Showcasing 3 projects from 2023 to 2024 where I worked closely with my team to ensure our work, from research plans, to the activities, analysis and recommendations met their requirements and made a difference to their websites.
Overview
19 user interviews
across 3 projects, covering different audience types via semi-structured interviews created for each one
12 user journeys
6 complete mappings for UNICEF, 3 each for Cats Protection and The Freedom Fund, including improvement recommendations for each
15+ activities
including workshop facilitation for each project, strategic OKRs, tree test studies, surveys and more
My team’s most recent project, UNICEF Ireland’s website discovery started in the spring of 2024 with the mandate of gathering insights into stakeholder and user needs in order to create a new website that not only supports UNICEF Ireland’s mission and beneficiaries, but that also raises awareness of the very important work the organisation carries out in Ireland.
The project started with my team’s strategist working with the client by facilitating a workshop to define the Objectives and measurable results the website needs to provide. This helps provide the research focus and align the scope with the client’s expectations. From here, the research activity took off with:
Complete research plan: we suggested a number of internal stakeholder workshops in order to gain insights as to content production and day to day operation of the website’s CMS, we also recommended conducting a tree test study, user interviews and the mapping of a number of user journeys.
Research management: my team created a research board using the Miro platform where research insights are recorded and activity planning takes place. This is useful for myself and other members of the team to keep informed of the progress of the project and for me to prepare regular feedback meetings where we review activity planning, analysis and questions from the team.
Research activities: stakeholder workshop facilitation planning, discussion points and outcomes are similarly recorded in Miro to keep working on them once end-user research is available. Each end-user research activity has a specific outcome in the form of a deliverable and/or a report.
Interviews, User Journey mapping and Tree test: I worked closely with my team to complete the thematic analysis of the interviews, data analysis of the tree test study and fine-tune and add recommendations to the user journey mapping. A large part of this is approaching the analysis with other points of view, challenging assumptions and asking questions that we then collaboratively discuss and resolve together.
Team-wide generative meetings: I also chaired a number of team-wide meetings including designers, project management and developers in order to discuss the insights from research, solutions we want to propose to the client, alongside additional aspects that will also impact the final user experience and/or the health of the project – including technical feasibility, budget, deadlines, visual language, UI design, third party integrations and more.
The next steps for my team are to consolidate the insights of the research and those generative meetings into a client presentation, a set of wireframes and a project blueprint document with user stories that will help us communicate to the client what our research has identified and what our team of experts propose for their new site, using storytelling an helpful visuals to drive the points across.
It’s feedback like this that inspires us to continue aiming for better.
“I really found the meeting very helpful and this feedback comes also from the other people involved. I liked the good method and Jack’s facilitation was great”
UNICEF Ireland’s feedback on the OKRs workshop led by the team’s strategist in April 2024.
Cats Protection commissioned the agency I was the Head of Strategy, UX Research and Design at to conduct user research and generate recommendations in the form of wireframes, designs and functional documentation so their existing website partner could improve their existing website.
Using a very similar framework as mentioned for the UNICEF Ireland project above, we created a research plan that also included stakeholder workshops, usability and accessibility audits,tree test studies, user interviews and user journey mapping.
The interviews focused on 2 main target audiences: supporters (which included donors, fundraisers, members and volunteers) and cat adopters (including current and prospective types). We used a semi-structured interview format to gather insights as to the motivations of those users to engage with Cats Protection, their experiences with the organisation and their website, and what needs and pain points needed addressing going forward. Each interview guide was tailored first for the specific group and then tweaked for each participant to better address their characteristics.
My team and I use Miro throughout Discovery to share insights, research planning, analysis and feedback. This helps us both stay up to date and prepare for internal discussions.
At the end of the research part, and after reviewing all the insights and reports, and working with my team to draw the recommendations for the different areas of the website we had investigated, the UX researcher who was most involved in the work presented the insights and recommendations to their website team, with my assistance in the meeting. We took the opportunity to welcome questions and initial feedback and provided the client with the presentation to further elaborate on their feedback and provide additional questions and discussion points before we progressed to the wireframes and designs.
During the next stages, I kept working with my team as design exploration started and UI design started to progress, incorporating all the research insights into the visual outputs of the new website. I led on the presentation of those insights to their team as well as an overall presentation of the project, from research to design, to the client’s senior management team.
We present user journeys alongside their user stories to provide context and an overview to very complex, detailed outputs.
Updates to the Cats Protection website following our recommendations are currently in progress, tied to deadlines of their website partner and internal teams.
The Freedom Fund
My team and I worked on the Freedom Fund project in 2023 with the aim to engage internal stakeholders and external audiences in different research activities so we could understand what they needed from the website, how organisation and user needs overlapped and how their experiences of the website could be improved through our recommendations.
Following a similar framework as described in the two projects above, I created a research plan including stakeholder workshops, user interviews and surveys, user journey mapping and persona empathy mapping.
My team and I carried out the different research activities, using the research boards in Miro to consolidate and share our findings, as well as peer review each other’s activity planning, analysis and recommendations. A number of meetings and discussions helped us deliver a comprehensive presentation of the insights and recommendations to key stakeholders, and go on to work with designers to translate those insights into the visual outputs of their new website.
Executive summaries and top level overviews are helpful to introduce complex concepts and discuss recommendations in short presentation meetings, especially with the wider organisation.
I’m a seasoned user experience researcher with a passion for understanding the needs of end-users and organisations in order to deliver inclusive, accessible, purposeful, user-centric, business-aware digital solutions.
I worked with Turn2us to improve their website’s user experience in areas like accessibility, mobile usability, and navigation. Through extensive research, we gathered insights from diverse users and provided recommendations for improvements.
Anna Alabau Uxer 