Research: Introducing qualitative and quantitative research to understand which were the biggest pain points for users to plant and purchase their travel services online. Also we ran moderated and unmoderated user tests with prototype of the despegar application and website with various resolution on varios devices. Especially helpful was research using benchmark apps and websites to understand performance of features which we were not offering at that time. This helped us on feature use estimation and priorozation of the design backlog.

Design: Coordinating the research backlog with the design backlog

Mentorship: Mentorship was key since a lot of the research team members had little to no practical experience in applying research.  Also there were not a lot of other companies in the region applying user research which could have helped the junior researchers to orientate. Since I worked years in user research in different markets my shared knowledge was highly appreciated especially before starting to apply methods.

Processes: Once user research processes were established and approved I gave various talks and intros to product and tech stakeholders about design thinking and UX/Research methods and processes making sure that the knowledge circles within the whole company and not only within the area of UX.

Organization: On the way to the IPO it was very necessary to evangelize UX within the organization. We needed to make sure that all offices work with the same UX design/ User research approach. Therefor we invited different stakeholders to various workshops making sure to create a culture of design thinking.