Research
Understanding your users and their needs is the first step towards designing useful, usable information and services.
Understanding users and their needs should be part of the discovery stage for all digital projects. The research approach and methods may differ slightly, but the core intention is the same; to put people at the centre of what we do and give them information and services that help them complete their business with government quickly and easily.
User research is central to overlapping fields like:
- Service design
- Content design
- Experience design
- User experience (UX)
- Customer experience (CX)
Practitioners in these fields have different lenses, but are all focused on providing the best possible experience, and outcome for their customers and end users.
Part of the challenge of conducting good research is knowing who your users are, and testing ideas and designs with representative people.
Principle 1 of the Digital Service Design Standard requires anyone designing or providing government information and services to identify your users and understand their ongoing needs.
Benefits
When you understand your users before you begin designing, you're more likely to build a product that meets their needs.
Users get what they want more quickly and easily. They are:
- happier with the interaction
- less likely to need to call offices or need extensive support to get through processes or find what they need.
Good research practices, and thoughtful recruiting will also help ensure more accessible information and services.
Detailed advice
Service design tools
Use these tools to help you test ideas and products with real users so you design services that work for people.
Research report: All-of-government mindsets
Check out the research into all-of-government mindsets that will help you understand who is looking for government services.
Blogs posts about research for design and UX
Read blog posts about the research across the New Zealand government landscape.
Utility links and page information
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