JNCC Marine Noise Register for UK Department for Environment- Full research study over 2 months
Reaching business outcomes is crucial to managing Marine Protected Areas that have a wide range of different habitats and species..
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The research traversed areas such as noise schema, geospatial & temporal data, calculation data, and complex user groups.
With such rich scientific data and insights, understanding, mapping, and illustrating these in workflows and user journeys was important for the development of the new register.
It was key to understand assumptions and mitigate bias, with those closely working on the project. To do this I kept a reflective diary, which took note of them before user sessions, just after, and then referred to during analysis. I find this works well at controlling any preconceptions you may have during analysis.
Being able to refer to the evidence in workshops and meetings throughout was a crucial element of this research study.
Having a large insight database meant it was key to break down and synthesize all the data whilst keeping to the testable assumptions and the research goals.
A research repository was implemented into Excel as that is what the team used and was most familiar with.
A key highlight in my service was to make sure the team was equipped with the tools to monitor users, make sure. they met UX metrics and guidelines put in place to help them. While also illustrating the future purposes of the service.
This was set out in an easy-to-scan and read document that linked insights to guidelines, principles, and WCAG accessibility guidelines.
The breadth of new data allowed the team to learn more about what scientists and marine biologists need to see within the functionality, and also change a lot of the data inputs and ranges so that they were up to date with current standards.
The research study challenged Product Manager’s and stakeholder’s assumptions regarding how certain user groups would use the tool and the information needed to be extracted from the register.
A requirement from the Marine Management Organisation MMO is to make the register publicly available to all. Although the users can ask for the data, it is not publicly available online to access independently.
Moreover, the development of the current system is outdated and is causing users pain points with lots of feedback from users. In some scenarios, the register does not satisfy user needs at all.
The project outline
Desk research
Research Plan
Assumption, desk research findings workshop with stakeholders
A large user survey
x25 user research sessions and analysis database
Presentations with all research artifacts
Insight database
Research operations- tools and guidelines for monitoring
I enjoyed the intricacy of this project and learned how to better manage larger data streams and teams associated with them.