from theories to data
Building a research practice from scratch, replacing opinions with continuous customer evidence.
this case study has been condensed with all confidential information removed. if you would like to learn more about this design and process, please contact me.
Overview
When I joined AWS Training & Certification as the founding UX research hire, there was no research infrastructure. No panels. No recruitment pipeline. No tooling. No shared understanding of what customer research even looked like in practice. When teams needed customer input, someone from sales would occasionally recommend a person to talk to. Otherwise, product decisions were shaped by internal opinion — what the team thought, what leadership assumed, what felt right based on experience.
My job was to change that. Not by running a few studies and presenting findings, but by building the operational machinery that would make continuous, disciplined customer research possible at scale. While all infrastructure was stood up within the first year, the complete metrics below reflect the cumulative impact across five years of operation.
Problem
1 - Access
The most immediate barrier was access. You can't get close to customers if you can't find them.
2 - Limited capabilities
We needed more people who could conduct research competently, even if it wasn't their primary role.
3 - No capacity to scale
We needed to enable those research competencies to scale their skills to cover more research needs in the org.
Solution
1 - 500K+ participants
I built three panels (500K+ opt-ins): internal for testing, external customers for primary research, and external non-customers for comparison, creating a segmented recruitment pipeline from scratch
2 - Targeted, tiered training
I built a tiered training program — literacy sessions for sales, deep methodology workshops for builders, and digital self-paced modules for everyone, supported by templates and office hours.
3 - Operations and governance
Onboarded research tooling (cutting study time from 50 to 12 hours), created a customer listening program, and established intake prioritization based on scale, impact, and team commitment to act.
Results
500,000+ customer panel opt-ins
400+ employees trained
467% increase in study volume
76% reduction in average study time
275 customer listening sessions
Beyond the numbers, the way the organization made decisions changed. Research was no longer something that happened occasionally when someone could arrange a customer conversation. It was an operational capability — always available, consistently structured, and connected to the teams who needed to act on what it produced.
What this made possible
With the panels, training, customer listening program, and operational infrastructure in place, the organization could now execute the kind of research that had previously been out of reach.
The 12-week diary study detailed in the next chapter, From Data to Signals, is a direct product of this foundation. Without a recruitment pipeline, a trained organization, and a culture that had learned to expect and act on customer evidence, a study of that ambition and duration would not have been possible.