Engaging community groups in user research
Hi, I’m Tim from Bath and North East Somerset council. If you’ve been following our journey you’ll know that we have been trying different methods of user research to try and find a blend of approaches that we can use depending on what we are trying to research. You can read more about the different types of user research and when to use them here.
In sprint 12 we visited Community @ 67 in Keynsham, a local volunteer led community centre which provides a programme activities for adults and children. We visited their regular Friday morning Internet Cafe so that we could get them to test new content for bus passes and community transport.
We had a number of research goals for each area that we wanted to test. We had introduced an eligibility checker for a disabled person’s bus pass, and replaced a pdf of eligibility dates with a link to the gov.uk online checker for an older person’s pass. The goals were to see whether people could easily understand the eligibility criteria for disabled passes, and easily use the gov.uk age checker. We also wanted to see whether people searched for the Diamond Travelcard brand or something else, and whether they would be prepared to apply online for this — a feature that we don’t currently offer.
With the community transport prototype we had replaced a table of services on the current site with some filters that enabled you to search for a scheme geographically. We wanted to test whether people understood the filters and were able to find the information they needed. We also wanted to understand what they searched for, and whether they would follow links to scheme’s websites or just call the number from our site.
There were five sessions in total, and we tested across the digital skills spectrum. In the past when we have tested we have often seen our design assumptions proved right. On this occasion the testing revealed that users struggled with the geographic filters for finding community transport schemes. It wasn’t clear whether the location was for where they were going to or coming from. They also found it hard to see whether a particular scheme was suitable for them, often choosing a scheme that would not meet their needs. It became apparent that we would need to revisit our filters to focus on journey type first.
We also found that the brand Diamond Travelcard is not what people search for when looking for information on bus passes. This backed up what we had learnt through Google Trends. The eligibility checker was generally well received, and among the people we tested with there was an appetite for online bus pass applications.
For more on our results see our slide deck. Next up we’ll be talking about how we try to make sure our new site will be accessible and meet new regulations on accessibility.
