Turning User Research into Product Decisions with Justin Leonard | Episode #40

Justin Leonard entered UX through animation. While studying and practicing animation, he learned to storyboard, interpret emotion, build characters, and communicate value through visuals. Creating websites and digital portfolios drew him toward internet products, while UX supplied the psychological dimension that connected those interests.

As Principal UX Architect at Axway, an API management platform, Justin applied that background to complex global products serving multiple industries. His role required balancing legacy systems, regional regulations, different development structures, and distinct user behaviors. In this episode, he explains why empathy is not a designer's intuition about users. It is an evidence-based understanding that must be carried from research into product, engineering, and budget decisions.

What you'll learn

• How animation and storyboarding can support UX research communication

• Why empathy depends on direct research rather than assumed understanding

• How to preserve the user's voice across product and stakeholder conversations

• Why research artifacts should offer different levels of depth for different audiences

• How an introverted designer can become a confident user advocate

Build empathy from evidence

Justin distinguishes empathy from believing that you already understand someone. To represent a user credibly, he wants to enter the person's environment, hear frustration in the person's own voice, and approach the research with curiosity rather than a preferred answer. He compares this to becoming childlike in a new domain: the designer has to learn how the work actually feels before proposing what it should become.

Research depth can vary with the project and available budget. Early in a large initiative, Justin may use online research and surveys to see the broader picture before a major investment. During formative work with business teams, he asks what stakeholders still do not know and where confidence is weak. Once the direction has enough validation, he moves closer to users through interviews, card sorting, and tests of the hypothesis.

The sequence protects the team from decorating an unsupported solution. Experience may let a senior designer produce a polished page quickly, but only research can show the likely impact on users and downstream teams.

Carry the user's voice into decisions

Justin sees his job in team meetings as representing what users communicated, not presenting his own opinion as the deciding argument. He uses actual interview material and keeps a well of supporting evidence available. That might include a full two-hour session, a detailed written report, or a short slide presentation for an executive with only 20 minutes.

The same finding must therefore be distilled differently without changing its meaning. A development team needs enough detail to understand behavior, constraints, and implementation consequences. A vice president may need the most decision-relevant evidence in 15 minutes. Justin's challenge is to keep the message brief while preserving access to the deeper record if someone questions the conclusion.

He gives a concrete example around an export feature. Research may reveal which formats users expect and how many are ready to adopt. Engineering can then identify native capabilities, technical spikes, staffing, budget, and timing. The conversation becomes a visible tradeoff against an evidenced need instead of a contest between personal preferences.

Storytelling helps the evidence travel. At American Express, Justin created small comics showing what call-center representatives said, how customers responded, and the settings in which conversations happened. The format made a long interaction understandable to senior stakeholders while retaining human context.

Design for multiple user orbits

Axway's API management products move data across industries and regions. Justin describes the challenge as managing multiple user orbits: different people may pass through the same or similar workflow while carrying different regulations, psychology, behavior, and legacy requirements.

A European regulation may require a page or development process to change. A behavioral difference may require design to tell the story differently. The answer is not to choose an extreme or force every audience into an imaginary average. The team establishes a researched baseline, then splits the experience where the evidence shows that variation is necessary.

Justin also connects advocacy to his own growth. He describes himself as highly introverted and once very shy. Research gave him a reason to put self-consciousness aside. When he walks into a senior meeting, he is not performing certainty or promoting his taste. He is carrying forward what users were willing to say. That reframing turned speaking up into part of the work.

Listen to Episode #40 for Justin's full conversation with Dwayne Samuels.