Discovery in Agile:
Nexus

Discovery in Agile:
Nexus

Discovery in Agile:
Nexus

To recreate a powerful, all-inclusive B2B/B2C motion capture software, we set out to understand diverse users across life sciences communities through investigative research

Research Scope

Research Scope

  • Timeframe: 10 weeks

  • My Role: Lead UX Researcher

  • Team: Cathy (me), Adam (UXD)

  • Methods: Assumption mapping, contextual inquiries, stakeholder workshops

  • Tools: Figma, Adobe CS, Zoom

Project Overview

Project Overview

'What can we offer to make it indispensable… make it sell?'

Product

Nexus, an industry-leading modelling and processing motion capture software specifically created for the life sciences community for clinical and performance movement analysis

Nexus, an industry-leading modelling and processing motion capture software specifically created for the life sciences community for clinical and performance movement analysis

Premises

We had 9 months to develop a brand new software based on Nexus to be showcased in prominent international conferences among our strongest competitors. The development team was in urgent need of directions for development and design.

We had 9 months to develop a brand new software based on Nexus to be showcased in prominent international conferences among our strongest competitors. The development team was in urgent need of directions for development and design.

objectives

1. Validate internal assumptions

2. Align teams' understanding of users, needs, goals and challenges

3. Create artefacts to guide software design in a user-centred process

1. Validate internal assumptions

2. Align teams' understanding of users, needs, goals and challenges

3. Create artefacts to guide software design in a user-centred process

notes

When I joined, design sprints had started with a pretence of research under an inexperienced manager. The challenge was to push for proper discovery activities and data integrity, and to adapt methods to generate insights in the short time available.

When I joined, design sprints had started with a pretence of research under an inexperienced manager. The challenge was to push for proper discovery activities and data integrity, and to adapt methods to generate insights in the short time available.

Methodology

Methodology

  • Assumption mapping

  • Field observations + informal inquiry

  • Stakeholder workshops

  • Participatory design

user journey map
user journey map

Artefacts created

  • Empathy maps

  • Personas

  • User flows

  • Pain point report

See example artefacts

Assumption mapping

Assumption mapping

To 'damage control' by appropriate methods, I first needed to investigate different stakeholders' assumptions of Nexus users to identify potential problem areas. I documented how 11 internal Development, Product and Customer Support team members understood user goals, needs, behaviour and challenges in primary use cases.


Aggregation resulted in 4 prominent areas of assumptions to test in next-step research. To validate/correct them, I decided to conduct field studies, as authentic data would help us reduce uncertainty and risks whilst software design continued:


  • Users' expertise levels

  • Data capture and processing workflows

  • Calibration challenges

  • Considerations for updates

To 'damage control' by appropriate methods, I first needed to investigate different stakeholders' assumptions of Nexus users to identify potential problem areas. I documented how 11 internal Development, Product and Customer Support team members understood user goals, needs, behaviour and challenges in primary use cases.


Aggregation resulted in 4 prominent areas of assumptions to test in next-step research. To validate/correct them, I decided to conduct field studies, as authentic data would help us reduce uncertainty and risks whilst software design continued:


  • Users' expertise levels

  • Data capture and processing workflows

  • Calibration challenges

  • Considerations for updates

user journey map
user journey map

Field studies

Field studies

In 6 visits to university sports science and rehab departments, a clinical lab, an orthopaedic centre, and training sites, I observed a range of users, documenting their workflows and the contextual nuances that impacted their interaction with Nexus.

I then followed up with questions to capture thoughts, expose unarticulated factors, and for an in-depth understanding of experiences in the critical areas of assumptions.


Field observation

Sports science & rehabilitation lab, University of Birmingham

Stakeholder workshops

Stakeholder workshops

I create 5 evolvable Nexus personas and user flows that represented most needs, goals, and outstanding challenges. Next, I facilitated a workshop with key developers, product specialists and UI designers to collectively run through my organised findings.


Soon after, I collated a report of 40 pain points to present in a meeting, where I prompted internal stakeholders to try out some tasks to understand how users might feel, and then assign severity ratings to the issues. A final report was created to inform our ideation foci for upcoming participatory design sessions.

I create 5 evolvable Nexus personas and user flows that represented most needs, goals, and outstanding challenges. Next, I facilitated a workshop with key developers, product specialists and UI designers to collectively run through my organised findings.


Soon after, I collated a report of 40 pain points to present in a meeting, where I prompted internal stakeholders to try out some tasks to understand how users might feel, and then assign severity ratings to the issues. A final report was created to inform our ideation foci for upcoming participatory design sessions.


Colleagues carrying out user tasks to assign severity ratings during workshop

Impacts

Facts over assumptions

Insights from my research refuted, as well as validated, many critical biases about our wide range of clinical, commercial and academic users of Nexus.

This built a solid foundation of facts about use case scenarios for larger teams to suggest features and improvements that were genuinely essential for the software's success, rather than mere impressions, stereotypes and guesses.


See example personas

See example personas

Aligned understanding

Given that Nexus catered to a massively diverse client base, our larger teams had varying ideas about who the users were, what their goals were, and what they needed.

My research fostered a clear, collective understanding of our target users that aligned different teams' efforts to guide the design process, ensuring stakeholders were on the same page regarding people, contexts, and system requirements.


See example user journeys

Reference for development

Generating not only written insights, I visualised the results of my qualitative and quantitative analysis to share across product development stakeholders.

I made my thorough research documentation (e.g., pain point report) and evolvable design artefacts (e.g., personas) easy to access, enabling constant reference back to real users for a truly user-centric design process of the new software.


See example artefacts

I cannot show the majority of the research documents or artefacts for NDA reasons—they contain confidential information.


However, as part of my application to Vicon's UX Researcher position, I was tasked to design a research plan that simulated one for Nexus but referred to a fictional client. You can find and download the proposed plan by the link below.

See my interview research plan

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