Lessons Learned From My Time In Government UX Research
This article was originally posted on my Medium page. It's dedicated to the amazing team I worked with at LAHRL (Helmi Hisserich, Liam Casey, and Paul Ballesteros) as well my colleague and friend Alex M. White, without whose gentle encouragement I may never have finished this article. Thanks y’all!
My first real UX research job was doing discovery research for a grant-funded government project focused on affordable housing in Los Angeles, called the LA Housing Research Library (LAHRL).
Being a newbie user research team of one on a project as complex and important as LAHRL presented a significant challenge on it’s own. This was further complicated by the fact that going into the project, I knew almost nothing about housing development or LA’s government. Here are some of the most important things I learned along the way.
When doing user research in an enterprise or government environment:
If possible, find a comprehensive reference for the acronyms and lingo used in the system. Go through it at the outset of the project, but also keep it handy and reference it frequently throughout the project. Usually, things you didn’t understand at first will become easier to process with context. (A reference might not always exist. If it doesn’t, make your own as you go along.)
This is especially relevant for systems that are closer to enterprise than consumer-facing: Let your research participants know that your job is simply to understand what they do and learn how to make their life easier. This serves a dual purpose because people can be skeptical of the value of ux research work, thinking “Why do I need to participate in this research?”, and it can also curb suggestions about specific interface features when you are only in the discovery phase of a project.
When doing exploratory user research with subject matter experts, don’t be afraid to ask follow up questions about things they say, even if you feel stupid. It’s much better to ask for clarification in the moment and fully understand the point being made, than to try and piece it together after the fact.
Me to a senior manager at the housing department, in an early research session. (They were referring to the city’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance, which is an ordinance designed to protect tenants from unfair rent increases.
Some general things I learned as a new researcher on a research team of one:
Don’t hesitate to adapt methods to fit your needs. There are unique challenges to every research project and the methodologies you learned about might not always work out of the box. For this project, I ran workshops that were half task-analysis and half advisory session because we needed to understand user’s needs to develop the right tool, and to get their feedback on how we should run our org’s operations.
Get help from your colleagues in conducting research, even if they’re not researchers. Our team of 4 consisted of a researcher (me), a project manager, an assistant project manager, and an archivist. My boss Helmi’s connections across the city were invaluable in helping me get access to the very specific group of busy people we needed as participants. Our other team members, Liam and Paul, supported the research process throughout in helping with scheduling, setup and notetaking. Having them involved not only took logistical work off my plate, it helped expose them to the research and get them more on board with the HCD process from the outset.
Be comfortable with being uncomfortable. You won’t know everything right away and that’s ok.