@Austin Baldi

What worked well?

• I think that finding participants willing to spend time discussing their experience with cryptocurrency, mining, and NFTs was a miracle in itself. I thought that all these topics were just a phase because several news stories broke out while we were working on this project that several cryptocurrency companies were going out of business and I thought based on these company failures, this project was going to be a failure. But after finding plenty of groups across social media sites, I discovered that the cryptocurrency buzz is still alive and still has plenty of activity.
• I also found that working with all of the teams and being present for some of their meetings was a real benefit to the success of this project. Knowing what other teams needed to accomplish and incorporating some aspects of their tasks into the research side of things helped make this project flow a little more smoothly so that all of the teams were on the same page.
• Conducting two rounds of interviews and usability testing in eight weeks is a big accomplishment.

What worked not so well?

• The project got off to a little bit of a rocky start. As I mentioned before, cryptocurrency felt like it was on its way out because of the closures of some companies and causing people to lose money so working on a project that revolves around cryptocurrency felt like a disaster waiting to happen. But thanks to several groups on social media, we were able to find participants who were willing to take some time to talk with us about their experiences and also provided recommendations on how to improve our product.
• There were sometimes in the project when we did not know what we were going to do next, but thanks to getting insight from the other teams, we had an idea of what needed to be done.

Recommendations

• Have members of each team talk with other team members to get a better idea of what needs to be done.
• Keep interviews and usability testing separate - we combined interviews and usability testing in one session which initially sounds like a good idea, and we can kill two birds with one stone at the same time, it might be too much for the participant depending on their schedule. I would recommend based on the schedule of the participant to either separate the interview and usability testing into two separate times or if they have a wide-open schedule, knock out both sections in one session.

@Carrington Lemon

What worked well?

• Communication:
  • Slack - to provide updates on to-do’s for the week as a research team
  • Slack - being able to talk with Content, Design, Dev and Strategy all in one place
  • Vowel - to record meetings and transcribe text
• Delegation:
  • Knowing who to go to when I had questions was important and helpful
  • Understanding what tasks each person was assigned ensured work was done efficiently
  • Recognizing each of our talents to manage specific tasks allowed us to remain productive and engaged
• Notion:
  • A single place to keep our files and links organized made accessing important information easier
  • Tagging others and signing up for roles allowed us to work offline effectively
  • A fun tool to learn that we can add to our tool belts for the future use whether that be personal or professional needs

What worked not so well?

• Accountability:
  • I think overall as a Research team we held each other accountable. I wish I was able to interact with the Dev team more to better understand their role in this process.
    • As researchers, it would have been helpful to hear directly from them during stand ups to know what roadblocks they experienced or what ideas were crucial to test with participants.