Biopharmaceutical Employee Digital Application Catalog
Lead Researcher I Biopharmaceutical, Healthcare & Medicine I North America
PROJECT OVERVIEW
A leading biopharmaceutical company was struggling to realize value from its portfolio of over 500 digital applications, despite investing millions annually.
Employees across various departments - from cancer researchers, administrators, and executives found it difficult to identify and use relevant app tools for daily tasks, leading to low user engagement and underutilization.
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I was contracted for a four-month period to assess the user experience of the catalog and identify barriers to effective use. Collaborating with strategy, I conducted usability tests, stakeholder interviews, gathered app usage data, and created and distributed user surveys. ​My research contributed to a comprehensive overhaul of the catalog via a stage II strategic plan; improving application discoverability, enhancing training, and aligning tools with employee workflows. My work helped the company optimize digital investments with the catalog to better support both user needs and business goals.
1 study
4 months
100+ participants
Topic Areas
Application Taxonomy
Application Inventory
Application Hierarchy
User Preferences
Application Search
Application Relevancy
Application Language
Ownership & Responsibility
Monitoring & Updating
Content
Business Objectives
Key goals of the organization
As a global leader in biopharmaceuticals, the organization invested millions each year into digital applications and tools for employees to utilize on the job. However, nearly 40% of these tools went unused or were underutilized - costing the company millions each year in technology waste.
In the world of biomedicine, working faster means saving lives. Employees were losing precious time searching and navigating the current catalog. Unable to effectively locate and make sense of appropriate tools to perform their work, users were stressed and relied on word of mouth and knowledge siloes to navigate catalog challenges.
The company needed to leverage research to identify app value, usage, and relevancy. Research that could cut through the noise would allow for streamlining and eliminating redundancies, improve usage of valued applications, save users time and save the business money.
TEAMS & COLLABORATION
Project Manager
Business Unit Leads
Lead UX Researcher
​Data Scientist
UX Designer​ I
UX Designer II
Tools & Software
Tools used on this project
Research Approach
As a Fortune 100 company, the organization covered a massive range of work tasks - from cancer and disease research, to sales, HR, operations, and simple administrative processes. With more than 40,000 employees having access to the application catalog, it was critical to craft a no nonsense, streamlined research approach that would have broad-based impact across multiple departments, industries, cultures, and continents.
Reduce waste. Up efficiency.
ALIGNMENT
My first priority was to bring all stakeholders, including leadership, BUs, and associated teams, together in several workshop sessions to align on mission-critical goals and objectives. These sessions drove the research process.
INVENTORY AUDIT
Next, was a deep dive into the existing app catalog, auditing type, function, usage, cost, complexity, accessibility, and a host of pre-defined subject areas pulled from kickoff workshops and alignment sessions.
INTERVIEW & TEST
Scientists, administrators, executives, operational, clerical, and other staff were interviewed and guided through usability tests - providing rich, detailed feedback into catalog problem areas. Performing interviews globally allowed for a holistic approach, surfacing company-wide issues impacting thousands of users.
ELIMINATE
Following interviews, data was thematically coded and simple statistics run to surface areas of app waste. Items could be slated for the chopping block, or, highlighted as job critical based on relevance and user satisfaction.
Field Areas
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Operations
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Clinical Trials
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Administrative
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Manufacturing
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Legal/Compliance
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Executive Leadership
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Sales
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HR
Month 1
Months 2 - 3
Month 4
Months 2 - 3
Methodologies
The research techniques used over the course of the project
Moderated Usability Tests
Selected users from interviews were chosen to perform virtual walk-throughs of apps specific to real-world "on the job" tasks.
1:1 User Interviews
Interviews with selected users from each BU were conducted; some with extensive knowledge, others with limited - to test usability and interaction.
Focus Groups
Five, three-person focus groups across each BU were held following 1:1 interviews, with additional, follow up interviews as necessary.
Surveys
Following usability testing and interviewing, seven surveys were distributed across each BU, garnering more than 1000 unique responses for data validation.
Desk Research
Desk and secondary research helped clarify known and ongoing usability/functionality issues with the catalog, and provided a "jumping off" point to frame the context of the study.
Data & Findings
Data captured, insights produced, and what was delivered
Letting relevancy take center stage.
Concurrent and post usability test analysis highlighted critical issues with app value and usability. Apps were ranked based on usage and frequency across each business unit and assigned a 1-10 value of utility. This ranking was later validated (or invalidated) via user interviews.
Once high, medium, and low value apps were identified across each business unit, broad sample surveys (n = 1000+) were sent to users within each business unit to confirm and validate findings from interviews, focus groups and usability testing.
​Analysis helped make decent apps better, and good apps great - by rapidly identifying and remedying low hanging fruit (e.g., pain points), which often led to relevant recommendations of other applications, instructional how to's, or simply placing the right app in front of the right user - at the right time.​
y
Low use, low value
Moderate use, moderate value
High use, high value
Frequency
Number of Users
x
"My job is already stressful enough, I don't want to have to spend more time searching for what I need. I want access to apps with as little friction as possible." - Suzy R., Drug Scientist
"The catalog is just way too confusing. We have access to all of the apps but I'm only interested in one's that are applicable to my need. The rest don't matter to me." - Rick M., Operations
"What's been annoying is when we (and my team) get to learn an app, sometimes the company will disband it. It's extremely frustrating and is a major disruption to our work flow." - Mark L., HR/Compliance
Key Insights & Takeaways
EFFICIENCY
Roughly 80% of users found the existing catalog inadequate, inefficient, difficult to navigate, and producing irrelevant app suggestions based on their job/role.
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VALUE
Several stated they desired less app options and more relevant app results and suggestions tailored to their workflow.​
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LONGEVITY
Many users also marked the importance of keeping some applications - as eliminating them without warning often caused major work disruptions and forced workarounds.
BARRIER TO ENTRY
Users expressed concern for simply learning the application catalog. Particularly for new hires, getting used to the catalog environment and UI was earmarked as a concern for the future - with a lack of general intuitiveness and usability.
INSTRUCTION
A number of users pined for having informational videos or instructional help when learning about a new app; what it does, what it can do, and how the app may be applicable to their role, job, or task.
TAXONOMY
App taxonomy was an additional pain point for users. With hundreds of applications missing specific tags and filters, users had to "guess" which apps were most applicable to them.
Deliverables
Executive leadership and business unit leads received:
1 digital application catalog review and assessment
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50+ hours of user interviews
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25+ pages of codified qualitative + quantitative data
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7 surveys w/ 1,100+ unique users sampled
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5 recommendations & action items for Phase II