Flow helped British Association of Occupational Therapists and College of Occupational Therapists (BAOT/COT) understand what their members and non-members wanted from an online resource and then designed a better online experience for practitioners and students.

The brief

The British Association and College of Occupational Therapists (BAOT/COT) is the national professional body for occupational therapy students and staff in the United Kingdom.

BAOT/COT is responsible for setting professional and educational standards, advising on policy, and supporting its 29,000 members’ research and development, professional practice and Continuing Professional Development (CPD).

BAOT/COT’s main channel of communication to members is their website. As a key component of their service to OT staff and students they wanted to ensure they were providing a valuable and easy-to-use resource, so they asked Flow to help them understand what members and non-members wanted from this resource, and then to re-design the site around these needs.

What we did

Using a range of research techniques throughout the project, Flow investigated the needs of Occupational Therapy staff and students, and designed a new website for BAOT/COT around those needs.

We interviewed Occupational Therapists, OT support workers and students to understand their perceptions of BAOT/COT as an organisation, the BAOT/COT website and other resources they use to aid them in their studies or practice. We synthesised the insights gathered from this research into a series of personas, each illustrating characteristics of different members of BAOT/COT’s audience; and used these personas throughout the project to guide and evaluate design decisions.

BAOT/COT had a wealth of information on their existing website, however, as the site had grown organically this information had become increasingly challenging to locate. To ensure content was well organised and easy to locate we undertook a card sorting exercise with people representative of BAOT/COT’s audience. This enabled us to identify the different mental models people used to understand the content that BAOT/COT wanted to include on the new site, and guided the site structure and labelling of content.

Moving into the design phase of the project, we used the insights from our initial research activity to guide concept generation and development. In order to validate our design decisions, we also tested mock-ups of the site with users at every stage – from initial concept sketches through to the final visual design, ensuring we were developing something which met users’ needs and satisfied BAOT/COT’s objectives.

Once the new site was built, we tested it again with users to validate the final designs and evaluate the site against the original brief.

The results

BAOT/COT successfully launched their new website which has been designed to grow organically, forming the foundation of a continually improving member resource.

BAOT/COT’s new website has enabled them to create a more engaging and valuable resource for members and non-members alike. Having moved away from a website which pushed information to members, to one which stimulates online debate between the organisation and its members, BAOT/COT anticipate an increase in membership and in the number of people using the site.

www.cot.co.uk

“Flow's user centred approach helped BAOT/COT understand our users' online behaviours and needs. It also helped clarify our own business goals. Clear user priorities emerged from Flow's research with our members which helped us make confident decisions about site structure, design and navigation. The team at Flow were quick to understand our values and aspirations as well as the practical challenges we faced. Their approach inspired confidence and trust. The new BAOT/COT website which emerged from the project continues to add more and more value to our business.”

Stephen Little, Web Manager and Editor for the British Association of Occupational Therapists and College of Occupational Therapists

Ethnographic research involves the study of people and groups as they go about their everyday lives.  The ethnographer participates in daily routines within the context of the research setting, observes what is going on and systematically records his or her experiences and thoughts. Participation based on social and physical proximity is key to this process.

Flow frequently uses ethnographic research methods to gain a deep understanding of the social and working lives of people who use different products and services in different contexts. The findings provide richer insights into service and product design requirements and opportunities for innovation, particularly when designing for global and multi-cultural audiences.

One of the key questions around ethnographic research is how its findings are transformed into design. One example of such a process was presented at a recent UX Brighton: ‘A Journey from Ethnography to Design’. The event included two speakers: Simon Johnson, User Experience Consultant at Flow and Miles Rochford from Nokia. Simon spoke about the ethnographic research and subsequent design that he completed for the Environment Agency. Miles’ presentation focused on using ethnography to design products for emerging markets.

The Environment Agency commissioned Flow to conduct contextual research and subsequently design an interactive map that will provide users with coastal erosion information – a national project that will affect 2.1 million houses on the coast. The key objectives were to establish what an erosion map should look like, how it should work and what sort of information should accompany the map.

Claire Mitchell, Flow’s Principal Consultant on the project and Simon started the project with a research phase that included ethnographic field observations in two coastal settings: Norfolk and Hastings. Simon spent two weeks documenting the lives of coastal communities, interviewing local people and immersing himself in their lives. Additionally, Simon interviewed eight professionals at Flow’s experience labs in London.

Ethnography enabled Simon to apply his empathy and humanistic values to drive the project. It was clear that his findings provided the Environment Agency with a rich understanding of the concerns, information needs and myths that people who live in rural coastal communities might have. Simon described how his research findings confirmed some of EA's current thinking, provided new insights and defined the subsequent design process and deliverables.

The research that Claire and Simon conducted described how emotive the coastline is, an institution in British history that invokes strong feelings and forms a strong part of a shared heritage. The implications were the need for the Environment Agency to communicate that it cares and to reassure people that action was being taken to protect the coast. It was also clear that people trust locals and distrust central government, erosion maps caused alarm and that a certain amount of local knowledge derived from  ignorance and/or myth. An example of a myth was the commonly repeated argument that the government was making money dredging ‘their’ sand.

The design approach focused on a simple website that addresses the needs of both professionals and locals. Claire and Simon decided that the design should answer core questions and myths, stick to plain English, use local materials and represent risks  without alarming local people.

Is it Ethnography?
After the presentation the audience participated in a lively debate, which had a particular focus on the true meaning of ethnography. For some designers ethnography was a new concept and their reactions during the Q&A sessions and after the presentations indicated that they found both Simon and Miles’ presentations truly thought provoking. Some felt that rapid ethnography with a specific structure and design agenda was different from “ethnography” and needed a new term associated to it.

Theoretical research has two main aims – the validation of existing knowledge and the acquisition of new knowledge. Flow uses research to acquire and validate specific knowledge, the context in which services and products are used.  Flow uses principles and techniques taken from social sciences such as sociology, anthropology and psychology to inform design decisions. Our main aim is to design solutions that work outside of design studios, laboratories and meeting rooms. As a result, we often use appropriate research techniques to focus on specifically targeted contexts and activities. A term that is often used to describe this work is Design Ethnography.

Simon's presentation

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Many thanks to Danny Hope and former Flow Consultant Harry Brignull for organising the event.

--Ofer Deshe

Flow, together with Splendid, designed Jamie Oliver's new Jme lifestyle collection website. It was a classic user experience challenge, but this one went further. We soon discovered that the best approach was to integrate the shop with Jamie's already active community site.

Understanding the fans

Jamie Oliver fans like relaxed living and eating with an edge of no-nonsense practicality. They care about the environment they live in and about supporting people who make the food and products they love.

What does that mean for online shopping? We created a hypothesis. Jamie Oliver fans would want:

• Inspiration: How to mix and match products, recipes and ideas so they can live the Jamie lifestyle
• Usefulness: Understanding how products would fit into their lives and help them achieve their goals (a great dinner party, a beautiful home, and flourishing garden...)
• Background and context: Insight into where the products come from, who designs and makes them and why they are special
• Connectedness: Helping customers to form a connection to the community, the product designer and Jamie.

When we considered this, we realised that the Jme site should be integrated with JamieOliver.com, Jamie Oliver's existing blog and community site. Inspiration might come from seeing a photo of a family gathering where a delicious risotto is served in a beautiful bowl. From there, visitors should be able to find out about the bowl and its designer, get the recipe and buy the bowl.

Mapping and testing the site

To understand how the different content should cross-link we created a wall chart. We identified silos, such as recipes, products and forum posts and connected them with arrows. (Jamie came in to see it. He liked it a lot. He's a nice bloke.)

From there, we created a wireframe prototype to represent these ideas ready for testing with users. The most successful website wireframes tend to contain "real fake content" - lorem ipsum doesn't give users a real feel of what the final experience will be like. These wireframes had to contain a lot of visual imagery showing example products, people and situations where they might be used.

User feedback told us two things:

Firstly, we needed to keep our feet on the ground. If you're going to show a desirable bowl customers will soon need to find links to the plate, side plate and coffee cups that match. It also reminded us that you can never be too clear about practicalities like delivery information, pricing and the checkout process.

Secondly, the connected, contextual, useful and inspirational idea made for a great user experience. Jamie Oliver fans loved to use it. And it provides the kind of rich information and emotional content that people need to help them make purchase decisions.

Take a look at Jme

The site is quickly growing into its new home. It's got genuinely fabulous kitchen and dining room stuff, herbs, books and DVDs - all selected by Jamie himself. There are lots more products, recipes and articles coming on all the time. We think it's great to look at and delightful to use.

As Jamie would say: "Nice one!"

Team: Peter Otto, Genevieve Chapman (Splendid), Simon Parbutt (Splendid)

On Thursday evening, 19th February 2009, I was privileged to be at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London for the HSBC Rail Business Awards to co-receive the Information Technology Excellence of the Year Award for the new National Express East Coast (NXEC) booking engine and website.

As any of you reading this who have used the NXEC booking engine know, it dramatically simplifies the process of finding and buying rail tickets online...not just on NXEC routes, but for any train in the UK.  We have blogged before about the intuitive user interface and its cutting edge use of AJAX technology as well as the positive customer feedback and improved business results for NXEC before.

We (and NXEC) have also received lots of accolades from customers and the industry about how great the new booking engine is.  So it fills us with a great sense of pride and accomplishment to receive this well-deserved acknowledgement from the Rail Industry for all the creativity and teamwork that went into making it happen.

It has been a long road, but the hard work and effort has paid off, not just because we won this award, but because we succeeded in creating a first-of-its-kind, innovative and successful new booking engine for trains that will set the standard for all that follow, in terms of business performance, ease of use and customer satisfaction. It is also a clear demonstration of how User-Centred Design makes a tangible difference to customers and business.

I just want to take a moment to thank the entire NXEC team from Flow:  Simon Hatch, Alejandra Obregon, Martina Schell and Kelsey Smith; our partners at Splendid: Paul Bishop, Simon Parbutt, Alistair Thomson and Karl Wortmann; the team at Atos Origin who built it:  Graham Bodman, Richard Phillpot, Ian Collier, Eleanor Waldron and Chris Rees; and the team at Tullo Marshall Warren (TMW) for bringing the marketing website together.

But perhaps most importantly, I want to thank Emma Passey and the entire NXEC team for their vision, passion and perseverance.  We couldn't have done it without you!

Congratulations to everyone. A well deserved award!

- Ian Worley, Director of User Experience at Flow Interactive

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Download Case Studies about this project:

• National Express East Coast Booking Engine Case Study (78k .pdf)
• National Express East Coast Website Case Study (92k .pdf)

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The BBC used ethnographic research to inspire and inform their Audio & Music team, as they design new services for young people aged 13-18.

How do young people find new music? What do they do with it? What technology gets used and why? Rather than statistics or abstract trend statements, the BBC Future Media and Technology department wanted vivid examples and concrete insights about the user base they were designing for. They asked Flow to help them.

Learning about people's lives

We worked with four different target groups, which we named The Gamers, The Streetwise Teens, The Social DJs and the Indie Teens. Each group had three members – all close friends with each other.

We worked through 4 activities with them over the course of a few weeks:

• Group sessions
• Diaries
• Shadowing
• Follow-up interviews

Shadowing means spending time participating in each person’s day-to-day life. Our ethnographers enjoyed a night out in Camden with two 18 year-olds, some live gaming on the Xbox with a 14 year-old boy in his bedroom, gossiping with two 16 year-old girls at their home and a lesson about hip-hop dance from a 17 year-old dancer. The insights from experiences like this go much deeper than surveys and focus groups ever can.

Sharing what we learned

We had workshops with the BBC team all the way through the project. This let the team hear discoveries "as they happened" and be inspired to ask new questions. The research team were about to direct their enquiry towards the areas which our clients thought looked the most fruitful.

The final results were written up in a highly-visual, 80-page book. The goal was for people all over the BBC to engage with the study so we made sure that the results were presented in an interesting and visual way. The report was publicised in Ariel, the BBC’s internal newspaper.

Observations

I asked Jude Rattle, the lead consultant on the project, what she had learned from the study. “All sorts of things that you can’t mention in a blog post,” she told me. “But a few that you can.”

“Sharing music with friends is an important social activity. In the 70s and 80s young people made mix tapes. Now MP3s get swapped from phone to phone whenever people feel like it. But there’s a twist. The DRM mechanisms designed to stop digital piracy also stop people from engaging in that key social behaviour. So a lot of our participants had an added incentive to seek out pirate MP3s on Limewire: the file they got would be readily shareable.”

“People often think that young people are universally brilliant with technology, but they are not. In our study we found that teens will go to great lengths to use technology that does things that are important for them. But there are other things that older users might take for granted, which teens don’t know how to do. For example, some of our participants did not know how to burn a CD, even though they did know how to copy an MP3 onto a mobile phone’s memory card or Bluetooth it to a friend.”

Giving innovators an edge

Imagining the future is hard. Designing future products and services that will be discovered and adopted is harder still. In large organisations, design teams can easily become far removed from the people they are designing for. To stand a chance, they must have rich detail about what their target users actually do, what they like and what they need.

Ethnography helped the BBC to connect with teenagers as they consume music – and gave them practical insights that they can use as a basis for innovation.