Role: UX Research and Design · Methods: User interviews, Lean UX, product concept development · Research participants: 5 board secretaries across New Zealand and Australia

The challenge

Board administrators were managing board member tenure across spreadsheets, manual processes and disconnected systems. Without a reliable way to track upcoming term expirations, nomination and onboarding processes could become reactive and difficult to coordinate.

The business needed a solution that addressed customer pain points quickly. However, a fully automated tenure management system would introduce significant complexity because governance policies differed between organisations.

The challenge was to identify a useful first release without overbuilding or making assumptions about how every organisation managed board governance.

My role

I led UX research and design, working closely with the Product Manager and Sales team. Using a Lean UX approach, I ran research and design in parallel to help the team learn quickly and make informed product decisions.

I interviewed five board secretaries: three in New Zealand and two in Australia. The research explored how organisations managed board tenure, where their existing processes fell short and what support they needed from the platform.

What I learned

User interviews revealed two consistent issues:

1. No visibility into upcoming tenure changes.
   Administrators had no reliable way to track when board member terms were ending, which made nomination and onboarding processes reactive and stressful.

2. Information was fragmented across systems.
   Most organisations managed tenure data partly in the platform and partly in spreadsheets, creating duplication, inefficiency and a high risk of errors.

The core problem was not the interface itself. It was workflow fragmentation and lack of operational visibility.

From research to product strategy

The research helped us avoid overbuilding too early.

Instead of attempting a fully automated governance system, we proposed a staged approach:

MVP

• Automated tenure alerts

• Centralised tenure tracking within the platform

Longer term direction

• Integrated board member profiles

• Custom governance rules

• Data syncing with external systems

This allowed the team to address immediate customer pain points while reducing technical and policy risks.

Impact

I left the company before the solution was released, so I cannot claim a measured post-launch impact.

However, the research and concepts helped align Product and Sales around a clear customer problem and a realistic solution direction. The Sales team also used the designs in customer conversations, including discussions about subscription expansion.