Aire Labs
UX Research Case Study
Aire Labs is building a software platform that utilizes the latest AI techniques to develop digital twins of promising climate technologies, embed these in project development workflows, and develop geo-spatial visualizations to help climate positive projects deploy, scale, finance and monetize their systems at levels not possible before.
The purpose of this project is to conduct UX research for Aire Labs., a company on a mission to accelerate the deployment of climate positive technologies, helping to decarbonize our global economy faster.
Overview
Tools
Miro
Figma
Google Docs
Deliverables
Affinity Map
Empathy Map
User Persona
Presentation Deck
Timeline
3 Weeks
My Role
UX Researcher
Problem
Project Developers lack efficient tools that cater to their diverse responsibilities and workflows, and navigate challenges across different stages of their processes.
This creates barriers within the projects' progression, impacting business goals.
Solution
Methodology: Five 1:1 remotely moderated User Interviews held on a video meeting call.
Who: Project Developers within the climate tech arena, which includes clean energy and carbon removal projects.
Deliverables: Affinity Map, Empathy Map, Personas, and a Research Presentation.
Strategy
We defined five main concerns to validate through our research and synthesis process.
01
Define the spatial contexts served by Project Developers.
02
Ascertain the diverse challenges associated with their roles.
03
Investigate how they navigate issues related to trust and financial risk management.
04
Assess tools utilized in their operations.
05
Gather actionable insights into desired advancements in their field.
User Interviews
Who We Interviewed
Week 1
Interview 1
Principal
Week 1
Interview 2
Owner, Consultant
Week 2
Interview 3
Director, Business Development
Week 2
Interview 4
Head, Project Development
Week 3
Interview 5
Project Manager
We repeated this process for all five interviews. I like to call this the micro-synthesis portion of our research. Some memorable snippets observed from each session:
The next steps takes us into methods in which we can validate these as common perspectives representative of our participant sample. Let's keep the snippets in the back of our mind while we validate our data and take a look.
Our interview participants were located all over North America in various roles in the climate tech space. As for our interview process, we utilized a unique process in how we organized our information.
Each interview was given a three-step distillation process:
PHASE 1
Rough Notes
Live transcribed notes populated by twin note-takers
PHASE 2
Consolidated
Recordings revisited to refine and fill-in any
missing info
PHASE 3
Takeaways
Each topic distilled by main points,
5 key insights extracted
Affinity
Mapping
Our data (represented by stickies) was aggregated onto a board to start the macro-synthesis portion. Three of our team members organized notes by the themes and patterns that emerged. 400 stickies yielded 15 groups ranging from Workflow insights to needs around Collaboration.
Research
Highlights
Key Insights
01
Developers across the board, in every interview, all expressed
a level of frustration in regards to lack of standardization across general development
processes in the industry.
Memorable phrases and words used to describe project development were: “ad-hoc”, “piecemeal”, “manually intensive”, and even “messy”.
02
Developers across the board, in every interview, all shared a
desire for streamlining within their project development processes.
Some developers seemed fairly satisfied with certain tools they’ve come to rely upon, however, none expressed that there is a tool that efficiently simplifies everything they need
in one standardized platform.
03
There is frustration around quality of information.
Specifically, the lack of it being accessible, reliable and transparent.
The needs of project developers clearly extend beyond current offerings. Some
dissatisfaction is present, and advances in both technology as well as perhaps industry
standards, might be helpful in shifting this perspective.
What did our findings reveal?
Top 5 Aggregate Topic Groupings
% of Times Concept was Mentioned
13%
Relationship Management
Collaboration, CRM,
Stakeholder, Customer-centric, Opposition
12%
Regulatory Measures
Regulatory Complexities, Compliance and Safety Measures
10%
Efficiency and Optimization
Efficiency, Optimization, Automation
10%
Information Management
Data Analysis, Ensuring Accuracy and Accessibility
8%
Project Management
Project Viability,
Progression Challenges, Requirements
Out of the 15 groupings we found, the top 5 - tallied by frequency of appearance - are arranged by percentage above.
Empathy Maps
User Persona
Concluding Thoughts
Update: This research project has recently been approved to undergo another round of user interviews research.
Though we were running on a limited number of participant interviews and timeline - the research, as well as patterns we uncovered - are promising.
Although further research is called for, we were able to observe frequent correlations of tone, perspective and thought between our participants despite vast distances in terms of geographical location.
I believe the prevalence of dissatisfaction in information management along with current tools are not merely a challenge, but fertile ground for market opportunity. What do you think?
Thanks for dropping by.
