Sergey Komardenkov - UX Researcher

When:

Full-time work at EVOTOR. 2019-2021.

My Role:

Implementing UX research practice across the company
Sharing UX research knowledge with colleagues through internal workshops
Managing a product (web and mobile)

UX Research instruments:

Semi-structured interviews
Contextual inquiries
Card sorting
Customer Journey Mapping
Usability evaluations
A/B testing
Surveys
Web and app product analytics (Google Analytics, Yandex Metrics, Amplitude, and Firebase)

Volume of UX Research work:

product teams received my extensive support in UX research and human-centered design practice

key products were successfully redesigned based on my research findings and usability evaluations

new products launched with major influence by my UX research, including one that made our main competitor give up on a key market in 2021

60+

in-depth semi-structured interviews and contextual inquiries were conducted with clients

50+

usability test sessions were done for hardware and software products

20+

product hypotheses were tested by using such methods as A/B tests, low- and high-fidelity prototypes, “fake door” tests, and rapid code prototyping

The role of UX research:

I was invited to join the company to establish UX research practices and bring the voice of the user to the attention of product managers. In doing so, I ran a series of internal workshops on UX research practice, helped product managers implement their first UX studies, and supported a total of 7 different products and projects with my own UX research work. During my stay at EVOTOR, the UX research work helped in redesigning two core products of the company as well as adding multiple new functionalities to other products, all while receiving a unanimous positive review from our users.

In one of the projects, my UX research work allowed a large team of managers, designers, and software engineers to stay synced in their efforts to provide a user-centered solution. My work provided a key contribution to the high adoption rate of the new product being developed thanks to my research findings and usability evaluations. This successful product launch drove our main competitor away from the market.

Outcomes of the project:

Multiple changes were done to various products in the company, as well as several new products launched, which all included UX research as the foundation for the design decisions taken. Product metrics in several products showed a consistent rise in retention and user activity from new cohorts of users. We received unanimously positive feedback from users for the product changes, most of which were made thanks to UX research discoveries and usability evaluations, while all were the product of user-centered research and design practice being established in the company.

One important mention in the context of product management - several products and ideas were stopped because UX research proved that they don’t address the core needs or challenges of our clients, thus saving EVOTOR time and other resources in pursuit of growing their market share.

Leading UX Research practice at EVOTOR

I managed UX research for 3 distinct types of products - the cash register (hardware), various applications that run on it, and web tools.

This work was done between 2019 and 2021 in a full-time capacity for EVOTOR, the leading provider of financial operation services for merchants in Russia, serving over 800 000 businesses across the country.