The problem

User research is essential in understanding how to shape an experience and be confident real problems are being solved. As a team, we were finding that user research was typically the first thing to be descoped when time and resource was short.

Without a dedicated user researcher, I knew this problem would come to bear over time in poorly-informed user experiences.

I set out to bring down the barriers to performing user research. I found that the legal and compliance process – requiring the team to get sign off for each individual user test – was adding at least 5 days to the research and design process.

The solution

I met with our compliance partners and proposed setting up guardrails around user tests so that our compliance partners could feel comfortable giving a blanket sign off to all user tests performed within the set guardrails. For example, the approval applied to one user testing platform only (usertesting.com) and we were required to share our privacy policy with participants upfront.

The outcome

The research process became much simpler, empowering designers to run tests at short notice, even when timelines were tight. Research was more commonly fed into design and product processes from that point onwards, as the team could yield the benefits without any of our stakeholders feeling project timelines might slip as a result.