The team at Welsh Government have previously blogged about the importance of taking a user-centred approach in making policy decisions relating to passenger safety in taxi and private hire vehicles.
New to user research
I had no experience of carrying out user research before this project, and only a very limited understanding that it involved directly engaging with the users of a service or product to listen to their thoughts and opinions.
Due to my unfamiliarity with user research, the team at CDPS helpfully provided guidance about how best to take notes for user research interviews.
Learning user research processes
During the interviews, I kept my camera and microphone off to allow the specialist user researcher, James, to build a rapport with the interviewee and foster an atmosphere of a conversation, rather than the interviewee feeling they were being interviewed by a panel. This method also allowed me to focus solely on listening to the interviewee, and trying to note as many direct quotes as I could.
After the interviews, James got together with all the note takers to discuss all the interviews and what the interviewees told us, to try and identify any common themes that were raised. These were useful meetings to listen about the experiences of other interviewees and highlight any key focus areas that interviewees felt strongly about.
The importance of an independent body
We’re a small team in Welsh Government working on the Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Bill, and we didn’t have anyone with specialist user research skills. Working with CDPS gave us access to that resource, but involving an independent body also provides more rigour to our research and its findings, highlighting that Welsh Government is working in an open and transparent way with partners in line with the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act.
We also thought that some of the people being interviewed might be more willing to speak freely to an independent researcher.
Delivering better services
I think the biggest surprise for me was watching a specialist user researcher like James at work. He was able to put the interviewee at ease and steer the conversation towards the key questions we needed to ask, while all the time maintaining the flow of a natural conversation.
For future work, I would definitely try to engage with users directly wherever possible. Listening to people’s experiences first-hand has given me a real new perspective on my work and reinforced my efforts to deliver better services for the people of Wales.
What’s next?
The team are now synthesising the research and grouping themes. We’ll be blogging about our findings and publishing a detailed report in the coming weeks.