I joined VCAT as their first UX design and research leader. I was tasked with designing and building an in-house UX design and research practice, whilst supporting projects and delivery needs with product, service and CX improvements.
Usability Benchmarking
Diary Studies
Language Comprehension
Service Blueprinting
Establish Research Ops
VCAT is the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. VCAT resolves disputes and makes decisions. I really enjoyed working at VCAT, and I've particularly enjoyed working in government roles - there's an added responsibility to ensure the voice of the customer is represented in product and service considerations.
Whilst at VCAT I designed and conducted a range of mix-methods research studies, advocated for UX design and research work, conducted studies, supported delivery teams by translating research insights into features and improvements, coached and mentored designers and non-designers on research and implemented research ops and scalable ways of approaching design and product initiatives.
Being a judicial and government organisation, there was lots to learn. I started by attending VCAT cases as an observer to understand how it all worked. Further to this, I orchestrated data sources and conducted desk research to review what work had already been completed.
It was really important to build relationships and trust not only with the executive and VCAT judges, but with the customer service and registry staff, as well as the different teams involved in designing and developing customer experiences. This also provided an opportunity to understand what was working well and what could be improved.
If your organisation doesn't want to do research it's very difficult to make them interested in the research findings. The work was very collaborative and I acted as the facilitator to ensure we were clear about what questions we had, and how the research work was going to answer the questions and how research insights could be translated into product and service improvements.
I worked on a range of studies, from language comprehension to usability benchmarking, and longitudinal diary studies. I wanted to build a stream of long-term research insights to improve products and services, whilst supporting tactical, short-term improvements and insights.
You are reviewing a high-level overview of this project and can view some examples of work and artefacts that were developed during this initiative. For a detailed case-study of this work, please reach out!
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Made by Mark
