In this blog, I’ve partnered with San Basnayake, a software engineer from our iSolutions team, to share insights on how our effective collaboration drives better outcomes, strategic breakthroughs, and enhanced accessibility for all users.

The importance of dialogue

Following a recent show and tell, we were asked how much communication was required to achieve this outcome. The answer is, always, A LOT! I’d say that 80% of our time is about communication.

We’ve seen it many times before: simply sending over static files during the initial design handover stage can lead to confusion and missed opportunities. It’s crucial to facilitate dialogues to prevent this.

One clear example is our discussion about the scalability of components, such as our block card system, which currently accommodates 3 cards. Let’s be honest, users’ needs change over time, as do the needs of the business. So, what if we needed to add more down the line? By discussing scalability early on, we can anticipate future technical requirements. Designers can provide insights into the rationale behind design decisions, while developers like San can propose optimisations to ensure smooth functionality.

This collaborative approach from the outset helps us create a more adaptable product capable of evolving without extensive revisions.

Enhancing design clarity

When immediate discussions aren’t possible, we start by sharing Figma designs for developers to review asynchronously. To enhance clarity, we use annotations to provide additional context to our design files. Personally, I’ve found Figma’s Dev Mode invaluable for labelling and clarifying variables. We’ve also recently integrated Stark, a useful Figma plugin that streamlines the annotation of elements such as tab order, landmarks, and ARIA labels. These tools are instrumental in providing engineers like San with the necessary context to quickly grasp design specifics.

Additionally, screen recording is an invaluable tool for designers. It allows us to conduct detailed walkthroughs of the design file, which can then be shared as a resource across the team for future reference.

Welcoming feedback during development

Collaboration shouldn’t be limited to the UX and development team. Feedback and engagement from the whole Digital User Experience team is welcome. Take our content designers, for instance: they recently faced a user interface (UI) issue in Drupal where they had to scroll down the entire page to find the section they needed to edit.

By working together and discussing the problem, we came up with a solution: a left-hand menu for easier navigation. This small but effective fix made a big difference and showed how teamwork can enhance the overall user experience.

Screen-sharing for enhanced UX/Dev accessibility work

As we get to the final stages of the UX/Dev handover, screen-sharing sessions become crucial. San and I often use screen sharing to go through content management in the live environment and make sure all accessibility features—like landmarks, ARIA labels, and focus states—are correct.

And it’s not just a one-time thing; we use screen sharing throughout the process. San’s ability to make quick UI changes on the spot allows us to catch any issues early on and make necessary adjustments in real-time. Due to our restricted access to the codebase, observing a developer’s screen offers insights that we wouldn’t otherwise have.

Testing

During testing in Pre-Production (PPRD) before releases, we uncover any bugs and simulate the end-user experience. As humans, we’re prone to making mistakes and overlooking things, so having another person’s perspective is essential. Knowledge sharing is key: UX designers know site components well, so we’re able to efficiently cross-check areas that might’ve been affected, while engineers’ backend expertise ensures smooth integration and performance. This thorough testing phase ensures our site is ready for launch, minimising the risk of potential issues when live.

Testing occurs continuously and extends beyond the release phase. We regularly assess the UI and functionality of our site, utilising JIRA as our ticketing system to address any issues promptly. This approach ensures the ongoing upkeep of our website, encompassing both our code base and design system.

Recently, we encountered an inconsistency with fonts: while our design system specified only 4 fonts, the code base included over 60. This discrepancy resulted in slower loading times and a cluttered backend. Upon San’s feedback, we standardised the fonts across the code base and design system to resolve the issue.

This brings us to another important issue…

Maintenance and continuous improvement

In the world of design and engineering, not all tasks are created equal. In the words of Kurt Vonnegut: “Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build, and nobody wants to do maintenance.”

We design, we prototype, we work with end-users and the business to ensure we create something better and more valuable to what was there before. Anything that falls into the category of ‘new stuff’ or ‘innovation’ always feels a lot more exciting. Maintenance and continuous improvements are undervalued, but they are most important – because they tend to offer more value to the end user and ultimately the organisation.

I enjoy pairing with engineers and other disciplines such as user researchers, content designers, and product experts because it allows us to have a conversation about design choices. It helps to reason my decisions and what considerations we’re making for any future iterations, whether they are design-orientated or more technical aspects of the product. This knowledge helps us, as a team, to build empathy with one another and a more supportive environment.

Final thoughts

Effective UX and engineering collaboration goes beyond traditional handoffs. By maintaining open communication, anticipating future needs, and conducting thorough final checks, teams create adaptable, user-friendly products that align with strategic goals. Embracing this approach ensures systems evolve alongside user needs and business objectives.

There is a lot more to say on this topic. One thing that I would like to echo is that it makes a lot of good business sense. Many practitioners would advocate for this kind of ongoing collaborative work – it’s better for your users, and better for the organisation’s reputation. In its own way, it also supports innovation.

This meant a lot to us, because a few years ago user research and design insights were not used to drive strategic outcomes at our university. Following our latest win, I was asked by a number of people from inside and outside the higher education sector to explain how we managed to establish user research and other human-centred functions more widely, given the cultural challenges often encountered at universities. I was also asked about the difference it made over time.

For context, I work at the University of Southampton (UoS) where I head the Digital User Experience function. It includes human-centred design disciplines (content design, UX and interaction design, user research) as well as performance, product and delivery disciplines.

Diagram 1: our disciplines work together

Like many other higher education institutions, Southampton is a complex organisation, with strategic objectives that span research, education, and enterprise. It is also a Russell Group university, research intensive university and while it is gazing towards the future, it also embraces its heritage, which occasionally provides an interesting viewpoint when looking at generating a change.

None of what I am going to describe here was easy (sorry, not sorry ). I view it with a philosophical lens: it is an evolutionary process rather than a revolutionary one. It is a journey through an ever-changing landscape that has no end because complex organisations have complex ecosystems that require careful navigation over time, and nothing ever stays the same.
This blog post is about some steps and lessons learned along the way if you are thinking of setting up user research and design disciplines in your organisation.

Lesson 1: genuine commitment to learning supported by a vision

Learning about people who use your products and services is an organisational commitment. The same applies to putting frameworks in place that allow teams to succeed.

As a starting point and beautifully coined by : “If your organization isn’t prepared to learn, it doesn’t matter how much research you do”.

In 2019, we embarked on our digital transformation journey and the was born. There were two key principles at its core: adoption of a human-centred approach, and agile working practices. The mandate was to find the overlapping value between what the University requires and what the end-user needs, starting with the website. Fundamentally, the OneWeb programme was about investing to achieve defined target outcomes.

In reality, an organisation needs to buy results and it accesses those results by implementing the practice. In this case, it is human or user-based research and design. In order to learn about the people who visit our website, we had to take on the first step towards building empathy. Empathy starts with user research…

As many of you know, user research gives you the opportunity to speak to, observe, and/or hear from your target audiences, giving you first-hand insight into who they are, the problems they encounter, and what they might need from the product you’re designing.

It’s fair to say that at the time, and even occasionally now years later, there is still a fundamental misunderstanding about user research, what it is, how long it takes and why you should do it (but let’s not digress – this is a whole topic for another blog post!). Luckily for me, at the time, the organisation was prepared to buy the results of this approach at scale, even though it perhaps didn’t fully understand the methodology itself.

My team researched, investigated and designed a lot of core services with end users, involving hundreds of stakeholders along the way. What we discovered and validated is different audiences’ needs and how they’re linked to one another from an end user’s unique perspective. This is the underpinning blueprint to the journeys people want to take, which in return help meet university objectives. Win-win.

The key lesson is that user research and human-centred disciplines do not happen in vacuum. You need to get commitment from the top, mandate to operate in this way and understand the competitive advantage it can serve the wider organisation longer-term. In all honesty, mandate and commitment has wavered at times, and this is why it is clear to me how vital it is for delivering useful results. There has to be a strategic intent as it needs hooking directly to a strategy, policy and standards, or at the very minimum – have agreements in place. And in order to deliver return on investment, you need some clear targets or well-defined benefits you are going to achieve by implementing the practice.

Lesson 2: pairing team members with experienced practitioners

When you secure commitments, knowledge transfer is the next important component of our ways of working. Initially we invested in bringing in experienced user researchers, content designers and other professionals who paired with members of the team or interns that learned the ropes, methodology and were able to put their knowledge into practice. I also looked internally where I could find talent, such as career services or working directly with the heads of schools in academic areas of related disciplines, for example, psychology, software engineering, languages, game design to name but a few.

In the background I worked with my new friends in Human Resources (HR) and finance on setting up disciplines that were brand new to the organisation, including user research, UX and interaction design, as well as budgets to fund these roles.

On a practical level this meant creating discipline pathways, getting job descriptions written, and getting them graded via panels. All of it had to be done quickly because of annual budgets, plus it’s hard to go to market and find people that were skilled to get the job done. This was a huge undertaking and a challenge especially when the pandemic hit the world.

Recruitment is always rather challenging due to market conditions. At that time, it meant salaries were high, the market favoured contract jobs rather than permanent roles and skilled people were in shortage.

It was a risk to what we might be able to deliver in the programme’s timeframes because your budget can only go so far and there was a lot to do. Also, the organisation will only have a certain amount of patience for the benefits it’s waiting for and this is not always something that is easy to gauge.

My strategy for recruitment was always about ‘growing my own (talent)’. It was also about spotting existing talent in people who might not have had the opportunity to work in a particular field but demonstrated transferable skills and a healthy attitude to learning. In some places I took calculated risks by appealing to potential prospects in different ways. Money and job security is important as basic hygiene conditions, but equally important is the culture and type of work you build in teams.

I strongly believe that if you adhere to these core principles, you are likely to yield results and build an organisational competency longer-term that many overlook in support of short-term gains. We had some great successes with internships, something that I am keen to carry on and develop further. I believe that it’s important to give people opportunities as it’s hard to get a break in these disciplines.Taking the principle of knowledge transfer from OneWeb, finding talent that would want to learn and pursue this as a career path, develop them in-house ‘on the job’ was, and still is, the key game in town. This was fundamental to not only the user research discipline, but also to others.

My advice is to get clear on what you really want to accomplish with disciplines’ time and skills, articulate clearly what kind of team culture you are looking to build and encourage people with similar ethos to apply for jobs. You also need patience, drive and tenacity to see your vision through.

Oh – and make friends with your HR and Finance colleagues because that will determine how quickly you are able to get wonderful people embedded in your team!

Lesson 3: setting up teams for success

This is where your promise needs to live up to expectations you’ve set. It’s also where frameworks, tools and processes come into their own. Research Operations (ResearchOps) is so much more than just getting in user researchers. It is about a shift in mindset across all disciplines and training everyone from the ground up.

To start with, when recruiting or developing our team culture, everyone has to care about the people who are using our services. A culture of empathy is needed to ensure we translate various points of views around common grounds. We need to enable a two-way street with our users and the organisation so we build a shared appreciation. Basically, empathy is the bridge, and let’s face it – there isn’t enough of it in the world, so I think it is a pretty good idea! It is also about opening our work and methodology to others, including colleagues from the organisation. By doing so, our research, insights and designs are more likely to get accepted in the first place.

Some of the processes, stepping stones and measures that we put in place were a combination of informal and formal elements such as:

• Firstly, setting up heads of disciplines was fundamental and it has two aspects to it. There is an organisational element recognising the need and value (following the transformation programme) and an adoption process. The second part to it is more to do with ‘getting our house in order’ as part of the team. This is important because any leads or heads of discipline will bring their own perspectives and will want to improve how we do things as a discipline and collectively. You need solid foundations for things to work well.
• Documentation of the user needs and making sure these are mapped to journey and performance measures. This is where we use different disciplines to work together and get the best of all worlds: user researchers and performance analysts can be best friends! While performance describes the ‘what’ pretty well, it has a much bigger value when the ‘why’ is explained via qualitative insights. It’s that corroboration of data and insights that makes it meaningful to leadership.
• Ensuring all key processes are done to highest standards such as Data Protection, inclusive user research practices, and ethic approval processes are all in place to enable speedy recruitment when we need to.
• Recruitment of participants can be challenging at times, so internal means of recruitment (as well as external) are very important. Those of us who work for universities are surrounded by options, so talk with other teams/departments, collaborate and find ways to attract and incentivise those you end up talking to!
• Showing our work via informal mechanisms such as show and tell sessions with the delivery teams. We also present and report our work more formally to stakeholders, so they can appreciate the wider perspective that is required to come up with a design.
• The big difference from my point of view is that all colleagues are invited to observe, or take notes in user research sessions. We’ve opened it to members of our community who have a stake in the projects we work on. This proved to be invaluable when stakeholders hear directly from an end user about the specific issues they encountered when trying to use a product on the website. It has not been unusual to hear university colleagues asking whether it would be possible to change something after they directly observe the issues. We’ve also opened up our research and design synthesis sessions with a clear process which our user researchers facilitate to help inform the designs. These help us to show our work and how we arrived at a particular design.

My tip here is it will always be better to show, rather than tell! Always involve others where you can and be clear how insights are communicated widely objectively.

describes it well when he says that “the most significant value that UX can bring to an organisation is to turn everyone into the world’s foremost experts in who their users are and what they need.

To pull that off, you’ll need to conduct research. Research that develops the expertise in who the users are and what the users need.”

For that you need a mindset shift – it needs buy-in, commitment, involvement of others because it is no longer just down to you to be an expert about your users.

Summary

I don’t want to paint the impression that I have all the answers. The reality is that this is a long journey that needs determination because there is always another bend in the road, or a mountain to overcome.

I would also acknowledge that it’s also hard to predict when (any) organisations might lose interest and their patience runs out when you invest time up front in investigating a problem. I get it. This is why you need to get the perceived value for user research, ResearchOps and any other discipline or practice to that effect, as quickly as possible. You also need to continue delivering results as a team to ensure you are renewing the faith of the organisation along the way. That can be hard because tangible impact is what matters most to the organisation.

To win an award was gratifying for all the work to be recognised, but I also acknowledge that there is a lot more to do. All that glitter is well-deserved, but it is not about perfection. This work simply helps us understand what is the actual problem we need to solve for our audiences and how we can do our minimal viable product right, first time round. That in itself brought efficiency, reduced costs longer-term, and brought a competitive advantage.

Understanding your audiences is also a moving target. Our audiences need us to keep up with their needs as they change. That takes commitment. It’s why iterations and continual learning about people is important. User needs shift and change over time, and we need to keep up with that. We have great examples of it and it does help when you take it back in front of the organisation.

From a leadership point of view, any implementation of disciplines, processes and frameworks has to be sustainable and embedded into organisational strategies. Don’t get me wrong – building a strong practice is great and I’m obviously a big advocate of it, but what the organisation buys is results. Showing how your team’s work helps the organisation achieve its aims is time well spent. Like it or not, organisations may never be interested in the practice, but it will always be interested in results.

Hey!

My name is Charisma, and over the past six months I’ve had the incredible opportunity to work as an intern with the digital user experience team at the University of Southampton. It’s been nothing short of enlightening, allowing me to gain hands-on experience in various aspects of user experience (UX) design and research.

Graduation day in front of Winchester Cathedral

I’m excited to share with you what I’ve been up to, the challenges I’ve faced and invaluable lessons I’ve learned during this journey.

My background

Before diving into the details, let me give you a bit of background about myself. I’m a graduate with a degree in Game Design and Art from Winchester School of Art. During my 3-year course, I was introduced to UX design by my first-year lecturer, who also happened to be a User Experience Designer/Researcher.��

Later in my academic journey, between my second and third years of study, I had the opportunity to work alongside her and a small team during a summer internship as a Game Designer. This experience enabled me to collaborate and gain first-hand insight into the world of UX design. That’s when I decided to really dig in and get a better handle on this field.��

Subsequently, I ramped up my commitment to user-centred design. I tackled my final major project with enthusiasm, leveraging UX tools and methodologies to place user needs at the forefront.��

Fast forward a bit, and here I am! Thanks to the incredible network at the University of Southampton, I landed the opportunity to be part of their award-winning Digital User Experience team. It’s been quite a ride, and I’m eager to share more of it with you.��

Getting started

I joined the team during a bustling period, with one project starting while another was wrapping up. This was quite a challenging transition for me, as I was eager to soak up as much knowledge as possible, granted there was a lot going on. To gain a deeper understanding of the University and the team’s dynamics, I had one-to-one meetings with various team members, spanning from Content Design to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and everything in between. Not only did this exercise provide me with invaluable insights, it was also a great way to put names to faces and really get to know the personalities driving the show.��

One of my initial assignments involved redesigning a social media component. This project served as a helpful opportunity for me to put my skills into practice and enhance my proficiency with Figma, one of the tools the team use for prototyping. Additionally, it allowed me to sharpen my research abilities and cultivate my iterative design approach, which is great as it benefits the end user and the organisation both in the short and long term. In the short run, we’re delivering products and services that are friendlier and more adaptable to our users. Looking ahead, these skills mean we’re on a path to continually improve, saving resources, and building a reputation for quality and innovation, contributing to the university’s sustained success and growth.��

Throughout the project, I consistently collaborated with the UX team, sharing my work and making refinements based on feedback. Being part of a multidisciplinary team is advantageous because it:��

• Incorporates diverse perspectives��
• Ensures quality��
• Keeps a user-centric approach��
• Enhances design efficiency��
• Promotes teamwork��
• Guarantees ongoing improvements��
• Minimises post-launch risks��

Collectively, these factors lead to improved products that provide better outcomes for their users and, by extension, the organisation.

I also had the opportunity to showcase my work during my first show-and-tell session. Nothing better than showing your work to the team early. This was a chance to share what I’ve done with the wider digital user experience team, which pushed me out of my comfort zone and at the same time enhanced my communication skills.��

Collaboration and Teamwork

One standout aspect of my internship is the strong emphasis on collaboration. I work with diverse teams, including designers, researchers, developers, and product/delivery managers. We have regular stand-up meetings to keep one another in sync and updated, which was a new experience for me. This collaborative environment not only enriches my learning but also exposes me to the intricacies of cross-discipline teamwork.��

Moreover, we use , a powerful collaborative platform, to enhance our workflow. Prior to this internship, I hadn’t used Miro extensively, but I’ve learnt how invaluable the tool is for ideation, planning, and project coordination. It allows us to create digital whiteboards, share ideas in real time, and visually brainstorm together. My collaboration skills have improved, and I’ve also developed a deeper appreciation for the benefits of such tools in modern teamwork.��

Agile Framework

In the fast-paced world of digital user experience, I’ve learned that agility is essential. Through my engagement in an agile framework, using tools like Jira, and taking part in sprint planning and retrospectives, I’ve embraced the iterative nature of projects. I’ve seen how this approach cultivates adaptability and responsiveness to shifting priorities, all while keeping a strong commitment to user-centred design.��

Dedication to Accessibility

One of the most rewarding experiences so far has been taking part in our team’s Accessibility Workshop in support of ������Ƭ Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). This event strongly emphasised the significance of crafting digital experiences that are inclusive and accessible to all users. During the workshop, I learned from sessions, such as an introduction to screen readers, and engaged in group discussions, which greatly improved my comprehension of accessible design principles.��

Images from our Accessibility Day Workshop

Also, I’ve been working with the team on what we call a ‘website accessibility health check’, where we’ve systematically tested the site for any accessibility-related issues that might hinder user navigation. Any problem we find gets addressed by raising tickets for resolution. By doing so, I’ve become more familiar with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and accessibility testing tools, which have really helped me understand how accessibility works. �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� ��

Figma

During my time at university, I dabbled in to create UI mock-ups, prototypes, and play-test designs, but I never fully explored its time-saving and efficiency features. However, I’ve quickly learned a lot about the tool and its capabilities over the past few months.��

For the first time, I had the opportunity to work on a design system, which introduced me to the complexities of keeping consistency across various digital touchpoints. I was amazed at the workflow streamlining that they can bring to the table.��

I’ve been actively involved in the redesign of components within our UI toolkit, using the Tailwind CSS framework. This endeavour is geared toward maintaining a cohesive design system and improving our process for delivering designs to developers, promoting better practices for collaboration and efficiency.��

What’s next?

Our latest project, ‘,’ has just kicked off, and I’ve jumped into my first discovery phase. Currently, I’m helping with user interviews and diving deep into a competitor review analysis, after supporting in some stakeholder workshops and conducting competitor research. It’s my first time going through a project lifecycle, from start to finish, and I’m excited about it!��

I’ve still got a ton to learn. For instance, I’ve only recently begun getting the hang of As-Is mapping, and I’m on a mission to build up my confidence overall as a beginner User Experience Designer.��

I’d like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the entire digital user experience , with a special shout-out to Steve and Piret for being incredible mentors and guiding me through my first journey into UX. I also extend a big thank-you to my course leader, Adam Procter, and Ayala, my manager, for giving me this incredible opportunity to advance my career.��

On that note, don’t hesitate to explore the opportunities our university offers! I was pleasantly surprised by the support I received as both a student and an alumnus. The network and resources are exceptional, and your skills could contribute significantly. For further details, reach out to Ayala Gordon.��

If you’d like to know more about my experience or have any questions, I’m also happy to talk!

How this is done depends on the organisation, but it usually includes making services simpler to use and cheaper to run.

Transformations in the University, to date, existed in the OneWeb programme. This work spanned over a few years, and resulted in a lot of change for everyone involved.

OneWeb was a ‘user-centred transformation’. This means that improving users’ experience was our first priority.

As a university, our aim is to make the admission journey easier for people to apply for courses, and for other user groups such as researchers, funders, companies to be able to find information in the way that makes sense to them, in their own context.

Our design principles and standards

Our design principles and standards reflect how we think about design. They provide a way for us to look at the work we create, how we create it, building the right thing and more importantly, building it right.

No one should be prevented from interacting with us or using our services. We believe in removing barriers. To help us do this, we must meet these standards.

Our design standards help us create and maintain good digital products and services. They instruct our choices and the work we produce. We use them to assess whether we’re doing a good job. These standards are universal: we can apply them to everything we do regardless of channel or product.

Understand users and their needs

We’re finding out who the users are, including the less obvious users.

Design and build whole journeys

We don’t force users to understand how the university works; we design joined up end-to-end services based on what users need.

Make it simple to use

Remove complexity for users, even if this makes our work more challenging.

Make sure everyone can use it confidently

We remove barriers to services. We research and design with inclusion and diversity in mind. We put our designs in front of people with access needs to find out any barriers and issues.

Use the right content at the right time, in the right way

We use data and evidence to understand what content users need and when they need it. Create content that helps people achieve what they need to do.

Iterate and improve frequently

Make improvements throughout the lifetime of the product or service. Focus on improvements that add value for users.

Define what success looks like and measure performance

We define what we want to achieve from the start. We identify the right metrics, then baseline, then track performance against them.

What’s in scope for the July release?

The big services and journeys that are in scope for our July release are:

1. Study pages
2. Study highlights
3. Study facilities
4. Research facilities
5. Staff profiles
6. Research areas
7. Research Projects
8. Research Groups, Centres, Institutes
9. Postgraduate Research (PGR) – how to apply
10. About our university section to include representation of faculties, schools and departments

We will release a full roadmap, including planned releases and mechanism for feedback, soon.

We’re at the end of the OneWeb programme (but not the end of the University’s journey with user centred design), and I wanted to take a moment and recognise what an immense privilege it’s been working with all of you talented people. You are all worthy of this recognition – whether you have been:

• working directly on products and services,
• in a more supportive role as part of Business As Usual,
• seconded to join us,
• playing a specialist part as a contractor coming to work with us for a fixed amount of time.

The past 2.5 years were tough. Delivering a complex programme transparently and at pace, with many stakeholders across the University, was always going to be a significant challenge. What we hadn’t planned for was doing so remotely, in the midst of a global pandemic. It would have been reasonable to expect us to pause, de-scope or end the programme early to release costs. I’m keen for you to look back at what we’ve achieved despite the challenges we faced as part of this delivery.

I thought I’d use the time to reflect, and share something that only occurred to me in the past few weeks, because I’m still working through the closure activities for the programme, but also as a result of many conversations and discussion points I am having to make on behalf of our team so we can protect what we have achieved longer-term for the University.

Without honesty there is no progress

I consider myself lucky. I have worked with some really excellent managers, peers, and award-winning leaders over what I can define as a diverse career. Some of them have no idea how much they impacted me, I learned so much from each and every one of them.

Caption: OneWeb end of programme stickers ‘without honesty there is no progress.’

One thing definitely sticks – I grew up in a culture that encouraged openness and feedback and therefore I always sought constructive comments about my performance, and this is something I would encourage you all to do, wherever you end up working. It helped me with personal relationships and also at work. It’s not always pretty, or comfortable but hey – I know I am not perfect (forever a student, forever work in progress ;-))!

Imagine your employees are volunteering for you.

A few experiences from my early career have been haunting me recently. Maybe it’s because I am busy wrapping up a few things as part of the programme, but also because I had to say goodbye to a few very dear teammates recently, and a few others in the coming weeks.

I recall a specific situation when I was a proper junior and, despite being at the bottom of the pecking order, I was treated as a specialist with professional knowledge and expected to make decisions and collaborate with other departments based on the training I received. I am not saying that there was no hierarchy (there was), but we were trusted to make decisions and communicate and escalate accordingly. There was a process. Accountability was clear. There were clear expectations about deliverables. But the point I want to make is that I was treated like an employee who was volunteering for the work.

But how is this related to my team?

Let me get to the point.

We make choices every single day

As a manager, responsible for people’s livelihoods and well-being, I try to imagine you all as volunteers. I’m sure there were times where you felt my pressure and stress and I can think of some situations where (especially my direct reports) felt the effects of days full of long, but useful and challenging, conversations with senior executives.

I am sorry about that.

My motivation for leading you was beyond the usual digital transformation arguments of staying relevant and needing to adapt so the organisation is still a viable option in a crowded market. A key reason to embrace this work was to showcase the University as a ‘happening’ workplace that could attract talent, internally and externally. I wanted to demonstrate how adapting to change and demonstrating it, could bring in the right people. A melting pot of cognitive diversity. Because attracting talent gives organisations a competitive advantage. Full stop.

Any manager out there will be lying if at some point in their career they didn’t think their team can shoulder a burden because they are compensated handsomely, or it doesn’t matter if they don’t enjoy their job because they’re not going to leave anyway, or stuff like that.

But how does thinking of your team as volunteers, who have kindly donated their time to deliver your dream, affect how you treat them?

• more respect?
• more trust?
• more care?
• more enjoyment in your work?
• more skills development?

Right now I am responsible for a high-performing function. For any new digital culture to thrive and be adopted beyond the lifespan of a transformation programme (and no, I am not talking about the whole organisation getting Google level 2 certification is a digital transformation initiative), it is key to invest in building the capacity internally. I am grateful for all the ‘early adopters’ who took the time to speak with me, find out more about what we’re trying to do and for taking a leap of faith. I’m also very grateful to those who followed, and to those who showed an untapped talent and just needed a chance.

You are all doing some amazing things in the digital space – whether it is human-centred design, human-centred code, human-centred delivery. You’re a knockout team.
Every single day that you are turning down another offer and choosing to stay means a great deal and makes a massive difference.

Caption: As a OneWebber user story coasters

When I joined the team in 2017, we were a smaller group; we have grown significantly since then – in numbers, skills and confidence. We’re in demand within our organisation because we showed our value, but I am under no illusions that there is still a lot to do to carry our message in a vast and complicated place.

During OneWeb we had very little churn in fixed term and permanent positions, which is actually pretty unusual for a multi-years programme. I tried to give you interesting work in a supportive and compassionate environment. We didn’t avoid difficult conversations, I wasn’t always nice, but I hope you recognise that we got through some pretty tough stuff in a human way.

To the best of my ability, I have tried to keep communications with you all honest and transparent – only you can judge if it helped. We have faced unprecedented challenges in the last year and I hope, with all the difficulty this has caused, that you have always known we were facing them together. And I hope you’ve been able to see and recognise how much respect I have for you all.

Telling the truth can be hard

The focus of the work we’ve carried out as part of OneWeb carries a lot of weight, especially with the people who do not have a voice in the room – the actual people who use our services. Those that get confused in finding information, or see our own internal backend systems open to all! We have a responsibility to the wider community to use our voice, interact with users on a regular basis and represent this through debate, raising awareness and educating others. I hope, very much, that things only go from strength to strength – the need for our work is urgent. Your work really matters.

Caption: OneWeb end of programme ‘Finisher’ t-shirt��

I also appreciate that working in the right way requires constant vigilance. Working in a team that makes good choices on behalf of people is what we’re about. You’re the gatekeepers. It does mean asking questions such as ‘why’ and also occasionally saying ‘no’. Sure, a level of pragmatism is required, but if you never expose bad practice and bring it to the light, no change can happen.

Telling the truth can be hard. Showing the truth to an organisation or a colleague can often be uneasy. Yet, the hardest truths to tell are usually the ones about ourselves. For example, how can I tell you that I don’t have answers to your questions? It requires some humility to admit that you’re better equipped than me to make certain decisions because you are closer to the information. It requires a change of mindset – putting my ego to one side. To an extent we all had to do it.

My parental instincts will always kick in when it is to do with my team. So on the eve of closing down the programme and moving the team into Business As Usual (whatever ‘usual’ means), I hope you know that I will always try to do my best for you. I trust you to make the right decisions, to do what’s right for your well-being, for the good of the University, and most importantly for the good of the humans we are building digital services for.

Thank you for being a force for good. Keep pushing this work forward.

Thank you for being one bad**s team.

Yours, Ayala

In this blog post, I would like to take a moment to share a few things that we’ve learned along the way. I will cover some thoughts on collaboration (especially at uncertain times), designing with users and trying to keep sane.

As a follow up to our , and just before we start with another huge stakeholder engagement effort, here are a few thoughts from a period of tremendous effort from my team.

Delivering a chunky programme phase is never more uncertain than when a global pandemic arrives at your doorstep.

#1. Create services and products that meet user needs

This may sound obvious: only design, write, develop services and products that meet a real person’s needs. Over the last few months, I have witnessed a huge increase in the demand for my team’s skills at a particular time where everything feels urgent. ‘Getting pulled in different directions’ was one of the main themes in our team’s retro – something I also experienced first hand.

Whilst we weathered the storm, I feel it is important to remind my colleagues across the University, who understandably sought fast solutions to complex problems, that (external) users who come looking for our services have a choice. They can easily go elsewhere and find an institution that will meet their needs better than we do. With difficult times upon us and more still on the horizon, reducing unnecessary choice and burdens for our users have become more important than ever.

There were many occasions in this phase where I had to ‘stick to my guns’ and express the importance of going through a user-centred design process properly (albeit rapidly or retrospectively at times) and advocating for our users. For example, if you’re a student who is about to start your journey at any given university, how critical is a good digital experience when no physical events or learning can take place?

I think there might be a misconception that user centred design (UCD) is a lengthy product development process. It doesn’t have to be.�� I’m grateful for the colleagues who have witnessed first hand the speed at which products can be created and delivered. They have put a lot of faith into our practice.��

At the same time,��in some areas we have seen knee-jerk solutions pushed through, which have not fully considered the problem they are attempting to solve. What would a good benchmark or KPI look like? How is it going to be evidenced? Issues and challenges that we’ve all been aware of for years have been magnified to the extreme because – guess what – when you design a digital service, the backend office gets exposed, and that’s not always a pretty sight!

#2. Simplicity isn’t simple, consistency is even harder

Holding the line is hard. Over the last few months, we conducted design research throughout the product build, facilitating multiple rounds of moderated usability testing to make sure we’re building the right thing for people as quickly as possible.

Some of our new designs may look very simple. But to get there we had to iterate several times as we developed our understanding of our users through their inclusion at all stages of design and testing. Our multidisciplinary teams relied and acted on users’ first-hand knowledge and feedback throughout, making it a point never to trust our first assumptions.

User testing in progress: only hard work makes things simple

#3. Users, not audiences

Audiences and users are not the same thing. The products we design and the content we write might have more than one user with a range of different needs. It’s not enough to imagine one kind of user.

One of my team members, Maria, said “just because we think that something might be the right thing to do, unless it’s proven by the real users, it’s not”.

Empirical evidence is the cornerstone of all good decision-making. You need to do research to learn about the range of users and their contexts. It’s important to find out about their specific and diverse needs, such as:

• another language other than English
• assistive technology they use to read content
• the range of devices they use to access information
• availability and quality of their internet connection
• other (non-digital) ways to access content

Accessibility requirements are an absolute must and one of our key guiding principles. We have to conform to and it is also an important requirement to meet user needs.

We’ve just completed an independent accessibility audit and we’re working through it to address some fundamentals before release. But it all becomes much more challenging when other teams don’t necessarily work in the same way as you. This results in a solution that, while technically correct, does not stand up to user needs scrutiny and is now too late to change.

Projects and activities should have a desired outcome – the anchor point. This remains fixed whilst the problem and solutions can change. For example:

• a problem to be solved: departments aren’t sharing enough data
• a solution to be implemented: what we need is a university-wide data sharing framework
• an outcome to be achieved: we want all departments to be able to easily access the information they need, in whatever format it might be held.

Outcomes based solution: the Design Council’s double diamond model��

Moving towards our desired outcome may raise additional practical questions, such as:

• What’s the easiest way to learn this fact?
• Where should you go if you want to find out more?
• Does this image and its position on the page help communicate a useful point?

The answer, always, is: the user knows.

We must adopt a different posture as an organisation, as stakeholders, and as colleagues – our opinions might be interesting, but are unlikely to be the final answer. Don’t seek to argue – seek to understand.

This might be unsettling to some because it contradicts many preconceived ideas about the way we should do things. We’re encouraging you to take this journey with us. It has great potential to change your perception of the problem and solution for the better.

#4. Working with us early

In large organisations there are always services, systems and content owned by other teams within the organisation. By far one of the most challenging parts of running a multi-year transformation programme is managing content requests as part of the business-as-usual workflow.

We’re currently working on a new easy step-by-step guide to help our team and stakeholders manage their content, provide feedback and suggestions. A few critical observations from recent activities may offer some further enlightenment to others who find themselves in the same situation:

Not all content is equal.

To understand what works and what doesn’t you need to identify what content is (and isn’t) used. Generally speaking, the more content you have, the more complexity you add for the user. There is no excuse for failing to analyse and evaluate your content, how it is performing, and how your users are accessing and consuming it. Put simply: you can’t measure your success (or need to improve) without measuring anything at all.

There is no substitute for observing people interacting with your services.

Watch your users struggle, do some readability tests, identify their pain points and respond accordingly by iterating your product. I know that user research is a craft, and we’re lucky to have a few in our teams. But even if you don’t have access to a user researcher, or you’re unable to talk to users, there are some things that you can do, such as .

Some content, websites and products need to retire.

Digital services and content, like all living things, have a lifecycle and lifespan. It helps if you have maintenance reviews where you take a look at performance analytics and user feedback to flag up areas that may need to be removed. This is something we are looking to address very soon.

I still don’t get FAQs.

Our organisation, like many others, still feels that FAQs are an effective way to communicate important information. They are not. Good structured content really matters. . We know people don’t think in terms of neatly framed questions and FAQs don’t assist natural online reading behaviour. .

Just by writing this, I can sense the palpitations of any content designer taking on a long list of FAQs, and trying to turn it into something useful against a tight deadline! This is also frustrating because it feels like we’re letting users down by not doing an adequate job in communicating vital information as effectively as we could. The misalignment between stakeholder perspectives and real user needs is the elephant in the room that needs addressing.

Caption: what the user really wants. From

Engage with us early.

Traditional ways of working have created habits that are difficult to break. The ‘right time’ to engage with our programme is often significantly earlier in the process than what our colleagues are used to. Ideally, we’d really like to ensure content design input is included from the inception of any relevant project, allowing us to work alongside colleagues who are strong subject matter experts from the very beginning. Content designers and other UX disciplines can provide invaluable points of view by representing the voice of the end user. We’re genuinely stronger when we work together, and it’s so much harder to implement good design at the end of a more traditional process.

Looking ahead

Over the last phase we’ve done as much as we can to tackle some difficult issues and we’ve tried to develop some shared understanding – in and outside our teams.��Putting users first can be hard and uncomfortable. Especially outside the protected scope of the programme. It’s a big shift for a lot of people and getting some to change or compromise, even a little, is hard.

This work matters. The teams are amazing. And now more than ever we have a massive role to play in the future of our university.

I look forward to seeing what new lessons we will learn along the next phase. Also worth remembering – nothing worth having is easily gained.

Our Show and Tells and product recording can be found in .

With thanks to all my contributors: Mark, Kate, Joe, Jonny, Andy and Maria.

A bit about me

Hi there!

I’m Sarah, a recent graduate of the Games Design and Art programme at Winchester School of Art (WSA). I spent 2 years on the Graphic Arts programme before transferring to Games Design, where I applied a further user-centred approach to my design work. My interest in user experience design stemmed from a short-term project with a London-based product design studio during my degree; where I discovered the lean UX process and found that this could also be applied to games. This led to my research focus for my , addressing the need of bridging tactile games and technology.

I discovered the OneWeb programme through the Digital Team blog, exploring the recent work with the undergraduate and postgraduate course pages. I was really interested to see a user-focused approach within the University’s marketing and expressed interest in getting involved. This has seen me join the team as a UX design intern and getting stuck into the live project.

What has been good

My internship so far has involved me working within the Student Experience Team researching and designing around the ‘what it is like to live in…’ pages. The team have been extremely welcoming and are well experienced, it has been a pleasure to be able to get involved with their work.

Image: our student experience team ‘in-action’

This has seen me experiencing agile development through processes such as sprint planning, daily stand-ups and retrospectives. I’ve found these to be really helpful with organising and communicating with the team and ultimately reflect often about my completed work and how to adapt my working practices in further sprints.

Recently I’ve been able to interact with current students through a series of design workshops, to gain a better understanding of their retrospective needs and desires for the website. I was able to take part in one of the sessions as a participant and then later as a moderator in another session. This challenged me to continually encourage students to dive deep into their experiences and feelings, thinking about open-ended questions to establish these conversations.

Image: some design wireframes created by students��

I have also taken part in a make-and-do workshop with the team, which gave me opportunities to communicate ideas and approaches that can support both prospective students and business needs to the rest of the team. As an alumna from Winchester School of Art, I have been able to fill knowledge gaps about the Winchester student experience, demonstrating its differing culture. This has been useful in how we address the separate campuses within the living pages.

From these research and make-and-do sessions I have started to explore my core role as a UX designer on the team, by creating ideas for map assets that can be utilised across the living pages. These designs will give a sense of a visual picture for prospective students with potential to point out current student experiences at icon pinpoints. This has also made me explore a filtration system from ideas such as category selection to search based terms. By carrying out this task I am understanding better how to communicate key interactions and how they will interact with new and existing content.

What has been difficult?

While taking part in both the student and team-based workshops there have been many opportunities to feedback ideas to conclude the sessions. These have been imperative to our development of sprints and, whilst contributing, I’ve found these daunting, giving an overview and not delving deep into the ‘whys’ of each decision. This is something I hope to practice more through further team workshops as well as meetings, which I have confidence in due to the friendly nature of the team.

What would I like to do more of?

I’m looking forward to exploring more component design, such as the maps component that will be used across living pages. I’m finding the interactive design elements to be challenging and want to find further solutions to satisfy user stories. From this I also hope to become involved with prototyping to get a sense of how these components work within the architecture, multiple page levels and visual design. I would also like to continue the collaborative design work we do as a team to establish key goals and approaches of components, as they have greatly aided my individual design work with the maps component.

How can people get involved?

The OneWeb blog has been a great tool for me to understand the different sections of the programme and I highly recommend checking out the posts to understand the team’s ongoing developments. There are lots of opportunities to contribute to the OneWeb team whether that be through usability testing, workshops, Show and Tells or joining our team. There are regular jobs and internships posted through the University, which are great opportunities to apply for and become part of this creative, user-centred team.

As part of the programme, we are constantly considering how we get more students involved with our teams. If you would like to get involved, please get in touch.

Our team already consists of Content, Design, Research, Product, Development and Delivery roles.

2019 has been an incredibly exciting year for us. We’ve grown and changed in ways I didn’t think were possible. We’re looking to accelerate (as well as consolidate) activities in 2020, and therefore we need some more new talent to join our multidisciplinary team!

We’re looking for people who:

• are passionate and care about the end-users
• able to roll up their sleeves to help us transform digital services for many of our user groups at the university
• are inquisitive and not afraid to challenge the status-quo
• can bring the inspiration needed to deliver digital services that will influence our sector and help our university succeed with pride
• can tell a story by using evidence and insights to make a positive impact on our users
• can work as part of a dynamic and multi-disciplinary team
• are therefore essentially unicorns

Image caption: Always be yourself unless you can be a unicorn. Then always be a unicorn.

A bit about us

We’re a nice bunch of people who really care about what we do. We have some truly exceptional individuals working for us, both in our teams and the university at large.

Image: OneWeb team – 1 April 2019

OneWeb as a programme is in its first year, so as we grow (fast), everything changes. It is – the idea that as a team grows, everything changes at roughly every third and tenth step. The things that work for a team of 3 people are very different to what works for a team of 10 people or 30 people. This has been very true for us. So how we communicate, collaborate and so on is constantly evolving.

I will be honest – we’re still finding our feet in terms of the team’s culture and ways of working, but we are already making a difference.

Where possible, we try and stick to the following principles to ensure our team’s culture is both welcoming and inclusive, so that everyone can thrive doing the best work of their careers:

• Work in the open and share our work with the rest of our colleagues (in and outside our teams) as often as we possibly can
• Collaborate as much as we can with our users, stakeholders and of course our teams
• Build in accountability as part of our ways of working – taking responsibility for our achievements and failures, celebrating success and making change for the better
• Be honest, impartial, objective and act with integrity. Basically, be bold.

We’re recruiting

If what I’ve just described above excites you, and you think that it sounds like something you’d like to be part of, please get in touch.

We want to meet with other people who want to work in this way.

Sounds great – how do I apply?

• All the jobs we’re currently recruiting for are on the .
• If you’re interested in working for us, and you’ve read the job description, please register with the website, and complete the application form.
• Please pay attention to the closing date and the week we’re planning to conduct some interviews.
• We’re planning to shortlist candidates quickly and inform you as fast as we can if you have been successful.

Credit: : You’re magic

Still unsure?

If you want to talk first, please get in touch with any questions. If you are unsure about whether to apply, want to recommend someone else, or just talk through the roles, please contact , Head of Digital and OneWeb’s Business Owner via or .

A challenging and exciting mission awaits for those unicorns who are not afraid of hard work and standing out.