Its been a week dominated by user research logistics, which is a bit of a throwback for me. My past few years have been slightly removed from this process either through the type of role I’ve been in (not directly doing research) or through the type of people I was doing research with (direct staff members of the same org) which reduced the overhead of the operations needed.

Its not something I personally enjoy, BUT I do very much recognise the importance of getting it right, for all the important trust, privacy and ethical reasons.

Related to conversations around research planning, I ended up penning some thoughts internally about the role of design research and responses to common queries or concerns from well-intentioned stakeholders. You can read my thoughts on justifying a design research approach. I’d also love to hear/see all the references you might have that make similar points.

I’ve also REALLY enjoyed (when I’ve got the chance in-between writing lots of research docs) diving into designing and critiquing a thing. Working as a little Interaction, content and service design trio to spin up a prototype. Its been a welcome break from more ‘transformation’ style consultancy and I think super helpful in building credibility, creating momentum and making difficult conversations tangible. Exactly what good prototypes should be doing.

I’m off to finish watching ‘Jim Henson: The idea man’ now. Would recommend.