

  • Accelerated research velocity by 316% from 1 study every ~2 months to ~1.8 studies per month through Lean UX and ResearchOps
  • Staffed and coached first UX Researcher who was later promoted to lead
  • Procured a new research tool (dscout) based on evaluation of Driveway teams’ specific learning needs
  • Studies directly influenced Product and Design decisions that led to marked increases in monthly transaction volume and monthly unique visitors
  • Increased cross-functional alignment and buy-in for research by laying the foundation for research as a team sport, including research planning and prioritization

The Journey

Joining Driveway

I joined Driveway in January 2021, just a few months after its initial launch.

  • Led Product Design for account center, homepage, internal tools, inventory (sell)
  • Acted as design program manager (DPM), launching programs for both UX Research and the Design System, and orchestrating Driveway’s “2.woah” brand refresh

A clear need for research

With an ambitious product roadmap and quarterly major releases, Driveway quickly made a splash in the automotive eCommerce space.

Both product designers and product managers had a strong appetite for conducting user research internally.

It was obvious that Driveway needed to press the gas on research.

I collaborated with my manager, the Director of Experience Design, to define the need:

Our features sometimes don’t perform as we expect, and we don’t understand why.

This poses a risk to our investment in what we bring to market.

Currently, we gather data and insights about Driveway customers’ goals and expectations via ad hoc research studies, with immediate needs addressed on a first-come, first-served basis.

Speedbumps on the racetrack

Launching a research program at Driveway posed several challenges:

  • No UX Researcher
  • High on assumptions, low on UX maturity
  • Shoehorned research tool
  • Rapid delivery cycle & emerging processes
  • Skepticism from the XD Director (my boss)

My objective

Formally launch UX Research as a product development function. Steer Product and Design decisions through learning, data, and insights.

Approach: Program Pillars

My approach to launching a UX Research program encompassed 4 program pillars:

  1. Staff UX Research
  2. Identify Design and Product’s learning needs
  3. Procure the right research tool for meeting those needs
  4. Create a cross-cutting research roadmap

Implementing the program

Over the course of 6 months, I implemented the research program by

  1. Hiring the first dedicated UX Researcher
  2. Guiding and iterating on research partnership and process
  3. Fostering collaborative research execution (made How as important as Why)
  4. Assessing what kind of learning outcomes designers and PMs cared about
  5. Enabling desired learning outcomes by procuring dscout
  6. Piloting quarterly research intake through participatory workshops
  7. Making the research backlog visible to partners
  8. Making learning actionable and relevant to product and design decisions

Program impact

The findings from the co-shopping study helped inform feature prioritization and de-prioritization for Account and Shop. – Amy C.

Overall, my UX Research program set the course for research maturity Driveway.

  1. Successful program liftoff
    1. Supported 4 journey teams across the funnel in the first 2 months
    2. Achieved initial research velocity of 7 studies per quarter (see table below)
  2. Tool enablement
    1. Identified that Driveway teams’ learning needs were in the generative discovery realm
    2. Procured dscout, which was better suited to these learning needs
  3. Durable process + scalable impact
    1. Laid the groundwork for ongoing research roadmapping and partnership
    2. Research needs began to be framed from a customer journey perspective, breaking down silos between squads.
    3. Studies were subsequently run to support multiple journey teams at one time.
  4. Effectiveness of Lean hypothesis
    1. UX Research drove the end-to-end process of the Lean UX hypothesis for the Inventory team
    2. UX Researcher involved PM and designers in study planning, analysis, and synthesis
  5. Cohesive team learning
    1. Designers translated insights into specific recommendations that directly translated to design decisions.
    2. Our UX Researcher validated that recommendations were grounded in data and heuristics.

We saw a real difference between the impact of ad hoc studies (based on one Designer’s or PM’s pet theory) and the impact of findings from studies where we aligned on learning objectives and a lean UX hypothesis as a team (and collaborated along the way).

Research as a team sport garnered much more buy-in for recommendations and influence on the product decisions.

– Amy C., former Lead UX Researcher at Driveway

I’ve summarized the first 3 months of the UXR program efforts in the below table:

Team / Effort May 2021 Jun 2021 Jul  2021
Inventory Sell Landing Page and Offer Screen Redesign Study – Discovery   Sell Account Creation and Onboarding – Discovery
MegaCart Cart Wrapper    
My Driveway Preference Center Study   Save Search – Usability
Learn   Top Navigation – Information Architecture Validation Car Finder Quiz – Copy Validation
Tool procurement Tool secondary research: define procurement criteria Tool demos and additional analysis Business case creation and socialization with mid-level management

Reflection

What went well

Research execution and overall partnership

  1. Cross-functional involvement in end-to-end research: Research directly influenced Product and Design decisions that positively impacted Driveway OKRs as reported in product analytics.
  2. Achieved and maintained a good momentum.
  3. Laid the foundation for continued research planning and prioritization. Based on the process I established for inputs to research roadmapping, Amy continued to use participatory formats to evaluate partners’ research needs and prioritize research efforts.

What didn’t go so well

Early collaboration bumps & temporary tool gap

  1. There were some collaboration bumps early on between cross-functional teammates.
  2. There was a ~2-month research tool gap while Lithia finalized the dscout contract—but we had a backup plan involving a pay-as-you-go tool.
  3. I was wearing 3 hats and had a lot of work in progress (WIP), which made it challenging to get any one program initiative done quickly.

What I would improve in the future

  1. Expedite tool procurement to avoid or minimize tool gaps.
  2. Shadow a few designer-researcher collaboration sessions.
  3. Establish programmatic research communications to all of Product and XD as well as to senior leaders.
  4. Establish at least one OKR for each research program pillar.
    1. Workshop these with Researcher(s), Director, Design leads, and PMs.
    2. Leverage OKRs to minimize my own work in progress (WIP).

Hey, I’m Jules—nice to meet you!

I’m a designer, researcher, facilitator, and educator. With over 16 years of experience in UX, I have a knack for crystallizing solutions in complex problem spaces.

My hands-on skills encompass the end-to-end product design process from defining the problem and conducting user discovery to iterating on design concepts and creating interactive prototypes. I am technically fluent and appreciate architecture patterns.

As a UX leader, I drive vision and execution to achieve strategic outcomes through actionable insights, coaching, and partnership. As a people manager, I grow my team by cultivating self-awareness through continual feedback. I enjoy igniting each individual's unique spark with personalized growth milestones.

I thrive on collaborating with empowered product teams. As an agile champion, I seamlessly integrate Design and Research with product development, using Lean UX and design sprints to build shared understanding, foster team cohesion, and deliver measurable results.

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