At first…

From working with the User Experience Research (UXR) team I was able to undergo user research in a way I never would have been able to through online studies alone. At first, I was brought into an ongoing project that involved promoting travel around Newcastle. I was brought into a task in which the team were creating user personas and mapping out services that could potentially be involved in the product. It was here that I realised that UXR isn’t just usability tests and actually involves a lot of creative thinking and aspects of service design. 

Landscape mapping, competitor analysis and designing...

From this point, I became involved with a number of different projects as well as the aforementioned travel project. I started work on projects based in a number of different industries - from pet food to social media, to charities. Here I underwent a number of tasks involving landscape mapping of the industries, competitor analysis and researching service designs of products, both already existing and services that could potentially be included in the product we were working on. I also helped in writing up a response to a tender put out by the Wellcome trust in which we were given strict guidelines as to how we would go about conducting research into topics regarding the research into climate change and its effects on various communities.

Research

I also conducted research into very specific areas for certain projects. For example, one piece of research I conducted was on how gamification would be implemented into social media, specifically using a skill tree style system. Here I began to map out the use of skill trees within both games and within a learning environment to gain an understanding of how to appropriately implement it within a social media setting. After gathering this information and building an understanding of how the feature is used in different settings, I then began to propose ways of using skills trees within the product we were working on. Again, this showed me that research isn’t just research, it's much more - its service design and creative thinking as well, it is flexible and agile working.

Usability sessions and thematic analysis...

I was also given the opportunity to conduct usability sessions using a prototype of a live project we were working on and conduct a thematic analysis and report after this. Having never conducted a usability session I admittedly was nervous going into it. I had spent hours reading up on how to conduct these sessions throughout my previous studies but without the benefit of having a live commercial platform to conduct in on, I never would have been able to do it. So, I knew it was my chance to really take the next step in my internship and show my capabilities as a researcher.

Using a recording tool called Lookback, I asked participants to show me how they would use the prototype to achieve 3 different tasks in order to measure usability. At the end of the session, I also asked them questions on their opinion of the overall look and feel of the prototype and any other final thoughts they had on their experience with it.

At this point I began to create a report on the findings, highlighting the common likes and dislikes and how we could use both the qualitative and quantitative data to inform future designs of the product. As well as this I used Figma to demonstrate visual concepts for new and/or improved features of the product so my team members could understand and visualise how these informed changes would look within the product itself, rather than being left to imagine it themselves.

Cross-departmental collaboration...

With any work within the ‘UX industry’ so to speak, it is ideal that each department works together to create a meaningful product. This internship gave me the opportunity to do exactly that. I was given the platform to work directly with product owners and designers to deliver research and design ideas to assist them in developing MVPs, prototypes and even inform designs of specific features in certain products themselves. 

However, it also allowed me to see how different departments work and where my strengths lie in regard to both UXR and the wider company. I was able to develop my communication and presentation skills by showing others the meaning and importance of UXR within each phase of a products life cycle, as well as develop my skills in building relationships on a professional and personal level as well. Being able to have good relationships with product owners, designers and researchers alike truly allowed me to learn from each and every one of them to a level otherwise impossible.

Because I was able to experience and be a part of this agile, collaborative style of working, I was able to identify my interests in service design as well as research. After building solid relationships with others in the company, I was able to see what product owners work on, how they do this and how research overlaps with their work. Here I began to develop an interest in product ownership and furthermore, service design.

Overall…

I now have a greater understanding of the importance of empathy and communication in interactions with others on a commercial team and on a departmental level. The internship has also enabled me to refine and improve my approach to user research, effectively collaborate with a full design team as well as work with a range of national and international clients. I am able to adapt to different client’s needs based on their levels of understanding of user-centred design and the discovery process.