September 2020 - December 2020
STUDENT CONSULTANT FOR MICHR
PROJECT TYPE: Contextual Inquiry Project, Student Consultant
SKILLS & TOOLS: User Research, Conducting Interviews, Using MIRO Boards
GROUP PROJECT : 4 members
ROLE: Interviewer, Notetaker, Researcher
OVERVIEW
THE PROJECT
Contextual Inquiry project to evaluate the client's workflow process and new member intake.
PROJECT TYPE
User research
Contextual Inquiry
SKILLS/TOOLS
Research, Conducting interviews, Identifying solutions, MIRO boards
TIMELINE
THE PROBLEM
Heavy administrative burden
Improving recruitment & marketing strategies
Lack of diversity among participants
After the initial client meeting we identified that the main challenges that MICHR was facing revolved around addressing the administrative burden, improving recruitment & marketing strategies, and the lack of diversity among participants.
THE STUDIOS
We sat in on a studio to get a better understanding of how they are run
One of the roles of the Community Engagement (CE) group within MICHR is to conduct studios.
They are sessions for health researchers interested in getting feedback from patients or those working in a community setting on proposed or on-going research projects
We then attended a studio conducted by MICHR to get an understanding of what studios are and how they are run.
Topics covered during studios include participant recruitment, considerations for underrepresented populations, study design, and how to share research findings with target populations.
THE INTERVIEWS
One Studio Participant
One Vanderbilt Staff Member
Six MICHR Employees
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Interviews focused on two broad points of interest ~ administrative & recruiting
ANALYSIS
After conducting interviews, we consolidated them by creating affinity wall which started as an unorganized drop of all the content from the interviews we conducted.
From there, as a team, we grouped these points and quotes into topic groups (blue notes), and then grouped these into 18 larger categories (pink notes), in order to get a better idea of what sorts of issues needed to be addressed.
Finally, we grouped these into 4 main topic areas (green notes), with one Miscellaneous section, that helped us visualize how we needed to approach our solution plan
FINDINGS & RECOMMENDATIONS
General Findings
There is high regard for MICHR studios to facilitate research
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Strong positive feedback for how studio sessions were conducted
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Five main topic areas for all findings and recommendations: administration, recruitment, marketing, participant access, and partner expansion
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These could take studios to the next level & allow for successful expansion of studios in the future
We formulated solutions and evaluated our top six recommendations based on priority, feasibility, cost, impact/effectiveness, and time frame. We color coded this table from dark blue to a lighter blue.
The boxes in dark blue represent solutions that can be acted on immediately, can be easily implemented, have a low cost, are highly effective or can show results within a year.
The boxes in medium blue represent action items are recommended but not urgent, may not be as easy to implement, may come with some cost, are effective solutions or those where you can see results within 2-4 years
Finally the light blue boxes represent low priority solutions where action is not necessary, may be difficult to implement, may have a high cost, may not be very effective or are long term solutions where results are seen in in 5+ years.
WHAT I LEARNED
Gained experience conducting interviews in an online format
How to frame interview questions so they aren't leading questions
To adapt and overcome challenges in group dynamics
