Active Network Case Studies

Active provides a number of products to run sports leagues, sport camps, and tournaments. We had not previously conducted research to learn about esports which has been seeing high growth. I conducted several interviews to learn about how social groups affect skill development.

Swim Manager is an application that allows coaches and swimmers to register for upcoming swim meets. I looked at a feature called Online Meet Entry, which had received negative feedback from our customers, to understand our customers' pain points and discover ways to improve the program.

Active customers include city park and recreation departments. Lately our clients have been using more data analytics tools to improve their reach and impact on their communities. I interviewed key customers to learn about their complex data ecosystems and identify ways to improve Active's data analytics tools.

I was an Associate User Researcher with Active Network for 17 months and conducted multiple research initiatives for products that manage athletic and educational programs and events. I was the primary researcher at the company, which oversaw 13 products. I worked closely with my supervisor, Ben Doctor, who was the UX Design and Marketing Lead for the company. He offered advice and approved research plans, and over time, he provided me increasing levels of autonomy and responsibility in planning and completing new initiatives.

My goal at Active was to prioritize projects based on the different product teams’ available resources and the company’s long-term strategies and focus areas. I was the only researcher for Active’s product teams so it was critical for me to select research projects that enabled the product teams to make decisions that improved our ability to sell more products & services, and increase customer retention rates.

Active’s product teams were split between the US and China, with most of the designers and developers based in China. Communication is a crucial element in designing, enhancing, and launching new products, especially since our target market and users are in the US.

My job was to synthesize the issues our customers faced and analyze that information so product managers could develop product roadmaps that increase customer growth and retention. I was also responsible for clearly identifying areas of user dissatisfaction faced by our end-users so our designers could create more effective solutions.

I was frequently asked to help improve the mobile and desktop search and checkout experiences for multiple products. I conducted and analyzed surveys, consolidated internal knowledge, and completed exploratory research into new markets, including potential new targets of high value customers.