You will help teams develop an understanding of the people who use a service. The findings enable teams to design and build better services quickly and to continuously improve services, based on data and evidence.

You will plan and lead user research activities, build user centred practices and align user research activities with wider plans to inform service proposals.

Responsibilities

Plan, design and carry out user research activities to support the design, development and continuous improvement of complex services for all our users - the public, providers, stakeholders and staff
Organise the recruitment of user research participants including working with recruiters where needed
Prepare discussion guides and scripts to support user research sessions.
Facilitate/moderate user research sessions
Lead analysis of research data and produce clear and actionable findings, including working closely with colleagues to create a rich picture of user behaviour
Communicate user research findings to help the team and wider organisation develop a deep understanding of users and their needs
Work closely with the multidisciplinary team to turn user research findings into stories and actions that lead to valuable product and service features
Align user research activities with organisational strategy to inform the roadmap of service development
Embed user-centred design practices into the work of the organisation's teams
Mentor and guide more junior user researchers to assure and improve research practice
Contribute to the wider government user research community

Essential criteria

Excellent oral and published written communication skills
Experience of delivering in an agile environment
Knowledge of health and social care or regulatory environments
Experience of managing multiple projects
Experience of dealing with senior stakeholders
Experience of advocating for user research and engaging sceptical colleagues and stakeholders
Experience of helping teams adopt user-centred service design and delivery practices and embedding them into their agile workflow
The ability to understand the complex problems a team is trying to solve, and align user research activities to inform decision making and action
Experience of helping teams adopt a wide range of user research methods, analysis and synthesis techniques and approaches to presenting and sharing findings
Proven experience of introducing new user research methods into a team, and guiding colleagues in the choice and effective application of research methods
A good understanding of the social and technological context for public sector services and experience of aligning user research activities to help teams understand changing user behaviour