Designing a Research Dashboard

Goal: To develop an insightful research dashboard for a user research team.

Timeline: 1 month for a minimum viable product

^1/5 Who is the User?

Persona: David, the user researcher. 

My goal is to design an insightful research dashboard so I can continuously improve my service delivery to clients and research candidates. 

The barriers/ frustrations that currently exist are:

• I spend a lot of time recreating research artefacts or tracking down templates in Google Drive folders. 
• Since research data is stored in Google Drive folders I cannot measure my performance on a monthly basis. 
• Candidate feedback from research goals is distant from the research data generated. One exists in an excel sheet or Google form, the other in a research debrief deck. 
• Learnings from research activities and study are distant from each other. Synthesis of learning materials could bridge this gap.
• Linking research activities in an excel sheet is inefficient because of the separation between projects and clients. 
• Ultimately, I spend a lot of time measuring my professional development.

^2/5 What tasks do I wish to achieve with the research dashboard?

• Store

1. Research artefacts
2. Research data

• Create

1. Research Projects
2. Research Sprints
3. Research artefacts
4. Synth10

• Learn

1. Books and journal article
2. Synth10
3. Experiments

• Track

1. Research competency
2. Research project performance

1. Communicate

1. Notify researchers of their competence every month.
2. Notify researchers when new artefacts are created.
3. Notify researchers when a new book/ journal article is added.
4. Notify researchers when a new synth10 is created.
5. Notify researchers when a new course is created.
6. Notify researchers when a new client is onboarded. 

^3/5 What is the hierarchy of tasks?

We gathered the priority of the tasks based on the results from a form and the frequency of tasks. The results were as follows:

1. Create
2. Store
3. Track
4. Learn
5. Communicate

Create and Store

We compared spreadsheets and word documents created for various projects and identified a pattern that confirmed the need for linked data. The most ideal direction to take was to design an easy-to-use and interactive database. The ideal bet was Notion due to its modular nature. 

We grouped the actions based on the update and use frequency as follows:

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Tracking

Using a database helped the team quantify and link their work. However, it was important to communicate these metrics with the right priority. After sending out a form, the average response indicated that projects are measured by the quantity and quality of user engagements in user research activities. On the other hand, professional development would be best measured by the number of courses created and articles written. These two followed a deep emphasis on higher-order thinking.

Learn

The primary ways team members developed professionally were through daily reading, writing and experiments. The digital library lacked rich metadata to help users pick the right material that met their needs. To counter this we included additional fields such as summary, rating and reader’s notes to enrich the decision-making process. 

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Using the COM-B model we identified Opportunity as the bottleneck towards a writing culture. The team members were using Evernote as their note-taking application. To reduce the friction between opening Notion to type their article, we connected Zapier to their Evernote notebook ensuring they had full control over which notebooks to share. This automated the process by posting their notes on Notion directly. 

To allow collaboration in experiments, we created an updateable database of experiments. This also identified opportunities for mature experiments with a strong business case to develop into products or features. 

Communicate

Communication occupied a high visual position on the landing page due to the critical nature of the task. It was noted that updates to the research dashboard were more visible if posted on the dashboard instead of common messaging applications such as Slack, Teams or WhatsApp. 

To provide a similar experience to commonly used messaging applications, we included a notification sound.

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Client and Project Onboarding

Users in the team registered a frustration in identifying project stakeholders, contact persons for clients and project details. To streamline this, linking projects to clients was paramount and the ease of use was key to limiting the friction.

We created templates that included variables and long text for company background strategies and meeting notes. 

^4/5 Research Repository

The research repository borrowed from the templates on the team’s spreadsheets, research brief and UX practitioners in the industry. The objectives and metrics of the project were critical and required a high level of visibility. The project phases limited the errors that the team members would make when initiating and executing research sprints. 

^5/5 Lessons Learned

1. Research dashboards are living products that require an active engagement with the team to enhance their experience. 
2. Reduce friction using automation where possible. 
3. Autofill is an important feature where documentation is repetitive. 
4. Reports on spreadsheets and word documents reveal the mental models in a process.
5. Linking is more natural and powerful for knowledge management than directories as seen in file storage. 
6. Ask your research candidates how their day is going. It humanizes them and leaves them better than you found them. 
7. Experiment, experiment and experiment. No amount of theoretical ideas can be verified without real user interaction.

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