From 6 minutes to 10 seconds
From 6 minutes to 10 seconds
How Strategic Research Avoided $6M+ in Productivity Costs
How Strategic Research Avoided $6M+ in Productivity Costs
Employees relied heavily on a central portal to find information across HR and IT systems. But search was failing them.
Average time to find information: 119 seconds
Many tasks: Up to 6 minutes
Search term modification rate: 41%
Employee satisfaction with search: 43% dissatisfied
Initiating tasks via search vs. navigation: 50% began with search
This inefficiency was more than just frustrating. It was expensive. With ~20,000 employees conducting at least two searches per week, the productivity cost was estimated at over $6M per year.
Search is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s the backbone of self-service in distributed, digital-first work. Unlike 1994, employees can’t just “ask HR” anymore. When search doesn’t work, work doesn’t happen.
According to Gartner, “employees spend nearly 20% of their time searching for internal information or tracking down colleagues who can help.” Poor search isn’t just an inconvenience, it undermines organizational agility.
Internal benchmarks compared to Google made the gap undeniable:
Google’s time-to-click average: 14.6 seconds
Search term modification rate: ~15%
Internal portal: nearly 10x slower, 3x more corrections
This translated into:
~1,322 hours lost weekly across the company
$120K/week in wasted productivity
>$6M annually in opportunity cost
I led a multi-phase research initiative that translated insight into action.
1. Research & Prioritization:
Conducted an unmoderated usability test to identify high-friction areas
Led interviews across 25 top search topics
Synthesized Jobs to be Done to align with business priorities
2. Framework Development:
Proposed and tested a card framework.
Benchmarked against Google but adapted for enterprise needs
Collaborated with design & product to integrate contextual, task-driven search cards
3. Outcome Evaluation:
Employees using the card framework found answers more quickly.
Success rates improved across broad search terms from 0% success to 75%+ success.
Business stakeholders greenlit AI-powered search investments based on projected cost savings and proven UX impact.
Time to information reduced from 6 minutes to 10 seconds.
$6M+ in annual productivity savings unlocked.
Executive alignment secured for long-term experience investment.
Validated a repeatable framework to guide UX search strategy.
This project demonstrates how rigorous UX research, when paired with a scalable design framework, can unlock both efficiency and employee satisfaction at scale. By identifying the real barriers to search and testing actionable solutions, we created an experience that delivers impact with every query.