Millennial User Research
Over the course of 10 weeks, Julia and two colleagues conducted over 20 in-depth user interviews with various millennials to draw insights regarding pain points in their lives. An emerging theme appeared throughout various interviewees: the struggles of mental health and postpartum life for first time mothers.
Using this qualitative data, the team crafted actionable insights and corresponding product innovations that could be utilized by a partner publication in order to address these.
THE CHALLENGE
The original challenge: Help the Washington Post understand why millenials are reading their content but not subscribing to the content. Our team will analyze millennial’s consumption patterns and daily habits, to identify an opportunity for the Post within the wellness space that taps a specific audience that is willing to pay for subscriptions. This starts with understanding how millennials experience and value wellness in their everyday lives.
Our focus: How might we build trust with an audience segment (first time millennial mothers) that struggles with discussing and validating their own mental health postpartum?
USER:
Rachel, a working mother in her 30s who just had her second child. She has suffered from postpartum depression but always felt it wasn’t valid until someone else noticed and recognized her suffering. She regularly experiences guilt for feeling like a bad mother and not always being happy with motherhood.
My role:
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UX Research
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Strategist
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Leader
How we did it:
We began with an open-ended challenge: to understand the millennial demographic. Naturally, there was only one way to start… talk to the demographic! We had generic interviews with users to understand the pain points in their life, wellness, and mental health. After many rounds of synthesizing and post-its, we recognized an emerging theme: first-time millennial mothers are in need of a safe space to voice “taboo” parenting thoughts and see that they aren’t alone in their struggle.
From here, we dug deep into interviews and focused on this specific user. We had tough conversations surrounding postpartum depression, declining mental health, and dark thoughts. Thankfully, our journalistic background and training enabled us to empathize and ask the important questions. We focused all of our interviews on stories and understanding the narrative of these people’s lives.
After 30+ interviews, we synthesized our insights into a presentation and iterated on a few potential products that could serve this need. We presented our findings to the Washington Post and answered the team’s follow up questions.
Skills gained:
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Empathy
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Design thinking
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Human-centered design
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Data analysis
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Structured brainstorming
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Interviewing
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Pitching to professionals
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Avatar building
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Teamwork
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Prioritizing tasks
Presentation:
