← All case studiesResearch only — no design phase

Diagnosed why adoption varied across an enterprise product a year after launch

Role

UX Researcher

Focus

Product adoption research, evaluative strategy

Tools & methods

Research planning, discussion guides, interviews, participant segmentation, thematic analysis, executive shareout

Overview

An enterprise product had been deployed for roughly a year, but the organization needed to understand how it was actually being used, where it was delivering value, and why adoption varied. I led an evaluative research effort focused on real-world workflow fit, user expectations, usability, integration, and the conditions required for sustained adoption. Unlike the other case studies here, this engagement was scoped as research and strategy. I didn't own the resulting design work, which is why there isn't a UI design phase in this one.

The challenge

Deployment numbers alone didn't explain why users adopted, underused, or abandoned the product

The team needed to understand current behavior, not collect a feature wish list

Adoption barriers crossed product boundaries: workflow, integration, perceived value, usability, and analytics all played a part

Research needed to lead to strategy and prioritization, not just a findings archive

My approach

01Research framing

I defined the study around actual usage and adoption: how people worked today, what they expected, which parts of the product helped, and where the experience failed to deliver enough value.

02Study planning and cross-role interviews

I developed the research plan and discussion guide, identified target users, and supported recruitment planning. The interview set spanned project, digital support, database, data science, flow assurance, and production engineering perspectives.

03Synthesis

I consolidated the recurring barriers into one cross-product view: manual and unscalable work, unclear product value, integration and workflow gaps, UX friction, insufficient system feedback, and limited usage analytics.

04Strategic recommendations

I translated the findings into recommendations focused on workflow automation, actionable insight, closed-loop integration, simplified summaries and dashboards, segmentation, and stronger usage analytics.

Key deliverables

Research plan and objectives

Discussion guide

Participant and recruitment framework

Cross-role interview synthesis

Cross-product adoption-barrier model

Executive research presentation and prioritized recommendations

Selected artifacts

The screens and diagrams below are redrawn with neutral labels and synthetic data to protect confidential specifics. They're recreations, not real screenshots — the structure and logic shown are accurately represented.

Cross-role interviews: the study deliberately spanned six functional perspectives, from project and digital support roles through data science and production engineering, to see the same product from every angle it was actually used.

Synthesis: six recurring themes emerged across every role interviewed, from manual, unscalable work through thin usage analytics, consolidated into one cross-product view stakeholders could prioritize against.

Outcome

The research produced a prioritized set of adoption barriers and strategic recommendations for stakeholders. Manual effort came out on top, followed by integration, value clarity, and UX gaps, prioritized by how consistently and strongly each theme surfaced across the interviews, not a statistical score.

What this demonstrates

Research leadershipEvaluative research beyond interface usabilityCross-role qualitative interviewingThematic and cross-product synthesisProduct adoption strategyExecutive communication and roadmap influence

What I'd validate next

I'd want to close the loop on which recommendations actually got implemented, and re-run a lighter version of this study afterward to see whether the same six barriers shrank or just moved.

Have a similar problem?

If a product's structure has stopped matching how people actually use it, I'd genuinely love to hear about it.

Say hello