Building a usability practice from zero
A life-sciences software company had built scientific products for two decades without ever running formal usability testing. I introduced the practice, built the research panel behind it, and embedded testing into how products were made.
Cut UI-related support tickets by more than 25% by embedding usability testing into a 20-year-old organisation, powered by a 200+ scientist research panel built on zero budget.
Context
IDBS had been making scientific data-management software for BioPharma R&D for over twenty years. In all that time, it had never run formal usability testing. Product decisions were informed by expertise and customer requests, but not by watching real scientists actually use the software, which meant usability problems were discovered late, in support tickets, rather than early, in research.
I joined as a UX designer and was promoted to Lead within two years. Establishing a genuine research practice was the change I believed would compound the most.
Approach
The hard part was building the conditions for testing to happen routinely, and to keep happening after the novelty wore off, rather than the testing itself.
A research panel, on no budget
Recruiting specialist scientists to test niche laboratory software is normally expensive and slow. With no budget allocated, I built a research panel of over 200 scientists by cultivating relationships directly with customers and users who wanted their tools to get better. That panel turned research from an occasional, costly event into something we could run continuously.
Embedding testing into delivery
A practice only sticks if it’s part of how teams already work. I introduced standardised usability testing and wove it into the product development lifecycle, so research informed design before build instead of auditing it afterwards. I aligned the insights with business priorities and real customer workflows, which is what kept leadership invested.
Carrying the work to customers
I ran on-site research across the UK, Europe, and North America, and delivered product design-vision presentations to executive stakeholders and customers, closing the loop between what we learned in research and the direction of the product.
Outcome
The practice paid off where it’s hardest to fake: UI-related support tickets fell by more than 25%. Problems that used to surface as customer frustration were now being caught and fixed in research. Along the way the work was recognised internally, ranked a top-5% performer two years running for strategic UX impact, but the lasting result was cultural: an organisation that had gone twenty years without usability testing now treated it as a normal part of building software.