Natalia worked on analytics and experimentation products built for specialist users, including those inside financial institutions. These included roles like data analysts, loyalty managers, and heads of card operations—people with deep domain knowledge working in complex environments.
Research in this context required more than basic usability testing. The research questions were complex, the stakeholder collaboration intense, and recruitment more layered and non-trivial.
Still, the research had significant strategic value when it was well executed—especially for teams exploring new products or concepts.
Participant recruitment was consistently the biggest challenge Natalia faced. This showed up clearly in an internal survey she ran early on, and it remained the top issue in later pulse checks.
Here’s what helped:
- Building an internal customer research panel of participants who had opted in for future studies
- Working with external vendors to recruit hard-to-reach participants outside of Mastercard’s customer base
- Piloting a non-monetary thank-you model, allowing participants to donate a small amount to a nonprofit of their choice
- Incentivizing participants financially wasn’t allowed, so creative alternatives were needed to still acknowledge their time and contribution.
“You can’t just offer gift cards. You have to work with what’s allowed—and still find ways to respect people’s time.”
For researchers entering the finance space, it’s important to know that access to participants may be more difficult than in other domains. It often requires collaboration with legal teams, relationship-building across internal departments, and longer timelines.
Natalia’s research team was small—just 2 to 3 researchers supporting around 36 designers. Scaling research effectively meant investing in operational infrastructure from the start.
She identified three key priorities:
1. Improving participant recruitment
2. Developing guides and internal best practices
3. Building a central research repository
Some of these were quick wins, such as team training sessions. Others, like building the participant panel and repository, took sustained effort across multiple quarters.
With a small core research team, many studies were conducted by designers or product managers. Natalia focused on enabling others to do this work with care, rather than gatekeeping it.
To support quality at scale, she:
- Created manuals and templates for interviews, usability tests, and concept studies
- Facilitated training sessions, including one focused on writing clear problem statements
- Offered office hours and 1:1 consulting for planning and method selection
- Ran internal newsletters and presentations to raise awareness of the research practice
To manage quality in the research repository, she reviewed each study before including it. Her review criteria included:
- A clear research plan
- Defined method
- Structured findings (with insights, not just notes)
Bonus: follow-up on whether the research influenced product decisions
“I didn’t just upload everything—I reviewed each study. That helped set a standard for what ‘good’ looks like.”
The core methods used by Natalia and her team may look familiar to many researchers:
- User interviews
- Surveys (often paired with interviews)
- Concept testing
- Usability testing
- Information architecture testing (e.g. tree testing)
Some teams also used desirability testing with internal benchmarks to assess new product concepts. If a concept didn’t meet the threshold, it was sent back for iteration and retesting.
Who executed the research depended mostly on who had capacity. If researchers were available, they led. Otherwise, they supported teams in running the research themselves.
We asked Natalia what advice she’d give to researchers entering the finance industry. Here’s what she shared:
- ResearchOps isn’t optional. Even if you don't have it in your title, tools, training, and internal infrastructure are essential for scaling research--especially when it is distributed across teams.
- Plan for long-term impact. Building things like a participant panel or a usable repository takes time, but they make a huge difference to the sustainability of research.
- Strong internal relationships matter. Find a way to make relationships with Client Services, Sales, Legal, and Procurement. You’ll often need their help to recruit participants or navigate approvals.
- Legal and compliance constraints will shape your work. Especially around participant recruitment and incentives. Learn the rules and find creative ways to work within them.
- Track your influence, even informally. Following up on whether research led to decisions helps you improve your practice—and demonstrate its value.
UX research in finance is often slower and more constrained than in other industries—but also more strategic. It asks for depth, patience, and operational thinking.
Natalia’s perspective shows what it looks like to build research practices in this space from the ground up. It also highlights what researchers might want to plan for if they’re entering this field—whether as juniors or experienced professionals making a switch.
This is one lens into research in the finance industry. In future articles, we’ll be speaking to more researchers working across financial services, fintech, and banking to continue building a grounded, multifaceted view of this field.
