How to make a researcher — part one, the student view

At the beginning of this year Francis Webb, a product designer within BT Design, was part of a group who took on the challenge of learning how to carry out evaluative research, using our EES framework. He took part in an
8-week course at the end of which he completed his own evaluative research study. Here is the story of his experience on that course.

It started with a Slack message

I’m a product designer. I’ve been working in product design for a few years. One of the frameworks we work to — we call it UCD — is user-centred design. The first word is “user” which means understanding the customer, being close to the customer and having an open channel of communication with the customer. At the beginning of this year, an opportunity at work came up to learn how to carry out user research to help us to get closer to our customers. I think it was just a Slack message to begin with: “Who would be interested in learning user research skills?”

Straight away, as I’m passionate about learning and the subject, I put my name forward. I wasn’t too sure what it was going to be like. Next a survey was sent out by Dahni, Kim and Wendy in the user research team. They wanted to understand how people prefer to learn, so that they could format the course in the best way. I was intrigued how this was going to develop, especially with us all working remotely.

Collaborative learning

Once I’d completed the survey, I was invited to join the pilot research training programme, which was an 8-week course. Each week was hosted by a different member of the user research team, also with special guest appearances and at the end of that 8-week period we carried out our own evaluative research study from end-to-end.

From the first lesson I was sold on the course. The way it was set up was collaborative. Although we were working remotely, we were all inputting to the Mural board with our thoughts. We each took turns to discuss our ideas. It was a clever way to get everyone to collaborate and make everyone feel more relaxed. It was a safe space. You we’re encouraged to ask questions. Everyone had different perspectives which was really interesting.

The course was broken down into weekly segments. For example, in one week we would look at research methods. Dahni, Kim and Wendy would provide resources to take away on research methods, maybe an article, or a video or some chapters of a book. The one thing that I would do differently is to free up more time to study those areas in my own time which was a challenge with the day job.

‘Aha’ moments

The bit I enjoyed most was where we carried out our own user research study. We were shown how to plan our study, which methods to use and how to deliver our study. We interviewed participants using our internal research panel and if I pinpoint one moment, it’s when you’ve created your discussion guide and you show the user something on screen and they say something to you that you didn’t consider yourself. It’s like an ‘aha’ moment. It’s an insight coming to life in that moment. The feeling you get is incredible.

The structure of the course was very well organised. At the end of each week, you would know what you were learning next week. The next step on the journey was really clear.

Those skills were exactly what I needed to bring my design maturity up a level. It helped me to learn how to plan, talk to customers, analyse data and enhance my design.

Being fearless

In the beginning, I was extremely nervous about being a moderator. You feel like you shouldn’t be moderating because you don’t have the skills or the knowledge, so it’s like you are an imposter.

When we talked about being nervous to go and do research or being a bit scared to talk to participants, Dahni said ‘Just do it because when you do it you just become better’. That is the only way really. The more you do it, the better you researcher you become. It’s not just this course, that’s relevant for anything you want to do — you’ve just got to go out there and do it.

It’s going to make you stronger

I feel comfortable now doing my own research pieces. I have even kicked off another initiative, in support of collaboration in my alliance. I’ve been interviewing people and using the insights to deliver positive outcomes. When I’m talking in my squad or my tribe, when I’m presenting, I’m more confident talking about insights. That’s come down to understanding the process which I learnt in the course. Also, what is really great, when I’m talking to researchers about projects, I can write much clearer briefs and I feel like the conversations are much richer.

I’ve been describing this fantastic course to my colleagues. It’s collaborative, concise and it’s a course that if you take part, whatever your discipline, it’s going to make you stronger in your role because these are skills that anyone working in digital will benefit from.

Next time, Dahni will explain his experience of ‘How to make a researcher’.