Meeting the needs of users

Meeting the needs of our users

Alison Saunders

Head of User Insight, ONS.

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

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?

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!

Information Forager

ONS user personas

Expert Analyst Inquiring Citizen

Decreasing level of statistical knowledge

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”

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”

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”

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.

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

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.

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.

Continuous cycle of User Insight

Ui cycle jpeg.jpg

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.

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.

USER LAB VIRTUAL TOUR

ANY QUESTIONS...?

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