User Research: The Business Activity Statements (BAS) Journey
1. Strategy - Internal Research
We conducted a listening tour with internal stakeholders as a first step to gain context for the project, understand the problem we were trying to solve and the hypotheses the business had. Another key focus of this phase was to identify and understand our target customers who would be most suited for the research.
Internal Journey Mapping Workshop
We then conducted an internal journey mapping workshop with a select group of key stakeholders to validate my understanding of how accountants and bookkeepers complete the BAS Journey (internal view).
Method:
• Column headers were placed on the wall to represent stages of the journey
• Participants refined/added/removed stages
• Participants added user activities under each stage
Output: map of the internal view of the BAS journey
2. Research Discovery - Contextual inquiries
12 participants: 6 accountants and 6 bookkeepers were recruited for hour long contextual inquiries in their homes (bookkeepers) and offices (accountants). I conducted this project with a junior ux designer and where possible/appropriate we invited different stakeholders (one at a time) to observe the contextual inquiry first hand.
The above journey was used as a framework for conducting the contextual inquiries. During each interview the customer was shown the journey and explained that this was the internal hypothesis of the journey and open to critique and modification and would serve as an outline of what would be covered throughout the interview.
Following an introduction section the interview guide then went through each phase of the journey and asked key questions around that phase as well as questions in the following areas:
- Time on task
- Latency issues
- Channels used
- Delights
- Challenges
- Products used
The interview script can be provided upon request.
3. Analysis - Clues, Themes, Hunches and Insights
The audio from the contextual inquires was recorded and shared with the broader team and 'clues' (notes) were taken on post-it notes with a different colour for each participant (as can be seen below). These notes were then organised into three horizontal swim lanes along the journey:
- Do (what participants are doing)
- Think (what participants are thinking)
- Feel (what participants are feeling)
Following careful analysis 'themes' and 'hunches' were developed by looking at the notes below. Other qualitative and quantitative research was then further analysed to form key 'insights' as seen below.
4. Digitising and Communicating the Findings
