“We know it’s not helpful if user researchers have to start from the beginning each time - it can lead to people doing the same research repeatedly.

It’s wasteful, but it can also damage the reputation of user research in the department. If stakeholders are presented with the same findings from several researchers, it’s hard for them to see the value of user research as a method.

At first we tried to fix this problem with technology and got very bogged down trying to make tools work in the way we needed. With a limited budget to build anything ourselves, and with huge challenges due to multiple tooling and collaborative spaces across the department, we didn’t get very far.”

One of my favourite of the Government's 'Design Principles' is:

“Make things open: it makes things better”

Arnold's post is a brilliant example of this. Trying to store user research outputs in a way that extracts the maximum value from the research for other (potentially future) teams is incredibly difficult. In my current company we have been struggling with this for years, and got bogged down in attempts to build complex tools and storage structures.

Hearing that other teams in other organisations have been having the same struggles has given my team confidence that we should pursue a different route. The Home Office being open about their problems is making things better for us.