Office for National Statistics (ONS) realise that increasing their web audience is absolutely key to their success. As such, they are using a range of tools and techniques to ensure they meet the needs of their customers both now and in the future. Alison Saunders, Head of User Insight, will explain why this is a time for great opportunities at ONS and share detailed insight and examples which you can use to help meet the needs of your own users and inform your digital projects.
Successful organizations not only make it a priority but they have monthly and quarterly goals that those intelligence programs deliver on. Many organizations strategically plan their quarterly meetings around these program milestones so that they can bring that intelligence into their meetings and review with the other decision makers. If you get the right intelligence – you’ll never understand how you operated without it previously.
So, besides having meetings to discuss what you "think" is going good or not - it is best to back it up and allow you to turn information into intelligence and allow you to take any guesswork out of the equation. Not only does nobody like yesterday's intelligence - they also want to be able to prioritize the issues and determine which areas have the largest impact on buyers.
Successful organizations not only make it a priority but they have monthly and quarterly goals that those intelligence programs deliver on. Many organizations strategically plan their quarterly meetings around these program milestones so that they can bring that intelligence into their meetings and review with the other decision makers. If you get the right intelligence – you’ll never understand how you operated without it previously.
So, besides having meetings to discuss what you "think" is going good or not - it is best to back it up and allow you to turn information into intelligence and allow you to take any guesswork out of the equation. Not only does nobody like yesterday's intelligence - they also want to be able to prioritize the issues and determine which areas have the largest impact on buyers.
The Technology Innovation Conference has been a hit in over a dozen cities in 2014 and scheduled for 36 more in 2015. Doug Tolley sets the background of the industry and the approach the major vendors are taking to the idea unified collaboration. Doug will summarize the strategy of all the key players in the market both good and bad!
This session is a guaranteed win – I mean it! And yes everyone wants a peanut!
When should we ask, when should be measure?Ray Poynter
Through a study conducted by Netquest to its panelists, we developed an initial hypothetical approach regarding their navigation; “People perform quite badly when remembering and evaluating their online activities. In particular, the survey questions that involve remembering past activities are difficult to answer because of the limitations of human memory.”
The results obtained from the approach of 3 key questions left us surprised with how bad panelist memory really is!
This presentation forms part of the online Festival of NewMR webinar series. Presented by Gil Oliveira and Benet Boix from Netquest.
How to Speak Human - Turning Big Data Insights into Actionable Business StrategyLuciano Pesci, PhD
Big Data has failed to deliver on its promise because decision-makers and technical practitioners aren't speaking the same language. Cryptic data outputs have to be translated into simple strategy recommendations to turn this trend around.
The Implications of Democratising Insights for Research Ray Poynter
Presented by Ray Poynter, Potentiate and NewMR
50% of insight projects are conducted internally by clients. Research is being democratised, a shift enabled by the explosion in the number of platforms.
Ray highlights the implications of more research being conducted by people who may have less research knowledge, but who have a greater topic understanding (and with the ability to implement results).
How the Business Model is becoming disruptive and aligning to it how technology is being disruptive. Defining the process and model for this Disruptive technologies
Tableau Power Up - Pacific Point Business Success SeriesDeena Tearney
So you've downloaded the Tableau Trial, now what?
In this Tableau Power Up Webinar you'll learn:
- Connecting to Data
- Exploring Data and Creating Visualizations
- Advanced Analytics
- Sharing / Collaboration
During the European Communication Summit 2017, which took place on June 29 and 30 in Brussels, CARMA's CEO Mazen Nahawi delivered a presentation about how to simplify measurement to drive successful communications.
Increasing Alumni Engagement for Major and Planned GivingSalesforce.org
Presentation from Salesforce.org Higher Ed Summit 2017 by: Keith Heller of Heller Consulting
The most valuable assets in Advancement are the deep relationships you?ve developed with your most generous supporters. These relationships go well beyond simply writing a check, but they do result in the gifts that allow colleges and universities to expand the reach and impact of their educational missions.
How can you best steward your existing relationships, and identify opportunities to cultivate additional similar relationships? While technology and data can?t do the crucial work of cultivating personal relationships, they can help you work smarter to leverage your time and resources to find and focus on the right people, in an efficient way that ensures you?re making the best use of your time and nothing falls through the cracks.
Using Salesforce.com to support your Major Giving, Planned Giving and Campaign initiatives can help you simultaneously expand and deeply personalize your relationships with your key supporters and influencers.
Metrics to Maturity, Intelligence for Innovation: Your Value PropositionCherwell Software
Managing the perception of value is a key strategic initiative that solidifies the business case for further investment in an organization’s service desk. However, metrics are the key to achieving this difficult and challenging proposition. Taking a segmented approach to metrics can bring speed and relevancy to reports and dashboards by empowering the user’s data literacy and the organization’s overall strategic goals. This session will explain how correctly managing metrics for maturity can go hand-in-hand with innovation and value. Status quo BI initiatives will no longer be good enough for IT to maintain its value proposition. The IT organization should manage the user’s perception of value with business intelligence and metrics.
This presentation talks of how to manage stakeholders - Identifying Stakeholders, build a stakeholder Map and Gamifying prioritization of features through Innovation Games (Prune the Product Tree and Buy a feature)
What Is UX Research & How Is It Done.pptxTurboAnchor
<a href="https://turboanchor.com/what-is-ux-research/">What Is UX Research & How Is It Done?</a>
To develop products that can meet users’ needs (and captivate them as well), you first have to determine who your user is and what their needs are. That’s where user experience (UX) research comes in. UX researchers thoroughly research target users to collect and interpret data that assist inform the product design process.
So for more in-depth knowledge, let’s take a closer look at what is UX research is,
UX research is learning about target users, product needs, and wants, then using those insights to enhance the design process. UX researchers follow different methods to discover problems & design opportunities. It’s all about finding insights to direct successful design. As discussed above, when you conduct UX research, you can provide the best solutions as you know what they need. It can be applied at any stage of the design process.
Social Media for Retail: Translating “Posts” into ProfitsG3 Communications
According to Gartner, by 2014 social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20% of business uses. Tracking social presence via the number of followers and fans, traffic to web site, social mentions across platforms, share of social conversations and social influence are great ways to measure brand effectiveness – but what comes next? What are leading retailers doing today to mine this platform for actionable insight and truth? And how are they using that insight to meeting their growing business initiatives? Attend this session and learn: 1) Why joining the social media revolution is one of the top 5 ways to avoid losing customers this year; 2) The key data mining techniques and best practices for gaining actionable insight into your customers; and 3) How the right technology platforms can integrate your social media strategy with your overall business goals.
How to get the right Stakeholders involved in your digital workplace initiatives. Input from 5 types of stakeholders, including external customers, is essential for a relevant digital workplace.
The Technology Innovation Conference has been a hit in over a dozen cities in 2014 and scheduled for 36 more in 2015. Doug Tolley sets the background of the industry and the approach the major vendors are taking to the idea unified collaboration. Doug will summarize the strategy of all the key players in the market both good and bad!
This session is a guaranteed win – I mean it! And yes everyone wants a peanut!
When should we ask, when should be measure?Ray Poynter
Through a study conducted by Netquest to its panelists, we developed an initial hypothetical approach regarding their navigation; “People perform quite badly when remembering and evaluating their online activities. In particular, the survey questions that involve remembering past activities are difficult to answer because of the limitations of human memory.”
The results obtained from the approach of 3 key questions left us surprised with how bad panelist memory really is!
This presentation forms part of the online Festival of NewMR webinar series. Presented by Gil Oliveira and Benet Boix from Netquest.
How to Speak Human - Turning Big Data Insights into Actionable Business StrategyLuciano Pesci, PhD
Big Data has failed to deliver on its promise because decision-makers and technical practitioners aren't speaking the same language. Cryptic data outputs have to be translated into simple strategy recommendations to turn this trend around.
The Implications of Democratising Insights for Research Ray Poynter
Presented by Ray Poynter, Potentiate and NewMR
50% of insight projects are conducted internally by clients. Research is being democratised, a shift enabled by the explosion in the number of platforms.
Ray highlights the implications of more research being conducted by people who may have less research knowledge, but who have a greater topic understanding (and with the ability to implement results).
How the Business Model is becoming disruptive and aligning to it how technology is being disruptive. Defining the process and model for this Disruptive technologies
Tableau Power Up - Pacific Point Business Success SeriesDeena Tearney
So you've downloaded the Tableau Trial, now what?
In this Tableau Power Up Webinar you'll learn:
- Connecting to Data
- Exploring Data and Creating Visualizations
- Advanced Analytics
- Sharing / Collaboration
During the European Communication Summit 2017, which took place on June 29 and 30 in Brussels, CARMA's CEO Mazen Nahawi delivered a presentation about how to simplify measurement to drive successful communications.
Increasing Alumni Engagement for Major and Planned GivingSalesforce.org
Presentation from Salesforce.org Higher Ed Summit 2017 by: Keith Heller of Heller Consulting
The most valuable assets in Advancement are the deep relationships you?ve developed with your most generous supporters. These relationships go well beyond simply writing a check, but they do result in the gifts that allow colleges and universities to expand the reach and impact of their educational missions.
How can you best steward your existing relationships, and identify opportunities to cultivate additional similar relationships? While technology and data can?t do the crucial work of cultivating personal relationships, they can help you work smarter to leverage your time and resources to find and focus on the right people, in an efficient way that ensures you?re making the best use of your time and nothing falls through the cracks.
Using Salesforce.com to support your Major Giving, Planned Giving and Campaign initiatives can help you simultaneously expand and deeply personalize your relationships with your key supporters and influencers.
Metrics to Maturity, Intelligence for Innovation: Your Value PropositionCherwell Software
Managing the perception of value is a key strategic initiative that solidifies the business case for further investment in an organization’s service desk. However, metrics are the key to achieving this difficult and challenging proposition. Taking a segmented approach to metrics can bring speed and relevancy to reports and dashboards by empowering the user’s data literacy and the organization’s overall strategic goals. This session will explain how correctly managing metrics for maturity can go hand-in-hand with innovation and value. Status quo BI initiatives will no longer be good enough for IT to maintain its value proposition. The IT organization should manage the user’s perception of value with business intelligence and metrics.
This presentation talks of how to manage stakeholders - Identifying Stakeholders, build a stakeholder Map and Gamifying prioritization of features through Innovation Games (Prune the Product Tree and Buy a feature)
What Is UX Research & How Is It Done.pptxTurboAnchor
<a href="https://turboanchor.com/what-is-ux-research/">What Is UX Research & How Is It Done?</a>
To develop products that can meet users’ needs (and captivate them as well), you first have to determine who your user is and what their needs are. That’s where user experience (UX) research comes in. UX researchers thoroughly research target users to collect and interpret data that assist inform the product design process.
So for more in-depth knowledge, let’s take a closer look at what is UX research is,
UX research is learning about target users, product needs, and wants, then using those insights to enhance the design process. UX researchers follow different methods to discover problems & design opportunities. It’s all about finding insights to direct successful design. As discussed above, when you conduct UX research, you can provide the best solutions as you know what they need. It can be applied at any stage of the design process.
Social Media for Retail: Translating “Posts” into ProfitsG3 Communications
According to Gartner, by 2014 social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20% of business uses. Tracking social presence via the number of followers and fans, traffic to web site, social mentions across platforms, share of social conversations and social influence are great ways to measure brand effectiveness – but what comes next? What are leading retailers doing today to mine this platform for actionable insight and truth? And how are they using that insight to meeting their growing business initiatives? Attend this session and learn: 1) Why joining the social media revolution is one of the top 5 ways to avoid losing customers this year; 2) The key data mining techniques and best practices for gaining actionable insight into your customers; and 3) How the right technology platforms can integrate your social media strategy with your overall business goals.
How to get the right Stakeholders involved in your digital workplace initiatives. Input from 5 types of stakeholders, including external customers, is essential for a relevant digital workplace.
Cengage Learning Training, Research & Libraries, DemoNow for Academic LibrariesCengage Learning
Originally hosted for Members of the Michigan Electronic Library, this training provides an overview of using DemographicsNow within an Academic library and classroom setting.
This presentation reviews the different approaches to research and outlines how you can bring the personas out of static documents and into the on-going conversation about your customers within your organization with something called Listening Sessions.
Big Data & Marketing Analytics - How to Use Available Data, and How to Prepar...Luciano Pesci, PhD
Marketers have more data available than ever before, and even more is on the way. Learn how to use that information to connect with your customer and beat your competition.
As the tech landscape floods with more users, more devices, and more data, business intelligence becomes increasingly more important for creating context from the large data sets. Join us as we cover strategies you can apply to your own projects and have product leaders at Salesforce and SalesforceIQ share their stories about real experiences put into practice. You will learn how to use data, signals, and context to create a relevant and impactful experience for your customers.
Katy Arnold - Design Maturity: How to have impactNexer Digital
When we talk of design maturity we usually mean the maturity of the organisations in which we operate.
There are a plethora of maturity models, scales, and assessments which we hope will encourage organisational leaders to create the conditions for good design practice to flourish. However, by focussing purely what we’d like others to do, we risk ignoring our role in all of this.
Drawing on her experience building and leading design communities in the UK Government, Katy explores what it really means to achieve design maturity. This talk is about how to achieve genuine co-creation and how opening ourselves up to include the perspectives of others allows us to build credibility and have greater impact.
Embedding service design: blood, sweat, tears and tantrums Nexer Digital
Cancer Research UK’s service design team is in its 5th year.
This talk is a review of how we have implanted service design thinking and doing inside one of the world's largest charities: navigating power and politics, recruiting allies and helping deliver better services, one day at a time.
Imran Hussain- Co-design by community - May 2023.pdfNexer Digital
There is a whole spectrum of co-design approaches. From adding additional touchpoints with users, through to users designing for you. Listen to how Imran led the GOV.UK Design System community in pushing co-design to its limit. What was the process? What were the results? What did the community gain from it all?
Natalie Pearce - From CX to EX: Good culture needs good designNexer Digital
Great customer experiences don’t happen by chance. They happen by design. The same goes for great company cultures. This means using human-centred research to understand your employees, their needs and how to motivate them to bring the best of themselves to work. It means putting your values into practice by turning them into measurable behaviours and reinforcing rituals, because great employee experiences begin with liveable values. It means using tried and tested design principles to create employee experiences that are just as amazing as your customer experience, through cleverly designed processes and systems that turn gaps into goals and deliver company-growing action. Want to find out what this means in practice?
In this talk Nat shares her story of going from CX to EX and how ALL designers can contribute to creating better workplaces by turning their skills internally.
Audree Fletcher - Designing in the darkNexer Digital
The achievement of big noble goals often comes down to skill in working with the warp and weft of our organisations. But do our multidisciplinary teams contain the knowledge, skills and relationships to design and manipulate the invisible matter that surrounds, enables and constrains them? In this session Audree shares ways teams can increase their strategic influence, advocate for their service, and work to secure the organisational conditions for their success.
Shabira Papain - Inclusive design: Luxury or must-have?Nexer Digital
In this session Shabira makes the case for why inclusive design is a must-have that can be achieved even in the most fast-paced organisations, and explores what we mean by inclusive design; discussing its merits/challenges and sharing practical ways you can embed inclusion thinking into your service and product design.
James Plunkett - Digital transformation in context: You’re part of something ...Nexer Digital
Throughout history, intrepid reformers have driven profound changes in the way we govern our society. So what can we learn from this work for digital transformation today?
In this talk James shares thoughts from his writing and over a decade leading public policy and digital work, showing why - despite the hard yards - we can be optimistic about change.
Jas Kang - Design imperatives at Depatment for Education using OKRsNexer Digital
Head of Design at Department for Education Jas Kang is joined by designers Laura Leahy, Jude Web and Victor Ivan to explore the DfE's three design imperatives, and why their backlog format is as OKRs (Objectives and key results).
The team discuss how they're experimenting and maturing their profession, and aiming to deliver better outcomes for end users.
Helen Lawson - Death and other difficult words (Camp Digital 2022)Nexer Digital
Helen Lawson is a lead content designer for Co-op Digital specialising in Funeralcare, and has published a book on bereavement for children, and written a series of sympathy cards without using the word sympathy.
In this talk Helen explores the language around death, and the process and passion behind getting the words right in digital, print and in person.
Sarah Mace - The better your culture, the better your user experienceNexer Digital
Can we ever really deliver great user experiences if the culture behind the service isn't great?
In this talk, Head of Experience Design for LEEDS 2023 Sarah Mace explores the ways that organisational culture directly impacts the end user experience.
"For years now, working on designing products and services has always resulted in me supporting a shift in the team and/or organisation's broader culture and ways of working. To some, the link and necessity seems obvious, but to others it's perhaps a little more of a mystery as to why the 'digital team' are leading large scale change management programmes and in some cases designing new organisational operating models.
The practicalities associated with this link can be tricky. As designers or transformation specialists we are often brought in to 'fix a thing' or 'build something shiny', and there often isn't the awareness of the inevitable need to tackle the blockers that pop up from behind cultural walls.
In this session, I explore this link and why I believe that it's all of our jobs to support stronger, more positive cultures for the employee experience but also for our users' experiences too. We'll ponder on how we do this when it often feels out of our remit and reach. "
Kylie Havelock - Tailored advice services in the modern age (Camp Digital 2022)Nexer Digital
Head of Product at Citizens Advice Kylie Havelock talks to us about ways the organisation have scaled a tailored advice service for clients.
Kylie covers how Citizens Advice are building product capability; re-platforming underlying technology; tailoring content, and experimenting with data. This talk is for anyone looking to tailor products to people.
Sharon O'Dea and Hanna Karppi - A Human-Centred Future of Work Nexer Digital
Work is becoming more complex, a trend that only looks set to continue in the years ahead. Technology is supposed to help people to get work done, but often it has the opposite effect of adding to that complexity. To make work better and ensure tools support that more complex future we need to design and configure that technology for humans - messy humans with complex working lives.
In this talk, digital strategist Sharon O'Dea and Head of Digital Worklife Strategy at Nexer Group Hanna Karppi share ideas on preparing for the future of work by making it more human-centred. Sharon and Hanna cover the need for insight into employees' needs, the importance of digital employee experience and how digital can help rather than hinder the employees of the future.
Rachel Coldicutt - We are all technologists now!Nexer Digital
Rachel Coldicutt is an expert on the social impact of new and emerging technologies, recognised as one of 50 Most Influential People in UK Technology and awarded an OBE for services to the digital society.
In her talk 'We are all technologists now!', Rachel challenges the audience to think about how we can consider our current technologies, and reimagine their uses to benefit society and the planet.
Gerry McGovern - Earth Experience Design (Camp Digital 2022)Nexer Digital
Gerry McGovern is the author of World Wide Waste, and an expert on sustainability and digital.
In his keynote 'Earth experience design' Gerry talks about digital as a world of short-term thinking focused on selling superficial wants, and killing our planet.
"We need wisdom, truth, ethics and an understanding of worth that measures the impacts of our designs at an ecosystem level. We must become champions of maintenance and reuse, rather than this constant, relentless and planetary destructive cool newness and innovation cults. We can design great things with so much less of the earth’s energy. We can be part of highly efficient organizations while using so much less data. Let us not go down in history as Generation Waste, the designers whose proudest moment was to fashion the final nail. If we designed our way into this mess, we can design our way out of it."
Older Adults: Are We Really Designing for Our Future Selves? (BAD Conf. 2022)Nexer Digital
Advice on designing for older people often urges us to consider this audience as our future selves. In one sense, this is helpful, as it fosters empathy with older users. But in another sense, it's misleading — it hints that all of the challenges we face in designing for more senior people now are ones we will face in 20, 30, or even 40 years.
Some design considerations are persistent because they relate to limitations that tend to come upon us as our bodies age. Eyesight dims, colour vision changes, hearing declines, joints lose flexibility, and memory isn't what it used to be. We will all experience some of these changes as we grow older, although at our own pace and in unique ways. And for the foreseeable future, bodies will continue to develop age-related limitations. Older people will always face these challenges simply because they are older, and our designs will always need to accommodate them.
Unfortunately, much of what we read and hear about designing for older adults mixes ageing-body limitations with issues such as comfort with technology, willingness to scroll, or typical online activities. Perhaps people will always become more hesitant to learn new technologies as they grow older and more frustrated when technology doesn't work as they expect. But the specific design considerations will change as technology evolves.
As designers, we need to understand which challenges we will always need to accommodate and which ones will evolve. It all boils down to the difference between challenges people have because they are older — and ones they have because they are older NOW.
This talk will help you understand what advice you can rely on for the long term and what issues you should keep testing for. It will illustrate with examples, including some from my own experience of being an older person who sees some age-related physical changes and is also very comfortable with technology.
This slide deck brings up to date the presentation of the same name that I gave at UX Cambridge in 2016 (and which can be found elsewhere among Nexer's uploads).
Collapsing Narratives: Exploring Non-Linearity • a micro report by Rosie WellsRosie Wells
Insight: In a landscape where traditional narrative structures are giving way to fragmented and non-linear forms of storytelling, there lies immense potential for creativity and exploration.
'Collapsing Narratives: Exploring Non-Linearity' is a micro report from Rosie Wells.
Rosie Wells is an Arts & Cultural Strategist uniquely positioned at the intersection of grassroots and mainstream storytelling.
Their work is focused on developing meaningful and lasting connections that can drive social change.
Please download this presentation to enjoy the hyperlinks!
This presentation, created by Syed Faiz ul Hassan, explores the profound influence of media on public perception and behavior. It delves into the evolution of media from oral traditions to modern digital and social media platforms. Key topics include the role of media in information propagation, socialization, crisis awareness, globalization, and education. The presentation also examines media influence through agenda setting, propaganda, and manipulative techniques used by advertisers and marketers. Furthermore, it highlights the impact of surveillance enabled by media technologies on personal behavior and preferences. Through this comprehensive overview, the presentation aims to shed light on how media shapes collective consciousness and public opinion.
1. Meeting the needs of our
users
Alison Saunders
Head of User Insight, ONS.
2. Introduction
• User Insight provides an innovative way of
improving existing products and design
• We are exploiting new digital channels to
engage with our users
• Collaboration increases the credibility and re-
usability of insight
3. Increasing our audience
Who are our current users?
Who do we want to be our key audience?
What business changes are needed?
Who are the internal and external stakeholders
involved in that change?
4. Creating personas
• Captures essential information about our audience
• Provides effective and focused input into design
• Benefits from feedback and refinement
• Individuals shift between persona types!
6. Expert Analyst
Key goals
Behaviours
Motivators
•Finds a particular Excel
spreadsheet to download
•Re-uses ONS data for
own statistical models
and reports
•Knows exactly what they
want
•Finds it quickly on the
ONS website
•Phones the ONS for help
•Accesses ONS website
from desktop PC in office
•Has a passion for data
•Needs reliable, high
quality data
•Must feel confident in
their analysis
“Just give me the
Excel data I need”
7. Information Forager
Key goals Behaviours Motivators
• Searches for data for
practical, strategic business
decisions
• Wants summaries, narratives
and key charts for deeper
understanding
• Produces charts and
statistics
• Proactive - seeking
knowledge to affect change
• Doesn’t know exactly what to
search for
• Time pressured - needs to
understand size of task
• Sector knowledge can help
them to be a success
• Using ONS data provides
advantage
• Anticipating changes in
workforce and wellbeing
affecting their company.
“I just need enough
data to help me
make the right
decision”
8. Inquiring Citizen
Key goals Behaviours Motivators
• Searches for the unbiased
‘truth’
• Wants to find simply worded,
high level summaries
• Wants visually engaging
overview
• Reactive to current events
• Engaged with social media;
follows ONS on Twitter
• May browse the site with
smart-phone or tablet
• Personal/political interest
• Financial implications of the
economy
• Has an enquiring mind
• Distrust of big business and
government
“I need the ONS to
help me to find the
truth”
9. Personas – strategic implications
The existence of Personas has important design
implications
Clearer focus on key User issues
Quality, trust objectivity are essential to all Persona types
Any suggestion that the ONS is anything less than 100%
independent would alienate each persona type.
10. Simplify (Is not dumbing down)
Simpler = ‘gaining the same level of knowledge
with reduced cognitive overload’!
Research suggests that we should:
• Remove extraneous content
• Display fewer but more important items
• Simplify design
• Reduce complexity of language
11. Anytime, anyplace, anywhere
As we have seen:
Expert Analyst will primarily use desktop/laptop
Information Forager and Inquiring Citizen use a tablet
or smartphone
More responsive design - to adapt to these devices.
12. Beyond User Personas
• Understand the way users interact
• Identify user requirements through research
and testing
• Develop solutions based on findings and on
business goals and processes
• Test these solutions with the users and adapt
as necessary.
14. User focus
• Define all users who visit our website and
consume our content
• Personas put a 'face' on the user and provide
a design target
• They are compelling, data driven & well
communicated
• User testing will provide a cost efficient focus
for user testing.
15. User Testing Lab
• To standardise how we engage with users
• Versatile enough to incorporate local and
remote testing, mobile technology
• Enabling Accessibility and User Diversity
• Methodology to validate our approach and
VfM.
ONS is required to deliver the necessary innovation in data gathering, processing, analysis and publication to lead within a highly competitive field, exploiting new digital channels to engage with ONS customers and users can be transformed into the action plan as outlined below with timescales and dependencies.
User Insight can enable an innovative way of improving existing products and designing and implementing new ones. We are now at the optimum time to exploit new digital channels to engage with our users whilst raising awareness across the Office of the importance of user insight and its contribution to continuous improvement.
ONS needs to commit to putting the user at the heart of what we do and act on insight gained through activities such as user testing, web analytics, social, media engagement and customer/stakeholder satisfaction surveys.
Once we have this commitment and have established a robust cycle of insight and implementation we will be able to measure the business impact of user testing activity in terms of increased user knowledge/understanding, increased take-up and reduced failure demand (ie, reduced complaints and calls to the contact centre)
In order to increase our online audience, we need to answer key questions including:
Who are our current customers?
Who do we want to be our key audience?
What business changes would be needed to
accommodate these customers?
Who are the internal and external stakeholders
involved in that change?
Personas are a highly effective way of distilling essential information about the target audience. They are detailed descriptions of ‘archetyped’ people that interact with the site. These are used as tools to drive development and encourage cross-communication between different stakeholders – rather than talking abstractly about ‘customers’ we will begin to talk about the Inquiring citizen and her goals in a way that provide effective and focused input.
These personas are preliminary and will benefit from feedback and refinement from ONS stakeholders. They will then be used as a tool to drive further development decisions and ensure that we are developing and designing in an appropriately user-centred fashion.
Note that a single individual may shift between persona types. For example, academics might be expert analysts for their research, but may be foraging for information on a number of issues outside of their expertise to support their teaching
… works at as a statistician for HM Treasury. He has a PhD in statistics. He has a reasonable level of autonomy in his job. He knows ONS quite well and has contacts within the ONS with whom he can discuss problems or things he does not understand.
Key Goals
Find a particular Excel spreadsheet to download, without being distracted by similar-sounding information
Cut and paste data from spreadsheets into own statistical models and analyses
Re-find datasets that he has previously found
Find the latest latest report/dataset for a particular data series
Create a bespoke dataset, tailored to exactly to support the statistical models he is creating
Sometimes uses a reference code to search for datasets
Viewing all versions of a particular dataset
Find out when the next version of a dataset will be released
Behaviour
Tends to know exactly what he wants, but can be frustrated by not being able to find it quickly on the ONS website
Phone the ONS for help in finding specific data or querying methodology
Access ONS website from desktop PC in office
May be critical about mistakes and shortcomings in the provision of statistics
Tends to use Google to search the site as has little confidence in site search
Motivators
It’s part of his job to analyse data
Has a passion for data and needs reliable, high quality data so that he can feel confident in his analyses
Goals
Looking for data that can be used to make practical, strategic decisions for her business
Wants to see high level summaries, narratives and key charts that provide context for deeper understanding
Occasionally downloads datasets for simple analysis if necessary
Wants to keep up to date with latest economic and population data
Usually looking for time series and comparison data (e.g. local v national) in order to be able to predict future opportunities
Produce charts and statistics to support arguments in funding applications and strategy reports
Behaviours
Proactive - seeking knowledge to affect change
Don’t know exactly what to search for, but aware of general area
Basic working knowledge of statistics and Excel, but by no means an expert
Signed up for ONS alerts - to keep up to date
Tend to take ONS statistics at face value
Usually time pressured - needs to understand size of task
Motivators
She is intrinsically motivated, and appreciates that sector knowledge can help her and her company to be a success
Although not officially part of her job, using ONS data provides added value or advantage to her over her colleagues or competitor companies
Goals
Finding out the unbiased ‘truth’ about information presented by the media and political parties
Finding out about economic indicators such as RPI in order to be able to make informed decisions about pensions and investments
Finding out about newsworthy topics such as immigration, house prices, inflation, the cost of living, economic growth
Wants to find simply worded, high level summaries and narratives of newsworthy issues
See charts and infographics to get visually engaging overview of key data and trends
Behaviours
Tends to be reactive to current events
Doesn’t download datasets
Engaged with social media; follows the ONS on Twitter
May take part in discussions around issues on newspaper websites
Occasional visitor to ONS website
May browse the site with her smartphone or tablet sometimes
Motivators
Personal/political interest
Financial implications of the economy (e.g. for pensions & investments)
Has an enquiring mind; looking to make sense of the world
Distrust of big business and government; looking for a trustworthy source of information
PROMISCUOUS – REMEMBER COMPETITION FROM OTHERS
USE LESS JARGON – USE TERMS THAT ARE WIDELY UNDERSTOOD!
SHE HAS LOWER ATTENTION SPAN
SAVE HER SCREEN PAIN – SHE WILL PROBABLY BE SCANNING ONLY (E:MAIL TRIAGE)
WE MUST USE TERMS THAT WILL INCREASDE OUR SEO/ RANKING
The existence of Personas has important implications for the way that the design of the ONS website should evolve in the future
Having just three personas, who we feel cover the broad range of behaviours that ONS site users possess, allows for a clear focus on the key user issues
The whole brand of the ONS is built on quality and trust i.e. quality research and analysis, from an independent, objective source
Christine relies on the ONS for this, and any suggestion that the ONS are anything less than 100% independent would immediately alienate her.
It is important to note that individuals may shift between persona types. For example, an analyst who is normally a &apos;data expert&apos; (or whatever we call it) might become an evidence researcher if they are out of their subject-specifc comfort zone. Academics might be data experts for their research, but evidence researchers for teaching. Journalists could be citizens if they are just after high level stats, but evidence researchers if they are putting together a more detailed analysis
The Expert Analyst is primarily interested in downloading datasets – so the site should feel simpler overall.
The Information Forager and Inquiring Citizen are not statistical experts
Removing extraneous content to avoid confusion (e.g. releases)
Simpler design (less clutter, easier on the eye)
Reducing the number of content types and ways of displaying them
Reducing the complexity of language
Displaying fewer but more important items
The concept of a single view of a website is dead
While the Expert Analyst will primarily use desktop/laptop to access the site, the Information Forager
and particularly the Inquiring Citizen will sometimes use a tablet or smartphone.
This requires a more responsive design for the ONS website - to adapt to the device it is being viewed on).
50% OF THE BBC AUDIENCE CONSUMES NEWS ONLINE VIA THEIR MOBILE!
To understand the way users interact with our websites, apps or systems and help deliver an experience that meets their specific needs.
To drive user experience and requirements analysis across the Digital Content team and other key stakeholders
To understand business goals and processes and identify user requirements through research and testing.
Develop solutions based on our findings, eg sitemaps, user flows, navigation models, wireframes or prototypes.
Test these solutions with the users and adapt as necessary.
Web analytics - Focusing web metric on the analysis of behaviours and journeys and structured around specific products:
This will enable us to notice problems, trends and anomalies
This analysis should provide the business with a far more compelling case for change - supported by user testing - to understand user needs and reaction to the change
Rather than simply incorporating the word &apos;user&apos; into our everyday language, we will define who the users are who consume our content and visit our website.
In order to create rich and complete user experiences focused on our target audience, DP will create Personas which will put a &apos;face&apos; on the user and provide a design target for future web enhancements.
These Personas will allow us to bring to life what we already think we know about our users. They will be compelling, data driven, well communicated and disseminated across the IDP and the wider Office through a series of planned communications
We will create a user testing lab on site at Newport. This facility will provide ONS with a cost efficient focal point for user testing. Its primary benefit will be to standardise the way we engage with users in testing our products, be they web pages, online and offline documents or now logo designs. We will ensure that the user testing activity is versatile enough to suit the changing needs of the Office by including local and remote testing, incorporating mobile technology and enabling accessibility issues to be identified.
We will guard against failure by putting place critical success factors and SMART team objectives
User Testing Lab
We are creating a user testing (UT) lab on site at Newport.
This facility will provide ONS with a cost efficient focal point for user testing.
Its primary benefit will be to standardise the way we engage with users in testing our products, be they web pages, online and offline documents or designs.
We will ensure that the user testing activity is versatile enough to suit the changing needs of the Office by including local and remote testing, incorporating mobile technology and enabling accessibility issues to be identified.
Methodology (Jayne Olney) supports the UT lab by providing resource and expertise. They will provide validation of UT approach and how best to track and report business impact, VfM and ROI