Environmental Research Database
An environmental research group needed help with the design of a research database project related to soil health. The two goals of the database were to give users easy access to soil health research in one place and show funding gaps.
Following you can see the goals of our research plan and some of the questions developed for the interviews.
Role
User Researcher
Actions on this project
Interviews with proxy users
Analysis of research findings
Presentation of research findings
Data from interviews was gathered into a large Excel spreadsheet, a snippet of which is below. I then combed through the data for patterns of interest to the client.
Sample of spreadsheet with research notes with some colored highlights reflecting items of interest
Results
“Thank you, Melissa! This is excellent information. So glad you were able to do such thorough interviews!”
Determined users' current processes for accessing soil health research
Learned common search terms to help us develop a useful faceted search within the research database
Surfaced concerns about creating a database which the research group could address proactively
Discovered other promising ways to communicate research findings to potential users, e.g. a newsletter
Informed the design of the MVP