Talk for Citizen Beta meet up 30 June 2015

1. Leisa Reichelt
Head of User Research, Government Digital Service
GDS

2. hello.
GDS@leisa

3. Our aim is to make
services so good,
people prefer to use them
through a radical focus on
user needs not govt needs
GDS@leisa

4. everyone is
talking about
user needs.

5. GDS@leisa
https://www.gov.uk/designprinciples

6. GDS@leisa

7. GDSLeisa

9. but what exactly
is a user need?

10. ‘You Keep Using That Word. I Do Not Think It Means
What You Think It Means’ - Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

11. Well understood
and clearly stated
user needs
are the bedrock of
service design

12. Evolving our understanding
of user needs.
GDS@leisa

13. user needs are stable
the jobs people need to do when they
have to interact with government
don’t change much over time.

14. how we meet those needs
is less stable.
policy, services, technology.

15. user needs come from the
lived experience of real
people.
they are not customised to
a project or a department

16. And so these men of Hindustan disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion, exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right
And all were in the wrong.

17. "We have to remember that
what we observe is not
nature in itself, but nature
exposed to our method of
questioning."
- Werner Heisenberg

19. Discovery:
what’s the user need?

20. contextual research:
what do people
do now?

21. Homes
GDSGDSLeisa Reichelt

22. Pop up research
GDSGDSLeisa Reichelt
Markets

23. Libraries
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24. Remote
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25. Laboratory
GDSGDSLeisa Reichelt

29. Use Indi Young’s
Mental Models
research methodology
and visual output to
standardise maps of
user needs &
organisational
responses.
GDS@leisa

30. words matter

31. ‘As a PAYE taxpayer I want to
understand how to calculate
my tax code so that I can make
sure I’m on the right tax code’
GDS@leisa

32. ‘As a PAYE taxpayer I want to
make sure I’m on the right tax
code so that I pay the right
amount of tax’
GDS@leisa

33. ‘As a PAYE taxpayer I want
to make sure paying the
right amount of tax so I have
the most money to live on.’
GDSLeisa Reichelt

35. GDS

36. GDS

37. GDS
Plan (and budget) to do
user research.
User needs are not a ‘nice to have’

38. To really waste time and
money all you need to do is
build a service nobody
wants and nobody can use
- John Waterworth

39. thank you.
@leisa