UX workshop insights to improve web publishing for public servants.
This project was completed during my time as a User Researcher for the Ontario Digital Service, which is part of the Government of Ontario, working towards simplifying and digitizing services and the government at large.
As a follow up to a previous World Cafe, it became clear that there were many issues and problem spaces that arose that required further probing within the realm of publishing online within the government — both internal- and external-facing content.
Issues:
- How should articles that need to be published be prioritized?
- How can it be ensured that content is presented in the appropriate format/location within government websites?
- How can user research be part of the publishing process from the outset?
- What is the standard process for getting an article published, and how can stakeholders be kept up-to-date on its status from beginning to end?
Methods:
As the team wanted to consult with as many web publishers as possible, it was imperative that the methods to be utilized included an option for online participation. The team utilized RealTimeBoard as a virtual whiteboard tool to mimic the same activity as in-person participants. We landed on 3 separate activities that were the best fit for the 3 questions to be explored. These activities were conducted simultaneously, so that folks had the opportunity to be involved in each question.
Backcasting — This method was employed as it gave participants a chance to look ahead at a time where their issues are resolved — and to imagine what that resolution looks like. Additionally, this methods helps to break up the necessary steps required to meet that resolution, and what each step of that journey will need to look like.
Service blueprint — This method was used because of the familiarity that participants had with having to visualize complicated services by virtue of government bodies needing to overlap. As well, a service blueprint is incredibly useful to determine where misunderstandings exist within processes already in place, and to gain insight into what the service looks like from the participants and where painpoints exist.
Decision tree — A decision tree was utilized to discuss and discover the specifics surrounding how prioritization occurs in publishing articles, as well as consider best fit between the type of content, what publishing channel to use, and how those choices are affected by the request.
Questions for Activities:
Backcasting: In 2021, user research is an integral part of the web publishing process. How did we get here? What was the process of making this a reality?
Service Blueprint: How do we keep every person in the web publishing process informed of the status of a product from beginning to end?
Decision tree: What are the questions you’d ask to evaluate how to proceed and prioritize content? How can we make this prioritization process easier for everyone? / How to decide what kind of ‘content’ to create for specific types of request; what are the current requirements from each channel? How do they decide?
Facilitation:
Facilitating two sets of participants (online and offline), as well as running 3 concurrent activities was accomplished through the help of a fantastic team of volunteers who diligently took notes on participant behaviours and comments. The UX practitioners who were facilitating were tasked with keeping the conversations focused and effective, while also trying to dig deeper into comments and insights participants had. Each activity had at least one facilitator, as group size tended to be between 8 – 12.
Online facilitation was also challenging, as there were significantly more participants involved in each activity. Additionally, facilitation was done via one laptop, which had sound (microphone and speakers) enabled in case participants had questions. This setup had to be moved, as the noise in the room with the in-person participants became too much to hear the online participants.
Key Insights:
Backcasting: One of the prominent insights from the backcasting exercise was that teaching and knowledge about user research was necessary early on, as well as buy-in from managers/directors to implement user research in their department’s work. User research could be used to highlight value added through measurements of success. Additionally, in the middle/late stages of the activity timeline, having standardized methods/analytics for user research were deemed essential.
Service Blueprint: Many challenges are currently present in the understanding of the web publishing process, such as what timeline expectations are, whether email follow-ups are the most effective, a lack of comprehensive style guides and templates, and cumbersome content approval processes.
Decision tree #1: Current issues surrounding prioritization included deferring decision “up the chain”, as well as the complexity of the task (needing analytics or tied to another campaign) can be delayed, while also noting that generally new content is favoured in comparison to updating older content. This speaks to the underlying notions of timelines/deadlines for publishing, cost/effort, sensitivity/safety of the content, and political pressure to publish.
Decision tree #2: Arguably more straightforward insights were discovered, such as determining and agreeing upon certain communication channels for specific pieces of content. For instance, if the content budget is high, it can live on the Ontario.ca website; if the content budget is low, it would be relegated to an email blast or social media post.
Recommendations / Next steps:
- Formalize decision making processes for web publishing – This will ease tension in regards to understanding the priority of publishing, as well as creating a stronger understanding between departments on what expectations are.
- Define, teach, and champion user research within web publishing – Many participants believed that user research and its benefits will overall improve content and the campaigns surrounding them.
- Prototype and engage with solutions for other issues that have been outlined – Web publishers understand their needs, so put the power in their hands to prototype potential solutions for decision making and other critical issues raised.
The preceding insights and challenges were compiled into a presentation that was delivered to senior officials and upper management, to bolster understanding across the org and to work towards the goal of implementing user research and receiving buy-in from upper management. A follow-up workshop was planned to be held to probe further into issues being faced by web publishers in the Ontario government; unfortunately, I was not involved as my contract with the ODS had concluded.