This past summer I interned at Amazon as a UX Researcher on the Amazon Business Payments team in Austin, TX. I conducted a usability study & a qual/quant study from start to finish, created a process doc to leave behind with the team, and had a lot of fun!
Besides working at Amazon, I got to spend my summer with my niece, cooking, reading, and watching movies.
Internship Goals
Get practical experience applying the different research skills I've been developing.
Learn what it means to be a researcher at Amazon Business.
Complete a project that provides true value to the team and has impact.
Project 1: Usability Study (currently under NDA)
My main project was conducting usability testing on a new financial service to be launched spring 2025. The goal was to determine if the prototyped solution passed, passed with issues, or needed revisions. I spent 8 weeks designing my test plan, pre-testing, improving the prototype, working with stakeholders, conducting evaluative testing, analyzing the results, and report writing.
The project had 2 phases. The first phase was pre-testing with 3 participants to improve the prototype and ensure it was ready for evaluative testing. The second phase was evaluative testing with 5 more participants.
Through the testing, I identified 1 major issue, 6 minor issues, and 1 opportunity area. Deliverables included a report with detailed findings and an annotated Figma file of the prototype with issues and their severity. The findings were appreciated by the team and suggested changes were being incorporated as my summer came to an end.
Project 2: Qual/Quant Study
I also conducted unmoderated interviews through UserTesting to learn more about seller perspectives on loans. This was a quick turn around research study as data was needed within 2 weeks of the request. In those two weeks, I wrote interview questions, launched the test, made revisions to the questions, launched another round of tests, compiled & analyzed the results, and created a summary of results and a highlight reel.
The results from this research study were used in a presentation about the lending program to an L10. Deliverables included a summary of results, a highlight reel, and a full report.
Process Doc
When I arrived at Amazon Business, there was no documentation on how to conduct a moderated usability test on UserTesting(UT). I spoke with a colleague who had a lot of knowledge on UT and asked her how to set up a test. I documented this process to leave behind with the team.
Learnings
Asking Questions: When I first arrived, I relied a lot on what people told me. As time went on, I learned to do my own research and then ask follow up questions to clarify things that didn’t make sense to me.
Testing Prototypes: In my previous experiences I had always done tests on live websites. This was my first time testing a prototype. I thought I was supposed to design my tasks around the prototype, instead of writing my tasks and then asking for changes to the prototype. This meant that one of the tasks participants did was not representative of what they would do in real life. This is a mistake I won't make again.
Researcher = Writer: This summer I realized how important writing is for this job. Everything we do involves writing. Writing tasks, questions, recommendations, reports. If your writing isn't clear, what you're trying to say may be misunderstood.
