PRIMARY RESEARCH
3-1. BRAINSTORMING WITH EMORY UX
As we moved forward, we prioritized close collaboration with the Emory UX team, who are both our stakeholders and primary users. To gather insights into their strategic direction and practical needs, we held a brainstorming workshop.
The workshop included a springboard activity featuring 3 key use cases and 3 target user groups. Participants were invited to individually generate “I wish…” and “How might we…” statements, followed by group discussions and a voting session.
Workshop Figjam Board
FINDINGS & IMPLICATIONS
After the session, we identified all feature and functionality opportunities
To name a few, some of the commonly discussed features were streamlining service requests, providing resources and best practices about UX, empower teams with assets to enable them to do UX work independetly.
Based on the votes and post-brainstorm discussion, we prioritized the features into..
Must have
Should have
Could have (nice ideas, but won't affect the success of the CoE)
3-2. CARD SORTING
We wanted to understand the mental models and associations users might have with key concepts related to the Emory UX CoE.
To explore how people naturally categorize information, we conducted a card sorting session with 8 MS-HCI students during class time. While they are not our target users, we believed that individuals with UX backgrounds could offer relevant perspectives on website organization.
Open card sort with 8 MS-HCI students. Solo card sort into custom categories, followed by group discussion on each other's sorting methods.
FINDINGS & IMPLICATIONS
We've uncovered some discussion themes…
UX in General vs. UX in Healthcare
Resources vs. self-service assets and tools
Service request form- standalone, within info for requesting services, or both?
Make the structure easy and include clear engagement points- what the user can do and what is relevant to them
Info for documentation vs. Info for sharing
We analyzed all participants' boards and noted down consistent groupings of features and the labels.
The emergence of 7 common themes with consistent grouping suggests that overall, these themes align with participants' natural mental models.
Emphasizing healthcare-specific UX content may better align with user interests and needs.
Clarify the distinction between general UX and "UX at Emory" to address uncertainty.
3-3. SURVEY
We received a total of 20 responses from 11+ unique teams
In what capacity have you interacted with the Emory UX Team?
Do you know how to request help from the UX Team?
How familiar are you with UX principles and best practices?
In your experience with the UX Team,
what service(s) did they provide?
What services do you think a UX team provides?
How interested are you in learning more about UX?
How interested are you in
learning to apply UX practices within your work?
What are your preferred ways of learning new material?
3-4. INTERVIEW
We conducted 4 semi-structured interviews (~30 minutes) with 2 Emory digital managers and 2 non-managers.
INTERVIEW FINDINGS
Unclarity on UX's full scope
Although UX is highly valued, UX's overall meaning and applicability is not fully understood. Moreover, UX at Emory is perceived as primarily evaluation-focused.
Lack of Transparency
Users need increased transparency around when/who to reach out in the Emory UX team, as well as what to expect when they request a service.
3-5. CONCEPT TESTING
At this point, our team had a general sense of what the UX CoE might include. We wanted to test our early ideas with users to understand which types of UX resources, learning methods, and opportunities for active involvement would resonate most. Rather than relying on verbal descriptions, we chose to present visual examples and capture participants’ reactions.
We conducted 4 concept testing sessions where we shared example interactive content and invited participants to think out loud as they explored it.
CONCEPT TESTING FINDINGS
Relevance is Key
Users resonate most with healthcare-specific examples of UX principles and how the UX team can add value to their particular projects.
Bite-sized Information
Given that our users are busy and have limited time to engage with the UX CoE, they prefer easily scannable content—with the option to dive deeper if time permits.
