Mural Research

What does collaboration look like in the workplace?

Overview

This project dived deep into the understanding of qualitative research, including both interviews and qualitative surveys.

Goal

Understand the different pain points within in-office and remote workers when collaborating both online and in person.

Role

UX Researcher

Tools

Mural, Taguette, Google Forms, Figma

Team

Timeline

January 2023 - May 2023

1

Background

2

Research

3

Analysis

4

Impact

5

Reflection

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Background

My workplace consisted of many hybrid workers, some working more remote hours than others, resulting in many Zoom collaboration sessions.

We were using tools like Mural to make collaboration seamless, but it seemed like it made things more difficult. That thought led to the research question: Why weren’t digital tools like Mural working effectively for design teams in synchronous, hybrid meetings?

I wanted to dig deeper, beyond the technical challenges, and uncover the underlying "felt needs" of these teams. The goal wasn’t just to propose new solutions, but to understand the real pain points first.

Research Focus

This study was focued on design teams using digital collaboration tools like Mural during synchronous meetings, where team members work together in real-time, either remotely or in-office. I wanted to explore how these teams used Mural and uncover what features were either helping or hindering their collaboration. ‍

Research Questions

What are the pain points design teams experience using Mural during live, hybrid meetings?
How are design teams using Mural’s features, and how do these impact collaboration?

The Digital Marketing Group at OneHope revealed a growing demand for diverse comic book content and we saw this as an opportunity to engage teenagers through a platform centered around scripture-based comics. I built out a robust UX strategy to outline our program goals and make sure we were hitting them at each stage of the product life-cycle.

I built out a robust UX strategy to outline our program goals and make sure we were hitting them at each stage of the product life-cycle.

We also set research objectives, focusing on teenage comic book reading habits, how they discover new content, and which platforms they use. We conducted stakeholder interviews to ensure alignment with business goals.

Skiers often struggle to stay connected with friends and family while on the slopes, leading us to explore solutions for better communication during skiing. To kick off, we developed a research strategy to outline roles and establish our goals.

We conducted secondary research, analyzing similar apps such as Snow Mappy and Snoww, and examined existing GPS and tracking options like Glympse, Life360, and Apple's "Find My" app. This helped us identify gaps in the market and areas for innovation.

Research Process

Research Methodologies

1:1 Interviews to gather insights on user needs and preferences, as well as to gauge the demand for a social ski app

Usability testing, focusing on how users would interact with early prototypes, to be conducted later for further refinement.

Personas

To understand both user and business needs, we built four personas:

Sally, the social skier, wants to stay connected with friends.

Frank, the family man, needs to track his kids on the slopes.

Mary, business user, represent ski resort employees and marketers looking for growth opportunities.

Bob, business user, represent ski resort employees and marketers looking for growth opportunities.

Hypotheses

If we provide a simple and flexible solution for communication, Frank the Family Man can locate his children more efficiently.
If we include friend and location management features, Social Sally will be able to communicate and find friends more conveniently, resulting in an increase in group skiing.
If we display a hybrid ski run and friend location map, Social Sally will use her phone less frequently and spend more time skiing.

Key Questions for Interviews

Understanding the app's usefulness to both end users and business users
Current methods of staying connected while skiing
User motivations for downloading and using the app
Differentiators from competitor apps
Specific features desired by both end users and business owners

1:1 Interviews

I started with 1:1 interviews, conducting five Zoom interviews, each lasting 15–30 minutes. The goal was simple: let the participants share their experiences using Mural during meetings, focusing on how the tool impacted their team dynamics.

Each interview brought something new to the table. One web developer described Mural as “more of a necessary evil” when working remotely. A UX designer mentioned the tool worked well in fully remote settings but fell short in hybrid meetings. This qualitative feedback was a treasure trove of insights

Qualitative Surveys

I then launched a qualitative survey with 14 respondents. Here, the focus was on capturing a broader view of how teams worked together in hybrid meetings. The participants shared detailed responses based on their most recent experiences with Mural, revealing recurring challenges and frustrations. I learned that unfamiliarity with Mural was a major hurdle for many, and other tools like Miro and Figma often came into play to fill the gaps.

Methods Approach:

To ensure the research was well-rounded, I took a staged approach. I started with interviews to gather early insights, which helped inform the survey questions. By collecting both qualitative and quantitative data, I could paint a more comprehensive picture of the collaboration landscape.

Participants were recruited through various methods, including work community lists, relevant subreddits, and word-of-mouth. The final pool included employees aged 18+ who were either part of a design team or frequently collaborated with designers, both remote and in-office.‍

We created a research plan knowing we needed to focus on four key research methodologies: stakeholder interviews, market research, personas and generative research.

Stakeholder Interviews

I created an interview guide to make sure we were asking both of our stakeholders the same questions and informing them on the project goals.We interviewed the VP of Research & Development and a marketing specialist from the Digital Marketing Group. Both had high interest in the project and high impact of the project decisions.

Market Research - Competitive Analysis

Our goal with the competitive analysis was to research what programs already existed and if it was worth it to create our own. We really wanted to answer the following research questions:

‍How are teenagers reading comic books now? Do they read them online? How do they read them online? Is it worth it to create our own?

Personas

We interviewed some team members from the Philippines and Indonesia to create our two main personas. We knew this project would be launched in Asia Pacific and we had many contact in these two regions during this time.

Generative Survey

Who: Young adults from 18-30 that read comic book content as a recreational activity.
How Many: Our goal was 10-15 responses
Why: This was the first user research our team was doing and we wanted to do something quick and effective
Set-up: Created on Maze and sent out on Reddit and to the young adults at OneHope

Brand Survey

Who: Participants who are closer to the target audience
How Many: Our goal was 50 responses and we received close to 100
Why: This survey was more specific to the brand we were creating around the project. We wanted feedback that would help shape the end product.
Set-up: Created on Maze and sent to our field contacts, which they then distributed to users.

Analysis

Our core question was: How might we enhance the on-mountain experience by enabling skiers to stay connected?

Key Insights - Interviews

Users wanted alternatives to phones while skiing.

Features like lift line information and a “jump the line” option were highly desired.

Accurate, real-time tracking was crucial for users, especially parents like Frank.

New skiers often spent more time navigating the mountain than enjoying the experience.

These insights shaped our vision for the app, focusing on easy communication, accurate navigation, and features to enhance the overall skiing experience.

We refined these features through usability testing, where we used empathy maps and affinity diagrams to prioritize feedback. Key improvements included:

Enhancing navigation and messaging.
Introducing clearer buttons for finding and messaging friends.
Improving voice chat functionality and accessibility to help features.

Must Haves

Ensure interactions are suitable for on-slope conditions.
Collect real-time data on lift line durations.
Ensure tracking features are safe, accurate, and update in real-time.
Provide clear guidance to reduce stress for beginners.

Nice to Haves

Integrate existing technologies.
Add a 'jump the line' feature.
Include personalized tracking and location-sharing options.
Offer a guide to help beginner skiers.

Our final high-fidelity prototype, Slope Shepherds, included core features:

Selecting a ski resort.
Finding and tracking friends on the slopes.
Messaging and voice chat for easy communication.
Safety features like calling for help.

1:1 Interviews

Once all the data was collected, I began my analysis:1:1 Interviews: The interview transcripts were uploaded to Taguette, where I identified common themes. By organizing the data into a codebook, I was able to trace recurring pain points across multiple interviews.

Qualitative Surveys

Google Forms helped generate summary graphs and diagrams, which I exported into a spreadsheet for deeper analysis. This allowed me to pinpoint specific patterns, especially around the difficulties of hybrid collaboration.

Preconceived Notions

Through this process, I took care to avoid letting my own experiences with Mural affect the data. This was crucial to maintaining objectivity and ensuring that the findings were truly reflective of the participants' perspectives.

I created an affinity diagram on Figma for the first survey. I first split the responses between the OneHope and Reddit group. I then split the responses by the age group and the questions answered.

For the second survey, we used the analysis tool from Maze due to time constraints. We looked at the percentages and most common responses.

Key Insights

The key insights from the generative survey and brand survey

I conducted further research to understand the chapter experience, online missionaries and the logo design. I hosted several design sessions with our stakeholders, designers and field contacts.

Must Haves

Concise Content
Chapters as the delivery style
The reader should anticipate what comes next and want to read it
Seamless art
More simple, less text on pages
One page vertical and limited engagement
Design mobile first
Integrate Bible stories and include more scripture engagement

Nice to Haves

More interactions and animation
Creating profiles
Gamification
Chat opportunity with other users similar to a forum discussion
Link to a local church

Impact & Results

We presented the solution in the final project portfolio, showcasing how the app would simplify the skiing experience for users like Sally and Frank while providing valuable insights for business users like Mary and Bob.

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Key Insights - Interviews

Mural Is Primarily Used by Remote Teams

It’s Seen as an Organizational Tool, Not a Brainstorming Platform:

Meeting Structure Plays a Bigger Role Than the Tool Itself

Hybrid Meetings Are Less Preferred

Across both interviews and surveys, participants indicated that Mural was primarily used when all team members were remote. Hybrid meetings, however, made its use more complicated.

While Mural’s purpose is often to facilitate brainstorming, participants found it more useful for organizing information rather than sparking creativity during meetings.

Four out of five interviewees felt Mural was effective—but only when the meeting structure was right. When meetings were hybrid, challenges arose not necessarily because of Mural’s features, but because of the hybrid nature of the meetings.

Three of the five interviewees expressed a strong preference for meetings to be either fully remote or fully in-person. Hybrid settings, where some team members are in-office while others are remote, introduced unnecessary complexity.

Key Insights - Surveys

The survey reinforced these findings, with participants mentioning the use of additional tools like Miro and Figma to complement Mural during hybrid meetings. This layering of tools seemed to be a workaround for Mural’s limitations in these settings.

Our online missionaries and field contacts have mentioned in several meetings the impact that both comics have had in their regions.

Many seekers clicked on the CTA looking to speak with someone and through those chats, online missionaries prayed with seekers and many lives were transformed.

After launching the first comic (The Bridge) in Indonesia and seeing its success, we localized the program for The Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand.

We added a second comic (Story of Jesus) that was localized for the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

Through Google Analytics and Clarity, we a saw a high click through rate and high reach numbers.

Reflection

While our early prototypes succeeded in addressing user pain points, we identified areas for immediate improvement, such as refining lift line times and clarifying session timers. For future versions, we proposed:

Real-time slope conditions

A user-defined skill level setting for personalized slope suggestions.

Guided tutorials to assist beginner skiers in navigating the slopes.

This research highlighted that the challenge wasn’t just about Mural’s features—it was about how teams structured hybrid meetings. The tool works best in all-remote environments, but hybrid formats introduce participation challenges that need addressing beyond technical fixes.

While my sample size was small, the findings consistently pointed to the need for rethinking hybrid collaboration. Mural can’t solve structural issues on its own—it’s about creating environments where team dynamics thrive.

More Time Spent on Coding Data

More 1:1 Interviews

More Usability Testing

I Learned More About the UX Research Process

While our research was thorough, we realized in hindsight that more usability testing would have improved the product’s overall quality. Additionally, earlier 1:1 interviews would have provided deeper user insights and allowed for more informed design decisions before moving into surveys and development.

More to Explore

Slope Shepherd

UX Researcher and Designer

Awaken Comics

Project Manager and UX Researcher

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