From finding resources to finding each other: Led UX research that redefined a career platform’s direction, creating a roadmap for a 0→1 community-based product while improving usability of its existing podcast hub.
Methods:
Surveys
In-depth Interviews
Usability Testing
Personas
Impact:
1. Aligned business vision with user needs to create a phased design and research roadmap for 0→1 product vision.
2. Identified major usability blockers in navigation, content clarity and interactivity.
3. Shifted business strategy to balance short-term wins with long-term community-building goals.
My Role:
Lead UX Researcher
Project Manager
Collaborators:
3 UX Designers
Marketing Manager
CEO
Research:
Foundational
Evaluative
Strategic
Problem Context
The platform catered to BIPOC professionals in non-traditional career paths through its flagship podcast and adjacent services. But user engagement was limited, and future expansion plans lacked user validation. The CEO wanted to explore multiple feature ideas under tight development timelines (1 month to hand-off).
Research Approach: What methods I chose and why?
Business goals were focused on expansion with different features and services, I suggested a grounded research plan that tended to current features improvement + identifying product direction for near future vision. I devised this plan for 3 weeks timeframe, adapting on the way.
- Surveys (MCQs + open-text): to quickly map user goals, career challenges, and media habits.
- In-depth Interviews + Usability Testing: Building from survey, I tailored this for key audience segments to deeply understand career navigation needs, and evaluate the site’s usability.
- Persona Refinement: Building from market research’s key user segments, personas drew from observed data to reflect user goals and product-fit insights.
What we learned
- Connection Gap: Users wanted to interact with peers and seasoned professionals in niche career paths: a feature missing from current product offering.
- Media Preference Reckoning: Podcasts were not a primary resource for career info; blogs, social media, and peer networks ranked higher.
- Career planning is an ongoing priority: Users invest time and energy even when satisfied in their current role.
- Usability Blockers: Functional and design-based areas of improvement in the web platform were identified.
Outcomes
I presented a phased design and research strategy which was well accepted by the CEO and marketing manager.
Short term:
- Recommended usability improvements to podcast and website interaction to boost engagement now.
- Clarified podcast’s role as an entry point into a richer content and service ecosystem, through design-based changes.
Medium term:
- Outlined strategies to diversify content channels and build an engagement pipeline beyond podcasts.
- Design-based recommendations to outline various channels on the web platform.
Long term:
- Defined a research-backed roadmap for building community-driven features, i.e. platform’s first 0→1 initiative.
Kritika 