Client: Quizlet

Cultural & market research for Quizlet’s International Markets Team

Context

Timeline: 5 weeks

Skills: Foundational/generative research, moderated remote interviews (in Spanish), international market research, competitor research, stakeholder management

The Situation

The main goal of the research was to understand study journeys of university students in Latin America to identify opportunities for innovation in product offerings for the Quizlet product team.

The Ask

The team was considering expanding its product offers to the Latin American market. As a researcher I led research and strategy to learn about students schooling experiences and study habits in the Latin American region to determine if the company should pursue product expansion and growth in Latin America.

Research & Key Insight(s)

The schooling system in Latin America is unique and different from the US school system. The way students study and learn poses unique opportunities for innovation for the Quizlet team. To learn about our audience in Latin American countries, I approached our research strategy in the following way:

Moderated in-depth interviews in Spanish with students to understand their experiences with their schooling systems, revealing an education landscape rich in culture and ripe with opportunities to improve student learning.
Conducted a competitive analysis/market research of Quizlet’s competitors in the Latin American region.
Conducted desk/literature research into various research databases on the schooling systems of Latin America to inform the executive team of why we should tap into the Latin American educational market.

Impact

Being a native Spanish-speaking researcher helped the team tremendously because I was able to kick off research in Latin America and moderate interviews in Spanish. Because of this, the team didn’t have to hire another researcher outside of the organization to conduct research in the Latin American region.
While I had to iterate findings from research several times to make them impactful and actionable, my research findings helped to increase the company’s understanding of Mexican university students and the market for future consideration.

Learnings

Secondary research can be crucial when scoping a project

Since my research project was in the discovery phase and was broad in scope, I needed to further scope my project so I knew what types of research questions to ask and what types of interview topics/questions to ask participants. To scope my project, I conducted secondary research on the the main topic of my research (in this case, the education system in Mexico/Latin America). This helped me solidify the types of questions I asked in interviews and influenced participant criteria for recruitment.

Your insights should not be something that can be found with a quick Google Search

When I was writing the first version of key findings from my interviews I realized that they were a bit broad, as in, not specific enough. With the help of my research manager, I was able to identify which findings were the most compelling for stakeholders and which offered the most value for product direction.

Research findings are not a summary of what you have found from your research, but actionable recommendations.

during back to school week, Quizlet held an event for all employees/interns and one of these activities was painting with acrylic!