• Key moments to look out for:
• ReOps: 30 Research plans
• Qualitative Interviews Mobile first, progressive enhancement, content first
• Interface walkthrough: To rework the IA and visual look/feel of the existing site

I was hired as the sole researcher for the six registries and five associated service levels within each. To give an idea of the scale, this required 30 individual research plans that had to meet certain requirements based on existing tools and NHS internal ways of working. The data was complex and there were many departments to deal with, including those outside of NHSD, like the devolved nations and existing registries.

As a team, we were tasked with understanding existing registries from a UCD perspective and preparing new registries while trying to manage risks around uncertainty. Throughout the project I had to ensure that NHS and GDS design principles were adhered to, something I had to learn quickly and keep in mind when planning research, in order to meet GDS assessments for alpha and beyond.

After crafting a flexible, scalable set of living research plans that were built to connect data, I ran a series of workshops and sessions with SME's and other stakeholders to collaborate on the research aims, objectives, high-level research questions, hypotheses *if applicable, discussion guide formulation, affinity diagramming sessions, reviews and sense-checks. I take this approach based on my own limitations and the success of gaining buy-in from others, including PWDR (people who do research). I marked in the plans exactly where I would be responsible and conduct solo activities and where it would be opened up as a teamsport.

In this case study, I will use the example of BCIR (Breast and cosmetic implant registry), an existing registry (one of six) where users colelcted data manually and input the data into a CAP form *see image below

Planning stage

• create 30 living flexible and scalable research plans to reduce data retrieval times, increase clarity around roles and responsibilities throughout and be scalable enough to suit diffrent sized projects within registries.
• Attend to user recruitment and remove barriers to gaining access to quality users early on in the process. This was the highest priority with the biggest risks to achieving the objectives.
• Familiarising myself with complex data and processes.

Data collection stage

After crafting a flexible, scalable set of living research plans that were built to connect data

Analysis stage

After crafting a flexible, scalable set of living research plans that were built to connect data

Actions:

• Conduct workshops with SME's and applicable stakeholders:
• RQs
• Hypotheses creation
• Analysis
• Make accessible meeting minimum AA standards
• Represent brand

Measures:

After planning, data collection and analysis of findings, a final report was provided, which exceeded expectations based on the quality of the content and the rigour of which activities were conducted to inform teams for alpha.

• x
• x
• x
• x

Presentation stage

All bespoke repositories and research plans were in place and the data had gone through multiple rounds of analysis and sense making. The report was created and shared with the MDIS team (Medical device information system).

Impact strategy:

To maximise impact, I made sure future playback sessions and open-research sessions were made available and booked out. Alongside this I set out a process to capture stakeholder engagement, uptake and buy-in. I like to mark recommendations with a traffic light system + reminders, which has been effective in promoting accountability. Furthermore, I created an expense calculator which produced a guestimate of next step activities to increase the ux for product managers and increase the chances of research being impactful.

Within the scalable and customised research plans, I made sure that the right people were notified when the data needed to be reviewed in the future. Generative research gathered in this study tends to last longer than other types of specific research (convergent).

It is all good and well hoping that research insights will be adopted, what I like to do is use analytical data where possible to provide answers around where and when research insights are being picked up. I used confluence to provide basic analytical data here. More so, I like to keep a record of meeting invites and see where these increase/decrease along the way. This was something I planned for, as another indicator that insights were proving to be valuable.

Lastly, I created a 1-2 minute repeatable survey to collect attitudinal data after the BCIR discovery meeting, to A) find out how people consumed research insights and B) to raise awareness levels of how research can be consumed by listing options.

Problem: Texmo industries were developing a bespoke project management solution and had the Nimble Approach development team working on the product for almost two years. There was no previous UCD/UX considerations and it was decided to bring in myself in FT and a Lead service designer in PT.

Actions:

• Gain trust and recruit participants for user research activities.
• Create and iterate on OKRs and research questions to guide the research and design.
• Create usability studies and pilot test with representative users.
• Create and run interviews with future users of the product.
• Conduct summative evaluation on the existing design, with an expert review, a heuristic review and an accessibility review.
• Produce a 48 page detailed report outlining recommendations.
• Produce a user journey map based on research interviews and secondary data.
• Create a list of problem statements based on data from three different research activities.
• Create a strategic approach to take for the following 3-month period.
• Complete all this in 12 days!

We managed to achieve this based on proactive strategic planning alongside pre-existing templates that were adapted. I managed to reduce the risks associated with limited access to users, by showing how research can impact on future user experiences by conducting pilot studies on representative users. Interviews were carried out between the UK and India, where interviewees were based. I like to build rapport before engaging in these types of sessions, where I conducted some research around the language used in that region of India, testing this out before and during the call to maximum effect. Furthermore, evluations were carried out using known heuristics and accessibility tools.

Measurements and outcomes:

Before and after the UCD team were established

Shape: Spear pointing right diamond (right diagram)

The design studio teams chart like this seemed to have support, but it was concerning that 80% of the team were on FT projects, and user research wasn't being done. It's possible there is not true support, or support is coming from people with little influence to help bolster success. There was no design studio representative at the CLT (main stakeholder section of decision-makers within Nimble).

The business needed to allow PWDR to be able to do research activities, create schedules that include research, and evangelise and train in research at scale.

ResearchOps work in evangelising, hiring researchers & training PWDR would help. The team Identified who had influence and focused our research efforts on aligning with their goals.

Actions

• Assessing, hiring, training and opening up research as a teamsport increased by 25%
• Better support, more tolls and sharing findings increased by 53%
• Planning infrastructure that supported research increased by 13%
• Our design studio saw an increase of 22% when looking at educating others about research

• 35% of Nimblers responded to a self-reporting survey, perceiving the current ux maturity levels to be at level two *more responses were required to reach 90% confidence level.
• after ten months, the levels had were perceived to be at a level above - at three: emergent.
• The empirical results were shared to raise awareness and new OKRs considered the findings.

Measurements and outcomes:

• After ten months, the levels had were perceived to be at a level above - at three: emergent.
• The empirical results were shared to raise awareness and new OKRs considered the findings.

Additional roles:

• Participant recruiter
• Insights manager
• Researchers doing ReOps

Problems: (Problems that were surfaced and reframed)

Research was not democratised within Nimble. Awareness levels of UCD were low. The UCD arm of Nimble did not exist.

Large scale changes were sought, and getting the business to change required a brand new way of thinking and a big shift with a large and detailed strategy.

Actions: (actions I was responsible for or created)

• Introducing atomic ux research principles to the design studio, via fictional (to explain) and real-world case studies using glean.ly
• Introducing a token system for recruitment - building relationships through tokenisation while respecting the time others had and measuring the usage to improve adoption/engagement levels.
• Updating dovetail repository in-line with best practices.
• Introduced the ux outcome process that focused on the users, monitored the changes towards success and making the shift ubiquitous within the business.
• Introduced templates to increase the efficiency of research and open it up to various levels of research and PWDR (people who do research).
• I built relationships with people within the business by adopting a consistent>connection approach. This involved making time for others and building rapport outside of research.
• Built a user needs museum which gathered user requirements based on a proactive approach to research and predicting that it would be required when the ux maturity levels increased to structured. This concept stored user requirements, taking people on a journey, choosing paths that were personal to their role, viewing older historical data as museum artefacts and being able to filter research data in learning styles that suited their style.
• Worked with a junior researcher in the design team, providing mentoring and knowledge sharing sessions alongside structured and specific feedback after any performance.
• Produced an archive of storytelling materials and resources within the knowledge base, which gave guidance on how stories are structured, what styles to consider, the character definition, how to organise them and how to maximise impact.
• Conversations were held around barriers to great research, specifically how processes and plans within Nimble didn't include research. ReOps positions were offered as one solution.
• Helped co-design the review of skills using spider diagrams to display data graphically.
• Created a proposal to open research up as a spectator sport as well as a teamsport - this was through removing barriers to observing research take place with up-front consent forms and a token system, alongside ways of capturing the impact of research through adoption and retention and what the outcomes are after learning new user-related information.
• Created a proposal to open research up as a spectator sport as well as a teamsport - this was through removing barriers to observing research take place with up-front consent forms and a token system, alongside ways of capturing the impact of research through adoption and retention and what the outcomes are after learning new user-related information.
• I generated a proposal in the backlog seperate to the token-system, to again open user research up as a teamsport, but where there was investments in software that captured user behaviour in real-time, allowing PWDR to remove any insulation towards knowing about the users of their solutions, by observing what people do and how they do it, seeing unedited raw experiences and the problems people face and the unique ways they do things.

Measurements and outcomes: (Measurements, metrics and analytics defined and collected. Deliverables, outputs, outcomes of work carried out. )

• x

Problems: (Nimble's measurement mindset/culture was not being fully utilised)

Actions: (actions I was responsible for or created)

• Created training materials towards increasing the measurement mindset within Nimble.
• Designed bespoke resources that could be adapted for use, allowing others to embed a measurement awareness into daily tasks.
• Suggested ideas on how to customise Jira issues and further increase impact and quality around measurement cultures and their benefits of doing so.
• Suggested ideas on how to customise Jira issues and further increase impact and quality around measurement cultures and their benefits of doing so.