Sujit Ray | Melbourne based UX strategist

Research Background

The Department of Education, Victoria has over 480 digital applications recommended for government and special schools, including third-party apps. Over time, many of these applications have become obsolete, non-inclusive, costly to maintain, or non-compliant with department guidelines.

The Executive Board decided to initiate Victoria statewide user research to gain insights and adopt a data-backed approach to evaluate the effectiveness of these digital applications, including usage patterns, pain points, and gaps in the department’s Business Capability Model (BCM).

Research goal and summary

The goal was to gain deeper insights into digitisation needs for various types of schools, find usage patterns, pain points, and technology gaps in the department’s Business Capability Model (BCM).

My Role

Lead end to end User Research, spearheading the research methodology

Research participants

Parents, teachers, special school support staff, principals, assistant principals, and school business managers.

My team

3 members from the department

Methodology

Qualitative and quantitative methodologies .1;1 interview, focus group sessions, and online surveys.

Duration

16 Weeks

Research coverage and data sampling

We shortlisted and conducted user research with 45 schools across Victoria and 55 participants, including government primary, secondary, P-12, virtual, and special schools. The data sampling was done in collaboration with department stakeholders and included schools from metropolitan, urban, and remote areas, covering large, medium, and small schools.

Data collection and Synthesis

I used both qualitative and quantitative methods to collect data from 55+ participants. To gather quantitative data, I prepared questionnaires based on the user persona. This data was collected in FigJam through remote interviews conducted via Microsoft Teams and in-person focus group sessions held in schools.

To synthesize the research findings, we merged the collected data in Excel and categorized it based on participant feedback. A combination of manual categorisation and automated approaches was used to analyse and structure the research data effectively.

At the end of each session, all participants received a survey link to provide additional responses, which contributed to the quantitative data analysis.

Deliverables and outcome

The research deliverables include user personas and profiles of test participants interviewed during the research phase, a synthesized report analyzing the collected data, various user journey maps illustrating workflows and application usage patterns identified throughout the study, and most importantly, an assessment of the gaps in the existing business capability model. These deliverables provide a comprehensive understanding of user interactions, challenges, and areas for improvement within the current system.

My role in the research project

I was responsible for overseeing the end-to-end research process and ensuring the final outcomes aligned with stakeholder needs. I led the team in delivering actionable insights that informed department policy decision-making, ensuring that research findings were accurate, relevant, and effectively communicated to drive strategic improvements.

Defining the overall User Research Strategy

Includes working with various stakeholders within the department to understand the kind of insights department needs for decision and policy making.

Define User Personas and key tasks

Based on the type of users, I had to create user personas and continuously capture users' key tasks, pain points and needs based on the interviews.

Collaboratively working on insights and summarizing the data

The projects has been a fantastic team effort working closely with my amazing team mate during test participant selection phase, scheduling interviews, conducting 1:1 interviews in turns, taking notes , synthesising data and finally working on the executive presentation pack.

Taking 1:1 Interview with test participants

I also took remote interviews and conducted focus group workshops in schools that helps to gain immense insights to the school environment and working patterns of various staff.

User Journey Process Maps

For certain roles ( Business Manager where there are multiple touchpoints and digital application usages) I had to create user journey process map to capture the key information needed to make the decisions, different department touchpoints, key steps and the current gaps.

Presenting the Research Insights to Executive Board

In the final step, I worked closely with the stakeholders and my team members on put together the final pack of the research findings to be presented to the Executive Board Members, the pack included actionable areas, technology gaps and needs and admin process digitalisation and optimization recommendations and the final detailed user research report (PDF version )

Software Tools I Used

Software tool I use used to successfully deliver this research project

Fig-Jam

To collect research feedback and to brainstorm ideas.

Canva

To create user journey maps and process flows

Askable

To recruit test participants and to schedule interviews.

Powerpoint

To deliver final presentation to the Executive board

Excel

Unify feedback, segment data and prioritise feedback.

Acrobat PDF

Generate User research detailed report .