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The service: 

  • Provides hearing support to people in their local community

The problems

  • Our existing hearing support services were delivered inconsistently

  • People with low digital skills weren’t able to access all of the services and information that we offer online

The project:

  • Design a consistent local service where people can get their hearing aids fixed, get their hearing checked and get information to help them hear better

What I did

Did user research interviews with staff and volunteers

I did user research interviews with staff who deliver our existing services and the volunteers who help run them.

I also helped our user researcher analyse the findings from the service user research interviews that she conducted with people with hearing loss.

Discovery

Impact

We were able to understand pain points in the existing service delivery model.

Planned an asynchronous ideation exercise

I created ‘How might we?’ statements to help prompt staff members to consider how we might solve some of the problems that the user research identified. Then I prioritised which ideas to take into Alpha by considering:

  • Is it distinct?

  • Is it ‘for us’?

  • Will it meet user needs?

  • Is it scalable?

  • Can we do it?

  • How risky is it?

Discovery

Impact

We were able to come up with ideas in a way that allowed people to consider the solutions in their own time.

Mapped out the current and future services

I used insights from the user research to help me map the existing services, as well as what a future service might look like.  

Discovery

Alpha

Impact

We were able to see the different parts of the service, how they interact with each other, and where there might be challenges.

Ran sketching workshops

I ran sketching workshops to create prototypes and storyboards based on the ideas from Discovery. 

When I discovered that some members of the project team had access needs that made the sketching sessions inaccessible for them, I adapted my approach for future sessions. 


Find out more about how we made our sketching sessions more accessible.

Alpha

Impact

We were able to design prototypes and storyboards that would help us test key assumptions about how the future service might work.

Tested prototypes with users

I ran user research sessions where I showed people prototypes and storyboards to see if our ideas helped meet their needs. Then I synthesised and analysed the results and shared them with the project team.

Alpha

Impact

We were able to learn how we could improve the future service based on our findings from the user resarch.

Visited our services to understand how they worked

When we piloted our new services in a few areas, I visited them to see how they were set up and learn what was working and what wasn’t. 

This helped me understand the context of the physical space, speak to service users and learn things that I couldn’t have find out through interviews.

Beta

Impact

We were able to make changes to the service based on what I’d observed.

Find out what I learned during the pilot.