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Research Plan and Log of Activities
The product design and development efforts of the TTA Smart Hub team (a partnership of OHS, 18F and Ad Hoc) will adhere to Human-Centered Design (HCD) practices and agile user research methodologies. The common thread between both frameworks is a strong focus on the needs of our users, whose feedback is gathered and incorporated at consistent intervals throughout the product lifecycle. HCD methods provide a repeatable process for gathering feedback from stakeholders and converting that feedback into designs, requirements, and ultimately, application enhancements that address verified needs.
Usability research names the research we will do with the end users of the TTA Smart Hub (see "The User Base") to validate that our product works well for them and contributes positively to their efforts to ensure the success of Head Start grantees. Our usability research will take a two-pronged approach:
- Evaluative: we will conduct usability testing of the latest capabilities added to the product to ensure they meet user needs.
- Generative: we will conduct usability sessions using designs that have not yet been added to the product to gather directional feedback that will help us build out the product roadmap well into the future.
Usability sessions will include both quantitative and qualitative activities. This mixed-method approach includes the following:
- Listening Sessions
- Panel Discussions
- Quantitative Surveys
- Card sorts / tree tests
- 1:1 interviews
- Usability sessions
Regardless of the type of activity, all of these usability sessions focus on testing an experience, not just a specific page or feature. In other words, we'll work with users to understand their experience of workflows that they regularly perform. These workflows may include steps they perform outside of our product; understanding these outside steps is critical to ensuring we understand their lived experience of the product as just one of many tools they use to accomplish their work.
Given the size and diversity of the product's user base, we can't ensure that each and every user experience will be tested before the first release or before any subsequent release. Acknowledging this pragmatic reality, we will prioritize testing experiences that pose the greatest risk to our product's success. Typically, a riskier experience is one that has a large number of unanswered questions or that is known to be highly complex. For experiences we deem less risky, we’ll use best practices in design principles to move designs forward. For instance, the USWDS website provides proven design components that developers can use for free and with confidence that they meet accessibility and usability requirements.
To ensure we have access to a representative sampling of users, we are building a research panel that lists participants, their roles, and their contact information. Knowing that many of the participants we contact are vendors and/or just plain busy, we are building this panel with input from CORs and managers. We have a research operations process that ensures that TTA leadership is aware of and approves all of contact points with our users.
The output of usability sessions will be recommended changes to the product that the team will then turn into user stories and designs that can be implemented by the development team. Once implemented, the new product features may (dependent on the risk evaluation described above) be put through the hopper of usability research again, either in the immediate wake of its release or at a later time, when changed circumstances or knowledge warrant retesting.
The Design Partners Team...
Regional Research Roadshows September 16-30, 2020 12 60-min webinars Goals: Virtual handshake with each Region Learn nuances of each Region Describe current trends and gaps in TTA Reporting Outcomes: Research Initiatives Mural Board User Story Generation Mural Board List of participants for upcoming user research