Planning user research for your project

When you're creating a new service or improving an existing one, it's important to carry out user research because it will help you make evidence-based decisions. Without it, you risk creating something that doesn't meet users' needs.

User research helps you identify who your users are and what they're trying to do. It also helps you understand the context in which users engage with your service, and any problems or difficulties they face.

Be inclusive and ethical

When planning user research, you should remove any barriers that could prevent users from taking part. Take time to understand their individual needs and adjust your research plans accordingly.

Also think about how different users will interact with your service, including users of different ages, genders, and with different types of disability.

You must prioritise the safety of participants, researchers and support staff, and you should record how you’re going to do this in an ethics plan. Scottish Government colleagues must get this plan signed off (e.g. by a User Research Lead) before research activities begin.

Do research legally

You must have a valid lawful basis to process personal data for user research purposes and you must be able to evidence that you are collecting and processing data legally. You can learn more about this at the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) website.

Research participants should understand how their personal data will be used, that there's no pressure to take part, and that they can stop at any point. You must have data management processes in place so that participants understand how their responses will be stored, used and destroyed.

You should record this information in a permission form and Data Protection Impact Assessment.

Identify who your users are

When identifying who your users are, it's important to consider primary users (such as citizens who use the service, and staff who provide the service) and secondary users (such as people who support citizens as part of their job).

Take time to understand what you already know about them by doing desk research and creating an overview or list of secondary sources to show what existing research and data you've used.

You can:

• review and analyse any existing information about users and identify any gaps in knowledge
• find out what data you have that could help guide decisions, such as call centre statistics, service metrics or web analytics
• consider research which has been carried out on existing or similar services
• reach out to equivalent organisations with similar users who may have research to share

Understanding who will engage with your service at the beginning of the project is key to its success. It's also a key part of the Digital Scotland Service Standard, especially criteria 1, Understanding users and their needs.

Even if you think you’re creating a 'new' service, there are likely to be insights gathered by project teams faced with similar challenges. Researching what already exists will save you time and likely result in the delivery of a much better user-centred service.

Create a user research plan

You should document your research objectives and the approach you plan to take in a user research plan. This is a key document that you can submit as part of a Digital Scotland Service Standard assessment. Include:

• what your key research questions are
• who you need to do research with and how you're going to recruit them
• the scope of your research
• what research methods you’re going to use (e.g. qualitative interviews, surveys, usability testing)
• timelines for user research
• how you’ll use your findings to inform service development and decision making
• any potential risks or challenges 

Include the whole team

User research is most effective when the service team is actively involved in user research activities such as observing, note-taking and collaborative sensemaking. This encourages empathy for users and minimises bias in your research approaches and findings.

User research can help product owners and delivery managers understand what needs to be prioritised from a user perspective while balancing this against business needs. Content and interaction design can prototype user-centred design solutions that can be tested and iterated with users.

Share your insights

All research sessions, from desk research to speaking to real users, should be played back to various roles in your project team and to your stakeholders, so that everyone in your project can easily understand what users think and need.

Activities like sprint reviews and show and tells can be a great way to present user research findings, and what actions you're taking based on user research, to your stakeholders.

User research findings should lead to actionable insights. This can be done in a way that meet the needs of your team, for example:

• user needs
• presentations and reports
• insights to action sessions

Research continually

User research should be carried out during each development phase, starting in discovery and continuing throughout live. This will mean that you can:

• save time by building only the things that you know your users need
• reduce risk by learning quickly whether the things you are building work well for users
• respond to changing user behaviour and feedback to continuously improve the service