How I applied everything I learned in a User Research Project
When I first talked to Classe B's project managers, there was an idea on the table about creating a platform to help Portuguese freelancers improve their work life. Subjects such as finances and legal matters were some of the topics that were being though for the website.
I then identified and formulated a hypothesis that would be our starting point. In Portugal, freelancers lack resources to help them thrive as independent workers. When they need to take care of legal and financial issues, bureaucracy is usually on the way. To test this hypothesis, I conducted exploratory user interviews with freelancers from different fields to understand their needs and worries as independent workers in Portugal.
I used an affinity diagram to segment 50 different professions into two mains groups. After analysing what the various occupations had in common, I divide them into physically demanding and mentally demanding. Based on these two segments, I
recruit a total of 10 participants from our networks. After a brainstorming session with the project managers, where we thought about possible
questions for the semi-structured interview, I identified all the themes. Then I order them to ensure a smooth conversation flow. Each interview took about 45 minutes and was recorded with the interviewee's consent.
To make sense from all the qualitative data, I performed a
Thematic Analysis to familiarise myself with the data. First, I mark some preliminary ideas in the transcript to generat
initial codes. Then, I started an iterative process to find themes.
After analysing more than 9 hours of in-depth interviews, I realised that the platform should, not only, give practical information about how to deal with money and bureaucracy but cover topics such as mental health, work-life balance, community and self-promotion.