Research support at the University of Cambridge
Discovery research project to kick off 5 year IT transformation at the University of Cambridge
Skills: teamwork, qualitative research, problem definition, scoping, service blueprinting, storytelling
How might we improve research support services at the University of Cambridge?
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In 2021 the Cambridge Research Office & IT Department partnered together to initiate the Transforming Research Support* Programme with the aim to improve Cambridge's research support services by reconfiguring technology, people, & processes
* Research support = any service at the university to help researchers do research
I was hired on by the University's IT department to assist in discovery research to help the program understand what this aim meant in practice
Objectives
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Define our user groups
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Identify core user needs
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Identify problem areas & key opportunities for service improvement
Methods
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Remote, semi-structured interviews
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In-person group interviews
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Survey
Outcomes
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Foundational user needs
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Personas
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Problem statements to guide programme roadmap
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Design requirements
My Role - User Research
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Selected methods & planned sessions
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Facilitated user research
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Analyzed qualitative & quantitative data
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Drafted problem statement for the team to align with
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Planned & facilitated co-design sessions
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Led team storyboarding
The Team
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Myself - user researcher
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Project manager
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Data scientist
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Research support administrators as subject matter experts
Process
Month 1
Internal literature review to understand what we already know
Month 2
1:1 Interviews with grant holding researchers to establish baseline needs
Month 3
Group interviews with administrators to establish needs & define user groups
Month 4
In-person co-design sessions to validate finding & collect design requirements
Follow-up survey to validate findings & define user groups
Internal literature review to scope the problem space
Provided a grant-holding researcher's journey framework & scoped the project to focus on what happens before a researcher wins a grant
Find funding
Prepare Application
Submit Application
I discovered we needed to explore the grant application process as we already knew a lot about what happens after a researcher wins a grant
Conduct research
Manage team
Manage finances
Publish research
User research to identify user needs
I triangulated findings from interviews, group sessions, & surveys to identify personas & top user needs.
Reese Researcher
Goal:
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Get funding so I can carry out my research
Needs
Give me a point of contact
Reese doesn't know who to contact with questions
Be on my team
Reese feels that administrators are trying to prevent them from getting their research done. She wants a teammate!
Goals:
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Support researchers in winning grants for the department
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Balance workload with deadlines
Needs
Drew Department Admin
Help me track & communicate deadlines
Drew spends a lot of time reminding researchers of deadlines
Tell me what requirements I need to check
Lack of transparency in the process leads to admin missing or duplicating application requirement checks
Goals:
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Balance workload with deadlines
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Catch issues to ensure grant applications are successful
Needs
Rita Research Office Admin
Complete the right requirement checks
Lack of transparency in the process leads to admin missing or duplicating application requirement checks
Universal need: Tell me what's next
It is not clear which tasks need to be completed and by whom which causes stress and slows down the application process
Universal need: Keep me in the loop
It is difficult for all users to understand the application status and this leads to endless email chains and communication frusterations
Key findings
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Low process transparency has created slow communication & mistrust between user groups
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Process inconsistency created confusion, frustration, & slow-downs
Users did not have a confident understanding what their role was in the grant application process, which led to slow-downs & low morale
I synthesized key findings into problem statements to drive ideation
I decided to prioritize the transparency problem space as it had the potential to help with the other problem areas
We know low process & policy transparency
leads to delays, high volume of back-and-forth communication, & interpersonal tensions
For all users
because it is unclear who needs to do which tasks and how and when they need to do them
Co-design time!
To validate findings, surface latent needs, and foster a partnership between our users and stakeholders....
I planned and facilitated 4 co-design sessions with a total of 35+ people
Session included our users, product team, and, stakeholders
Co-design outputs
The co-design sessions resulted in:
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Validated user research findings
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Renewed team enthusiasm for UX design
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Design Requirements synthesized from design outputs
The solution must...
Provide a high-level, interactive process overview to align user goals & expectations
Guide users along the application journey & provide info when contextually relevant to avoid information overload
Show a live application status with flagged deadline reminders so everyone can see how long things are taking, what has been done, and what comes next
Clearly indicate to administrators who is responsible for which tasks & why
Storyboarding to picture how we might update & build around our IT services & systems
Using our design requirements and problem statement...
I led a storyboarding session with the product team to brainstorm solution ideas
These ideas were used to inform our product backlog.
Lessons learned
We are never going to know everything
especially working in an 800 year old institution - and that's ok
Don't assume everyone has clear goals & visions for a project
stakeholder interviews can help uncover those but sometimes it reveals gaps in communication
Understand the context of the work
for example when working at a university take into account things like school breaks and exam season
Stay curious
entrenched work culture meant many people told me 'the is how it is, this is why researchers are unhappy, we all know this', but diving into the why behind these statements uncovered some new discoveries