Research Engagement Platform - Slurpedia

Duration
Jan 2025-May 2025

Client
7-Eleven (7Now App)

My Role

Researcher | Content Creator | User Testing

Research Question

How might we make user research and persona insights easier to access, share, and use during the early stages of product design?

The Problem

Through conversations with UX researchers, designers, and product managers, we identified a recurring issue:

  • User research existed—but it was not consistently influencing design decisions.

  • Several challenges contributed to this gap:

  • Research insights were difficult for designers to access quickly

  • Personas were created but rarely integrated into daily workflows

  • Collaboration between research and design teams was often reactive rather than proactive

  • Research findings were delivered in large reports that were rarely revisited

As one designer noted during interviews:

“I find usability studies more useful. Personas are rarely used in the design process.”

This revealed a critical disconnect between research generation and research adoption.

Research Question

How might we make user research and persona insights easier to access, share, and use during the early stages of product design?

Understanding the Problem

Our research plan focused on understanding:

  • How personas were currently used at 7-Eleven

  • How research insights were shared internally

  • What barriers prevented research from influencing design decisions

  • How other organizations integrate personas into their workflows

We conducted secondary research and stakeholder interviews to identify opportunities for improvement.

We interviewed professionals across design, research, and product roles at 7-Eleven.

Participants included:

  • UX researchers

  • UX designers

  • product managers

  • UX leadership


These conversations helped us understand how research actually flows through the organization.

We explored different types of personas and how they are used across organizations.

Proto Personas

  • Based on team assumptions

  • Used early in projects to align internal thinking

Qualitative Personas

  • Built from interviews and qualitative research

  • Focused on motivations, behaviors, and goals

Statistical Personas

  • Developed through large-scale surveys and data clustering

  • Combine qualitative and quantitative insights

Research also showed that design aesthetics and emotional engagement play a significant role in food delivery app usage, influencing:

  • Continued app usage

  • Customer loyalty

  • User satisfaction

Other key factors influencing delivery app adoption included:

  • Online reviews and ratings

  • Ease of order tracking

  • Habit and social influence

  • Information quality and usability

Key Insights

1. Research and design collaboration is often reactive

  • Designers typically engage researchers after a design concept already exists, using research primarily for validation rather than discovery.

  • This limits the potential impact of research insights.

2. Personas are undervalued in the current workflow

  • Several designers indicated that personas are rarely used when designing features.

  • Instead, teams rely more heavily on:

    • usability testing

    • task analysis

    • prototype testing

  • Personas were seen as helpful for empathy-building, but not necessarily for daily design decisions.

3. Research insights are difficult to access quickly

  • Research findings are often shared in large reports or presentations, making them difficult to reference during day-to-day design work.

  • Teams needed short, digestible insights that could spark ideas quickly.

4. Designers and researchers want stronger collaboration

  • Across interviews, participants expressed interest in:

    • more frequent conversations around research

    • easier access to insights

    • shared understanding of users

Imagine and Refine

Slurpedia

Slurpedia is an internal research-sharing platform designed to bring research insights into everyday team conversations.


Built using Microsoft Viva Engage, the platform acts as a casual knowledge base for research insights.

Rather than storing research in static reports, Slurpedia encourages teams to share small, engaging insights that spark conversation and inspire design ideas.

Key Features

  • Research Nuggets

  • Short, digestible insights posted regularly.

  • Examples include:

  • user behaviors

  • research highlights

  • surprising insights from interviews


These quick insights help designers engage with research without needing to read long reports.

Community-Based Sharing


Slurpedia uses different communities within Viva Engage to organize research conversations.

Communities can be created for:

  • product teams

  • design groups

  • research initiatives

  • specific user segments


This encourages cross-team knowledge sharing.

Instead of focusing only on creating better personas, we realized the larger opportunity was making research easier to share and discuss across teams. This insight led to the concept of Slurpedia.

Purpose:

To determine if people are actually moved to engage further with the farm after exposure to stories.

Research Posting Templates

To keep insights concise and useful, we created simple posting templates including:

  • key research insight

  • supporting evidence

  • potential design implications

This format ensures research stays practical and actionable.


Community Guidelines

Clear posting guidelines help maintain quality and consistency. These guidelines ensure posts remain:

  • relevant

  • easy to read

  • connected to real user insights

How Slurpedia Changes the Design Process

Instead of research appearing only at the end of projects, Slurpedia introduces casual research engagement at the beginning of the design process.

Benefits include:

  • Designers see research earlier in their workflow

  • Teams develop stronger empathy for users

  • Research insights spark new design ideas

  • Conversations between research and design increase

Tell

Slurpedia helps organizations move toward a research-led design culture.


Key outcomes

  • Increased visibility of user research

  • More frequent research discussions across teams

  • Stronger collaboration between research and design pods

  • Greater empathy for customer needs


Ultimately, the platform helps teams design the 7NOW app based on real user insights rather than assumptions.


Key Takeaways

  • This project reinforced several important lessons about human-centered design.

  • Research only creates impact when it is used

  • Even strong research loses value if teams cannot easily access or apply it.

  • Culture matters as much as tools

  • Encouraging conversation around research is just as important as creating research artifacts.

  • Small insights can spark big ideas

  • Breaking research into smaller, digestible insights makes it easier for teams to engage with and apply user knowledge.