At HMRC, we hold an annual learning and development event - ResCon - to discuss trending user research topics and learn new skills. At our last event, experts in body language, persuasion, negotiation and marketing advised us on effective communication, a vital skill for all researchers.
I’ve been working with GDS for several years now. I’ve researched, negotiated, procured and delivered several services for GDS, including a user research lab, an A/V library pilot and – currently in progress – a user research panel.
How can we include all kinds of users in our research, including those who may be harder to reach or reluctant to take part?
It’s good practice to measure the performance of your site, and monitor this over time – often called benchmarking. On GOV.UK, we’ve just completed our fourth wave of benchmarking.
Last year we ran a short workshop with the user researchers who assess government services against the digital by default service standard.
In The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway tells this story. One day, Santiago goes out to sea, much further than other fisherman go. He engages in a herculean struggle to catch an enormous marlin. He thrashes all day …
Government services should be usable by as many people as possible, including those who are disabled. It’s our sixth design principle.
At the end I last year I told you about the discovery I've been doing with user researchers at GDS, and with the teams they work in. During my discovery, I repeatedly encountered examples where user research uncovered significant problems …
Hello, I’m Tara, and I’m the interim Lead for the GDS User Research Community. I work alongside John Waterworth, who leads the Cross-Government User Research Community.
To get my confession out of the way up front - I’m not a user researcher. I’m a content designer who’s had the benefit of working with world-class user researchers. I’ve learnt a lot from my time in user research …
Discovery research as a team sport In the service manual team, our mission is to provide ‘better guidance for teams creating government services’.