New York Public Radio + UserTesting

The UserTesting Contributor Network was a “godsend” for them, said Laura Galbraith, NYPR’s Lead Product Designer, as they tackled persona and user journey mapping.

The UserTesting platform empowered the team to immediately drill down and uncover the needs and pain points of Gothamist’s unique audience. This was accomplished by conducting a series of remote, unmoderated interviews that were easy to set up and run. Within hours, the team designed and launched tests with their target audience and collected data that captured compelling insights, packaged in video highlight reels ready to share with decision-makers. This saved weeks compared to traditional recruiting, data collection, and analysis.

Armed with actionable insights from listeners that clearly explained both the "what" and the "why", the team showed the video highlights to stakeholders who were not only impressed with the process and transparency but had complete confidence in the decisions that needed to be made for a successful launch. 

The bottom-line goal with the redesign and relaunch was to keep the audience engaged and coming back. This wasn't a given when the project was being rolled out all at once. The insights proved to be so influential that NYPR not only met those goals, but exceeded them by a significant margin.

“Our numbers are increasing to the point where we're hiring more staff for the Gothamist and extending coverage over the weekend. This was one of the many insights we learned our audience wanted, thanks to UserTesting,” said Chris Hardtman, Senior Director, Digital Design and UX.

Having access to UserTesting also helped create a culture of experimentation throughout the entire NYPR organization, benefiting employees with an increased sense of confidence and empowerment that didn't exist before.

For more information, read the NYPR blog post How We Redesigned Our Website Without Alienating Our Audience, by Laura Galbraith.