For our user research and before planning to meet different stakeholders, the first step is to use internet research to understand exactly who we are meeting with and their role. That means attempt to get as much information as possible about the users, such as what are they doing in life, how old are they approximately and what they look like.
We involved Robert Snowball who works in the transport department at Newcastle city council and also Heather Evans who has been attending the cycling stakeholder forum meetings for an extended period of time and currently takes the minutes for the forums meetings. Meeting with Heather we hoped to gain further insight into who currently attended the meetings in terms of their demographic and gain a better understanding of its running.
We hoped to gain insights into how the workings of the forum and the interactions which took place within it, by understanding the functioning of the forum we would be more aware of the problems it faces such as lack of representation of all different kinds of cyclists and its problems in getting information regarding it out to the public.
The meeting with Robert Snowball was based around design research, we carried out several activities with him to try to have a better understanding of the project and its issues. This was done through the use of various materials like post it notes and diagrams on posters. The meeting with Heather Evans was totally different. We performed an interview with open questions, which allowed her to speak as much as she wanted about various specific topics and questions that we carefully prepared.
For the user interviews, we met and planned the questions we were going to ask Rob Snowball and Heather Evans,to get the most out of our meetings with them. This involved focusing our questions around the roles, which each of them undertook, so for example Rob’s interview questions revolved around his work at the council and the creation of the forum. Heather’s interview involved more around her own opinions and experiences of being involved in the process and some of the history of the forum to further our own understanding of the meetings and other individuals and groups that are involved. We tried to leave the questions we chose open to their own interpretation rather than leading them to answers to understand their own opinions on the cycle stakeholder forum. For example asking their own opinions and experiences on the forum rather than asking if they have any negative opinions or experiences from the forum.
Furthermore, we just want to add that we have three interviews remaining with Mark, Andrew and Rorie.
Hello team, thanks for the entry detailing your approach to user research. I can see that you have been productive in arranging meetings with key project stakeholders and that you have had thought about what questions to ask your participants tailored to what they do in the stakeholder forum. However, I thought you could have perhaps tidied up your entry a bit further, perhaps introducing subheadings, do differentiate clearly between the different activities for Heather and Rob; in the final reflective log it would be good to also tidy up a bit further what key questions you asked; for example, the meeting with Heather seems to be rather open ended; based on your entry, I am not quite sure what thinking when into questions asked, and what questions you explored. Also, keep looking for commonalities and what binds these stakeholders together… perhaps go back to your initial process map, as to what happens in the forum, how actions are documented based on discussions there, etc. With reference to the later, you could perhaps also note your thinking in relation to documenting the meeting and relating it to earlier insights. In the final reflective log (at the end of the year) you may get a bit of a chance to reflect on your overall strategy to user research.
Hi team, the blog shows your approach to user research and details some of the considerations you had when planning the interviews. It would have been good to have included more information on each of the interviews – what, more specifically, were you interested in asking the different stakeholders and why were they different? It would also have been good to know more about what was discussed in each with a summary of the interviews. I think you now have that so I would try to incorporate that more strongly for your final reflective submission.