Moving the needle and creating lasting impact: Our work with Cytel

Simultaneously juggling two disparate challenges

When they came to us, Cytel—a leading provider of statistical software and advanced analytics for clinical trial design and execution—was struggling to address two different challenges simultaneously: user retention with their flagship product and user adoption with a new product. The Cytel team questioned whether features past and present were in line with customer needs and the future vision of their product suite.

Cytel was ready for change: they wanted to move away from reactionary product decisions driven by anecdotes and dominated by internal perspectives. They needed a partner to help bring in the voice of users to their strategic decision-making and transform their UX process systematically.

Enter ZoCo.

Spoiler Alert: Our work helped Cytel accomplish two huge tasks:

• Validate Cytel’s strategic product changes
• Create an internal UX research process that is repeatable and scalable
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ZoCo approached our work together as a true partner, not just a vendor. Their team embraced collaborative problem-solving and made us feel like we were in the same boat figuring things out together.
—Scott Gaines, Cytel Chief Product Officer

Turning skeptics into believers

Research Operations assessment & recommendations

The pharmaceutical clinical trial space is technically complex and heavily regulated, making the importance of finding the right external partner critical. Cytel needed help creating a research process that was effective and could also be quickly and easily adopted by their entire UX team. We set out to make them believers in our ability to create a process despite industry complexity and, more importantly, help elevate their internal research operations. 

But there was a problem. A few, actually. Once we started to collaborate with their team, we learned:‍

• They had limited engagement with a large share of their users and many viewed themselves as self-sufficient. When Cytel did connect with users, the insights weren’t substantial enough to inform strategy.

• Legal considerations in a regulated industry meant resistance to compensating participants—which is key to getting customers to engage in research!

• It was difficult to integrate the insights they did have because of a reactive product development lifecycle.

• Cytel’s highly technical product implied that subject-matter expert (SME) participation was needed in all interviews, making the feasibility of spinning up a research practice all the more difficult.‍

Now things get uncomfortable (for some). It was our turn to practice some skepticism.

We created a customized Research Assessment and Recommendations document which introduced an unbiased, outside perspective to challenge organizational norms in a supportive way, but also offer new possible solutions.

We challenged: The legal implications of compensation.‍ ‍

The result: New ways to pay participants beyond what Cytel had tried before.
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We challenged: The difficulty of recruiting.‍

The result: We found new recruitment partners specializing in niche audiences, making future recruitment easier.
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We challenged: Subject matter experts were needed for all interviews.

The Result: Because of our discovery process, we were able to interview participants without an SME involved, making research leaner and faster than they originally thought.

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Overall, we were able to provide recommendations for creating a research process that was feasible, scalable, and specific to their organization. We also positioned their new research process for long-term success by building a panel of participants that Cytel can call on for future studies.‍‍

You don’t need a perfect organization to have a thriving and effective research process. Our discovery process with Cytel allowed us to define processes and documentation, personalized to Cytel’s unique culture and way of doing things, that will exist long after our work ends and set their team up to repeat this type of work successfully on their own.

Stepping Boldly into Uncharted Waters

Generative and Evaluative User Research

While solving these operational challenges, Cytel began to contemplate a new strategic vision for their products, but they were missing one thing to feel confident: voice of user.

They needed clarity around what their users needed and confidence that the changes they envisioned would align with their customers.

The UX team is doing some good work, but we could benefit from more user research, user involvement in the design process, the use of UX metrics, and educating non-UX team members (e.g. engineering, leadership) on UX.
—Eric Edwards, Cytel Director of User Experience

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We worked to identify key themes for Cytel to consider as they evolved their strategy and brought voice of user into internal and external communications by:

• Adding supporting detail to further explain and reinforce strategic changes in internal communications

• Documenting what was known vs. assumed so that the Cytel team could continue to test and validate changes

• Documenting success so Cytel would know when to iterate or stay the course
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After months of work, a new vision crystallized for Cytel; becoming the ultimate clinical trials design platform and shifting from a portfolio of standalone products to a platform of tightly integrated and complementary products with a single UX.

Our work helped Cytel validate their strategy and move quickly to execute many changes. As one example, Cytel elevated its approach to open source from a minor technical feature to a core strategic focus. They leaned into a 'better together' experience that supports user customization of standard designs.

In addition to surfacing new insights, ZoCo validated multiple strategic decisions, which helped us move forward with more confidence and greater speed.
— Scott Gaines, Cytel Chief Product Officer

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The Impact

Operationalizing research can be challenging, but our approach helps companies tackle those barriers and create a successful research program. 

• Approach is customized to meet clients where they are.

• We pivot as needed throughout a project to meet strategic business needs.

• We help organizations operationalize through the lens of new priorities. 

• Key insights allow companies to make bold choices confidently.
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Our work with Cytel helped them shift from reactive decision making to a proactive approach that is informed by customer insights. And because our work was tailored to who Cytel is today, they’re able to incorporate user feedback into their vision, strategy, and process without needing to fundamentally change their operations.

What's next?

Learn more about Cyctel by visiting Cytel.com. Have a project you’re working on and need some support? Reach out to us.‍

Do you just want to chat about product, UX, research, process, and methodologies? We’re down for that too. Let's chat.‍

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