Research innovation at Intuit stagnates.

Intuit invests in connecting with customers, and traditionally had done so through usability testing in usability labs. However, the labs felt very institutional, sterile, and lifeless. The spaces and tools were deterring employees usage, making research participants uncomfortable, and did not accurately represent Intuit’s design driven brand. I was brought in to lead a team in reimagining Intuit’s design research practice and spaces.

Labs are transformed into Intuit’s design innovation hub. 

Partnering with workplace and facilities, our team created 6 new spaces that brought to life our deep understanding of small businesses and reignited employee engagement with the customer research. New spaces included retail environments, living rooms, offices, interactive games, maker spaces, co-creation pods, meditation rooms, and even a “holodeck” that could transform into a variety of places such as a train station, park, or coffee shop. In tandem to the new physical spaces, the team launched a series of programs to foster empathic skillsets and a customer centric culture at Intuit. Leveraging new technology, small business trends, and the evolution of research practices and strategy the labs were transformed and rebranded as Intuit Studio.

Intuit Studio inspires employees and makes customers feel at home.

Research participants feel so comfortable in the new environments that they forget they are participating in a research study and share more openly and freely. Researchers feel the new Studio is easier to use, are proud of the state of the art technology, and find it more delightful for their teams to engage in research. Product teams use the spaces for workshops, product reviews, and code jams. Method clinics, maker workshops, and new technologies exhibits consistently cycle through the Studio attracting thousands of employees and external visitors a year. The new design has been so successful that Intuit Studio has scaled to 4 international locations and has been granted a larger space at the new Mountain View Headquarters Product Development Building (scheduled to open summer 2016) as a commitment to customer centric culture and deep empathy exploration.