The problem
An enterprise banking enrollment product needed a foundation of real user insight to make good decisions. Around the same time, the senior user researcher role was eliminated. The research still needed to happen, so I did it.
Wearing the researcher's hat
I planned and ran the first user-interview study of its kind at FIS: recruiting and interviewing real users of the product, analyzing the raw feedback into clear themes, building personas, and turning it all into recommendations the product team could act on. I presented the findings company-wide in a solo session, translating a lot of messy input into a story different audiences could use.
Back to the design
The research fed straight into the enrollment work. I designed tailored error states for the cases that trip users up, an already-enrolled user versus one with invalid credentials, and partnered with compliance on the consent and account-selection screens so the flow met regulatory standards without feeling like a legal form. Being the person who had done the research made me the person teams came to with enrollment questions.
Setting the usability standard
I was the first designer to run a full usability-rubric study end to end: writing the study plan and script, building the prototype, and delivering the report. It set the benchmark other teams now follow, and I am one of two people designated as company-wide usability experts, and the only designer among them.
Outcome
The personas are still being used to calibrate work on adjacent products, and the research continues to inform decisions well beyond the study that produced it. What started as filling a gap became a standard the organization kept.