I’m Mark and I recently joined Co-op Digital as a user researcher on Co-op Funeralcare. I’m part of a multi-disciplinary team which means I work alongside developers, designers and product managers as well as internal and external subject matter experts from the funeralcare industry.
At Co-op Digital we’re building a service so that our Co-op Funeralcare colleagues can meet the needs of their customers more efficiently. The less time spent doing paperwork, the more time they have for their customers. Their role includes welcoming friends and family who are visiting their loved one, arranging personalised keepsakes, and of course organising the funeral including the cremation or burial.
As a user researcher, I help my team learn about our Funeralcare colleague’s roles; which systems are already in place and where digital can make things better. The best way for me to do this is by visiting funeral homes, listening to my colleagues who work there, and watching them at work.
When I’m back in the office I relay what I’ve found out to the rest of my team. That said, I believe that ‘user research is a team sport’ so I always encourage my colleagues to come and see for themselves too.
Contextual research (actually going to the place to see how things work) makes sure we build a service based on needs rather than on our assumptions of what our colleagues need. So in this sense, my role is to make sure that when my team starts iterating on the service or building a new feature, we know it’s going to be useful as well as useable. Contextual research means that both time and money are spent wisely. We’ll iterate what we build along the way, of course.
I feel privileged to be on this team. Our Funeralcare colleagues only have one chance to arrange a loved one’s funeral. Building something that helps them do that smoothly and sensitively feels like a really important thing to work on and get right.
Mark Branigan
User researcher, Funeralcare
I’ve worked for Co-op for over 2 years as the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Manager for our Food business. I was seconded to the Digital Services team earlier this year and spent a couple of months shadowing delivery managers to get up to speed with agile ways of working before being hired permanently.
