At Dropbox, I led research for the Core design team in the space of sharing. One of our core missions was to evolve the sharing experience to enable users to share effortlessly. However, sharing is a complex task to get right across users, as different people have varied use-cases, privacy needs, expectation mapping, and values.

To help the team define the levers that could augment the sharing modal, I conducted generative research to craft a framework to understand the use-cases and values of our varied population. After a design sprint to generate concepts, I first conducted IDIs to determine the likely use-cases, value terms, and hierarchy of values. After running a clustering exercise with the team to hone in on our agreed upon values, I ran a survey to statistically validate the value hierarchy framework and associated use-cases.

The result of the research was a statistically validated value-hierarchy for three different key sharing cohorts (personal, self-employed business owner, and large scale company employees).

The output of the generative exercises was a presentation of user groups, priority use-cases to focus on in the near term, and values to lean into when designing for the users based on their archetype. This research was presented to leadership, and multiple product changes were shipped based on this research in 2021.