Working as an Individual Contributor

I started at Tableau in 2018 as a Lead User Researcher supporting the Tableau consumption experience. This team focused on viewing dashboards and visualizations on the web and mobile applications. In that role, I led research for 10 feature teams collaborating closely with designers and product managers. I was responsible setting a roadmap of research activities for the design team I supported. In the process of creating a roadmap, I took into account business requirements, product constraints, and user needs. After determining which research initiatives could be completed, I designed and executed the research using a mix of qualitative and quantitative methodologies.

Managing a User Research Team

In September of 2021, I moved into a management role with two to three user researchers on my team. Our group focused on Tableau developers and administrators. My team developed Jobs to be Done for key product spaces, providing stakeholders with details about the job performers, pain points, and motivations when using Tableau products.

Sharing Research Results

To ensure that research results were provided in a timely fashion and made an impact on product design and overall strategy, I developed strong partnerships with stakeholders across the organization. In the process I learned about each team’s specific needs and tailored findings to the project at-hand, whether that required a quick communication over Slack or a more thorough presentation to a broader audience.

Democratizing Research

When our small Tableau research team couldn’t support all the incoming requests, I created a partner-led research program to help scale the practice and up-level product and design staff across the organization. To give a sense of scale, there were 20 Tableau user researchers for over one hundred product managers and feature teams. The program gave development team members access to templates and research tools, including UserTesting.com and UserInterviews.com, to conduct usability and concept studies.