At Ecosia, we had two valuable but siloed resources: UXR Profiles (qualitative insights) and RFM Personas (quantitative cohorts). As User Research and Design Lead, I saw an opportunity to merge these into a single, coherent framework that would make user knowledge both empathetic and actionable across the company. In this project I worked closely with our BI Lead to understand the needs of stakeholders and revamp our resrouces

Capturing the problem

I led stakeholder interviews with C-level, Product, BI, and Marketing to understand how the existing resources were being used and where they fell short. I found that Profiles needed clearer naming, more representative user needs, and stronger links to business strategy. Meanwhile, RFM Personas were underused and hard to connect to qualitative insights

Framing a solution

Acting as both researcher and design lead for hte project, I achieved the following:

• Redesigned the Ecosia Profiles, updating categories, adding demographic and tech snapshots, and splitting needs into Search and Climate..
  
• Mapped Profiles directly to RFM Personas, ensuring teams could move seamlessly between qualitative empathy and quantitative scale.
  
• Facilitated cross-team alignment workshops so stakeholders understood how to use the resources together.

Refining the Profiles to match stakeholder needs

To make the updated Profiles and RFM Personas truly actionable, I showed teams how to navigate the dashboards, how to read and use Profiles versus Personas, and how to cross-reference the two. These guides highlighted where qualitative insights and quantitative data overlapped, making it easier for product managers, designers, and marketing stakeholders to tell a holistic story about our users. This resulted in teams being able to look at user needs end-to-end, validating assumptions with both research and data, and aligning on strategy with a shared understanding of who we serve and why.

Improving Profiles and Persona adoption

To make the aligned Profiles and RFM Personas more usable, I also created highlighted specific use cases which could support adoption of these tools. For example, Profiles could be used to empathize with user needs in early ideation, while RFM Personas provided the scale to validate impact or track adoption later on. By grounding the guidance in real scenarios, I helped product managers, marketers, and C-level leaders find value in both. 

Ina Arnaoudova
Design Leader | Team Builder | UX Researcher
LinkedIn
ina.arnaoudova@gmail.com