Focus Group

Challenge

Working in tandem with a design agency Drawbackwards, I was given the UX research lead role on an R&D project at GDMS which focused on creating an on-premises Privileged Access Management SaaS.

User Interviews and User Testing

I recruited and interviewed 50+ cybersecurity experts throughout the design process to help inform the designs created by the team. The research was conducted in a continuous Agile design cycle over a 10-week period.

Branding Focus Group Evaluation

The styling provided by the design agency - dubbed "Magic," was created to push the limits of the General Dynamics Branding Style.  The leadership team requested I conduct research to determine if the styling would be successful in meeting the goals of the program.

I planned a focus group session and recruited 12 participants from a cyber security agency to participate.

Activity 1

Participants were presented with 3 color palettes (GDMS branding colors, Magic colors, and a Random Color Pallet)

• Participants were asked to take a list of 26 words and separate those words based on which palette matches the word.
• Participants were asked to rate each color palette based on which one is their favorites and which is their least favorite.

Activity 2 - Filler Exercise

Participants were presented with a prioritization exercise in order to separate the two style activities. This is meant to clear the participants' memory of the color palette before being presented with those palettes in context –applied to an actual product.

Activity 3- Colors in Context (Applied)

Users were presented with 3 versions of the landing page and dashboard.

• Participants were asked to take a list of words and separate those words based on which design matches the word.
• Participants were asked to rate each design based on which one is their favorites and which is their least favorite.

Results

The magic color palette by itself performed well.

• The palette scored relatively high in the top two box favorites voting.
• Received a relatively a high number of the expected word associations.

The magic color palette when applied to the landing page and dashboard performed poorly.

• The applied palette scored low in the top two box favorites voting.
• Received a lower number of the expected word associations.

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