I often worked on projects requiring a pulse check from a particular group. Knowing how to survey your target audience can mean the difference between good or biased data. The first image, to the right, shows the progression of one survey from draft to the final implementation in Microsoft Forms.

The goal of this particular survey was to determine help-seeking behavior. I worked with the stakeholders of an academic division to better understand how faculty got help and if they had confusion between the help offered by the central technology office and the division’s in-house technology assistance.

Working in a collaborative document allowed me to easily solicit feedback, refine, and finalize the survey. Once ready, I input it as a Microsoft Form to deploy. I reviewed, compiled and presented results to both the division stakeholders and to my team. This survey showed a majority preference for working with the division’s technology assistance over the university-wide IT office. This informed signage and MOUs for how different units across campus should work together to best serve the clients

Planning research: usability testing

Usability testing is a great way to find pain points in an interface. It’s also important to test proposed changes to make sure they actually make a task easier or user flow better. Being prepared for research requires a plan that includes the schedule, participant recruiting plan, and overarching questions to answer. Task selection can be set up in a conversation guide to set up specific interactions, and makes sure sessions progress in a similar manner. It’s also important to take the research through a trial run to find any issues and ensure timing estimates are reasonable. In this particular usability research I pinpointed troubles that professors frequently encountered while controlling classroom technology. With the usability data in hand, I successfully requested UI changes to the touch screen interfaces from our team engineers.

Presenting research: visuals

It’s important to present information in a way that is easily digestible to the audience. Visuals help tell a compelling story about the data - how it connects, why it’s important.

I designed this deliverable based on data collected from several individual and group sessions with faculty, staff, and deans. My objective was to gain feedback on each division’s upcoming technology, needs, and goals. This work helped my team in the centralized technology office understand how to best allocate technology resources. This themes map shows the connection between broader goals of one division at the center, and fans out to more concrete projects or purchases they are most interested in