Journeying through the unknown: Taking non-researchers on the research journey

We’ve often seen that experiencing research first hand can have a large impact on understanding and solving the problem. As researchers, we’re the lucky ones who get to experience this frequently, but how do we help our teams and stakeholders experience this too? In this presentation, we’ll be looking at how we get non-researchers involved in the research process, from planning, running sessions, analysis and synthesis and communication of findings. Using a range of stories of things that worked (and didn’t work so well) from a range of projects, we’ll be covering a number of techniques that can be used to bring non-researchers (including lawyers!) directly into the research process, so that they can also live and breath our end user’s experience and develop a better shared understanding of the problem space.

Presented by Ruth Ellison at Design Research 2017

Transcript

1. Journeying through the unknown: Taking non-researchers on the research journey Design Research 2017 @RuthEllison
2. dta.gov.au Exploring new lands… Photo credit: Doc Searls, photo available under a CC by 2.0 license
3. Photo credit: Adrian Yee, DTA Agile multidisciplinary teams Product managers, delivery managers, SMEs, user researchers, interaction designers, content strategists, front end devs, back end devs….lawyers!
4. …about our users But what’s the experience like for the teams that are designing & building services & products for our users? Empathy & understanding… Photo credit: Photo available under a Creative Commons CC0 licence
5. A tale of two teams Photo credit: Photo available under a Creative Commons CC0 licence
6. Familiar with agile ways of working User research done by externals 20 week project across multiple federal agencies Team 1
7. New to agile ways of working Mostly business/SME team members Familiar with market research 20 week project across multiple federal agencies Caretaker period! Team 2
8. 20 weeks from Discovery to a beta service! Most have never worked together before 1 week sprints High level of intensity Speed of decision making The environment Photo credit: Andrew Collins
9. Fear and anxiety of doing the actual user research Overcoming challenge #1 Photo credit: Photo available under a Creative Commons CC0 licence
10. It’s not in my job description I don’t really have time for that We already know what the problem is
11. dta.gov.au Mindset shift You do the research We do the research “Research is a team sport”
12. Take the team out on research ….and doing some of the research! Contextual enquiries
13. Take the team out on research ….and doing some of the research! Preparation and planning first Contextual enquiries
14. Dry runs Photo credit: Ruth Ellison
15. Photo credit: Adrian Yee, DTA Shadowing
16. Photo credit: Ruth Ellison Out in the field together
17. Photo credit: Ruth Ellison Out in the field together
18. 1 8 Seeing it first hand
19. Team getting involved in research
20. How do we get the rest of the team across our research in our weekly sprint cycle? Overcoming challenge #2 Photo credit: Photo available under a Creative Commons CC0 licence
21. 2/ Sharing stories Sharing stories
22. Empathy walls
23. 23 Research trackers
24. How do we make sense of the research as a team? Overcoming challenge #3 Photo credit: Photo available under a Creative Commons CC0 licence
25. dta.gov.au Rose, Thorn, Bud (RTB) exercise
26. dta.gov.au Rose, Bud, Thorn (RTB) exercise Rose, Thorn, Bud, Leaves variation
27. Photo credit: Ruth Ellison Applying it as a team
28. Photo credit: Ruth Ellison Collaborative analysis (with remote members)
29. How do we turn the research findings into actionable insights that we agree on? Overcoming challenge #4 Photo credit: Photo available under a Creative Commons CC0 licence
30. Step 1. Create insights – motivations & intentions - individually Insight Bingo! INSIGHT STATEMENT (what I saw and heard) WHY was this the case? Insight statement goes here Explanation based on the research and the tension faced by the user
31. Step 2. Taking turns, each person in the team reads aloud their insights.
 
 Step 3. Have a matching insight? Yell BINGO! INSIGHT STATEMENT (what I saw and heard) WHY was this the case? Insight statement goes here e.g. It can be hard to manage financially when my government rebate runs out Explanation based on the research and the tension faced by the user INSIGHT STATEMENT (what I saw and heard) WHY was this the case? I can unexpectedly hit my rebate cap which means that I have to pay full fees Statements from my provider and from government doesn’t clearly identify my usage and I don’t have the time to chase this up INSIGHT STATEMENT (what I saw and heard) WHY was this the case? When my circumstances change often, I find it difficult to plan/budget for child care Usage information is not easily available and I often have to keep track of it myself using a spreadsheet
32. dta.gov.au A cautionary tale from team 2 Photo credit: Photo available under a Creative Commons CC0 licence
33. dta.gov.au A happy ending…
 Team 1 & 2 Photo credit: Photo available under a Creative Commons CC0 licence
34. dta.gov.au Source: https://medium.com/delivering-digital-services-in-the-single-business/why-a-multi-disciplinary-team-isnt-just-different-technical-roles-23afbe273b91#.kg36hbot8
35. Lots of examples of the value of user research and how the user views changed our product Product manager
36. Questions? Thank you @RuthEllison