The wonderful, wise, wobbly Workbook

I’m reading through all the notes participants have written in their Discovery Phase Workbook. The Workbook has been created for the brilliant cohort of 30 social impact organisations for Deloitte Digital Connect 2023–2024. All the activities in the workbook have been specially designed to support social impact organisations with some really exciting user research. Here are some reflections on what I’m learning by reading everyone’s workbooks.

Wonderful things

There is some much progress being made! As part of the application to the programme, each charity identified a challenge and are being supporting to conduct research interviews with 5 users to understand how they experience that challenge. It is really great to see the knowledgeboard is being kept up to date as participants learn new things about the challenge.

It’s also wonderful to see that participants are writing their user research questions in the Discovery Phase Workbook, and getting useful feedback from these from their mentor. There are some really thoughtful research questions and it looks like some of the top tips included in the Workbook have been useful to help write these.

The Discovery Phase Workbook contains some top tips for writing user research questions

Wobbly things

This is the first time we’ve tested a Discovery Phase Workbook on this programme and there are a few things I’m feeling a bit wobbly about. Not everyone seems to be using it so I’m wondering why that is? Not useful? Not clear enough? Keeping notes somewhere else? If you have feedback I would love to hear it.

There is a Project Roadmap in the Workbook that we hope helps everyone plan by noting down one or two milestones for each phase of the programme, and sharing these with their mentor. There is also a space for participants and mentors to keep notes on how each mentoring session went, and any next steps. When these sections of the Workbook are blank, I feel a bit wobbly. I’m not sure how it’s all going, should I check in with DDC participants to see if everything’s okay?

Project Roadmap in the Discovery Phase Workbook

Wise things

Where there are notes to read, the are very wise indeed! Many share that they are building a strong mentor-mentee relationship with eachother with is brilliant!

It also sounds like in some cases, DDC participants are exploring their challenges from different angles — some participants mention they are delivering 5 research interviews with staff, as well as 5 research interviews with service users. I think that will help give a really rounded picture of the challenge, by exploring it from the perspective of different groups impacted by the problem identified.

There are also some very wise questions being asked by DDC participants, for example, how can we make sure our research is representative and inclusive if we are only speaking to 5 people? How can we recruit users to speak to?

I’ll share some resources below to help with some common questions I’m spotting in the Workbook — please keep sharing your reflections and notes in your Workbook after each mentoring session so we can continue to spot where we can provide extra support.

A space to write reflections on mentoring sessions in the Discovery Phase Workbook

Resources:

• There are lots of resources in the Resource Hub to support with planning and delivering your user research, including how to deliver inclusive research, and how to be trauma-informed when delivering research
• Hear reflections how to ensure your research is representative and inclusive from one of the service design experts at Deloitte during the User Research Workshop. It can be helpful to acknowledge that 5 people cannot be truly representative of everyone’s views — but it is a good start. Speaking to 5 users will help you learn more about the challenge, you can always do more rounds of research later if you feel their are gaps in your insight — give it a go!
• We’ve created a social media template to help charities invite users to participate in their user research
• There are some great weeknotes on how you can use your grant to help make your research more inclusive, including reflections from Priscilla at Family Lives on offering a voucher to thank people for their time

P.S. I’m writing weeknotes for Deloitte Digital Connect, a programme run in partnership with Deloitte which connects charities and social enterprises with digital expertise and advice. Read more about how to start writing weeknotes, find a template that works for you (I’m trying out ‘The good, the bad and the ugly’), set aside 30 minutes — and go for it!