We’ve followed the Horizon Post Office scandal with empathy for everyone that it has impacted and is still affecting. It’s clear that the postmasters and their families were failed on many levels and we cannot address them all here.
Looking at it from a digital technology perspective, it shows how important it is to build systems using user-centred design. Working in a user-centred way plays a valuable part in designing the right solutions for colleagues and customers. Listening to them, and questioning technology and processes, provides confidence that you are meeting their needs. It also mitigates the high-level risks and consequences of not testing or having active and open feedback channels.
How we work in product teams to understand user needs
User-centred design is based on understanding the tasks users need to perform and the environments they are in. It reduces the potential for us to negatively affect anyone who interacts with the Co-op.
We have specialists within our teams that make sure that our services are user-centred and delivering value to the Co-op. That value could be commercial, or creating efficiencies in how we work.
Although skills often overlap, each specialism is an important part of a product team. Collaboration between disciplines helps us to consider everything within a user’s experience and design the right solutions.
User researchers
User researchers talk to the users of our services and provide insights to help the team make decisions. They empower team members and stakeholders to fully understand user needs and build confidence through testing. User researchers also help to identify and mitigate any problems with our services.
Interaction designers
Interaction designers are sometimes known as UX (user experience) designers. They help create accessible interfaces and consistent user experiences to solve user problems. Interaction designers do things like sketching, creating digital prototypes and producing digital designs for a product or service.
Content designers
Content designers create and organise information in the clearest way to help users complete tasks. They work closely with user researchers, interaction designers and engineers to make sure the content is accessible and easy to understand.
Service designers
Service designers design the end-to-end journeys of our services. They help teams to think about all channels to help users complete their goals. They align their work with business needs and measurable value.
Product managers
Product managers focus on the product vision, providing direction on objectives, strategy, the Co-op’s goals and wider market. They help to assess the value of work, prioritising it into plans that meet the team goals and contribute to sustainable growth.
Product owners
Product owners translate strategy and objectives into tasks for designers and engineers to enable the team to deliver the product. In smaller product teams the product manager will also perform the duties of the product owner. Both roles work strategically and need to communicate with the team on how to achieve goals.
Delivery managers
Delivery managers enable their team to build and iterate user-centred services. They remove obstacles to progress, helping the team to explore better ways of working and deliver outcomes more effectively.
Engineers
Engineers craft the code that makes our digital products work for our users. Our engineers build software with users in mind and follow standards to ensure people have the best experience when they use our products.
Quality coaches
Quality coaches embed quality into every stage of product development, working with product, design, delivery and engineering specialists. They take a risk-based approach to tackle any problems early and deliver a high quality product or service.
Subject matter experts
We work closely with the people who do the jobs we’re designing for (or the customers they serve). They are the experts, and we listen to their expertise and experiences, often co-designing solutions with them.
Supporting teams
At Co-op we take a service-first approach and the technology teams that support us make sure that our digital products are secure, robust and accurate.
Why we start small and iterate
We gradually improve products and services over time, which is sometimes called an ‘agile’ way of working. By using quick cycles of experimentation, learning and releases we can deliver value early and change direction quickly. If we learn something new about our market or spot any problems, we can fix it straight away and build everything else around a solid foundation.
We define the most important features first, then work on the less important features over time.
How we test to help us learn and improve
We test to validate new ideas or create a better solution to an existing service. We use mock-ups, sketches, and other low-fidelity visuals like coded prototypes. By testing early, we can develop onto higher fidelity versions and products with more confidence.
When we release products early and often, we reduce the risk involved in complex solutions. We also create value for Co-op and our customers or colleagues sooner. We test results consistently to see what’s working and what needs to be better.
Why we collaborate and empower our team members
We value collaboration and empowerment across teams. A product team owns their product and should be in full control of making changes to it.
We collaborate closely with other teams and stakeholders to make sure that we’re considering all the factors that influence a product’s success.
This means decision making sits closely with the experts of the product and its users, so that we can move quickly and gain the most value from our time.
How user-centred design helps us avoid mistakes
We make a minimum version of our work live as soon as we’re sure that it is working for our colleagues and customers. If a simple version is working well and doing what it needs to do, then we can build additional features on top.
Fixing problems early or before we make something live, also helps us to save time and money. We avoid the expense of making changes on a higher fidelity product later. Most importantly, we minimise exposing our customers and colleagues to systems that impact them negatively or cause them harm.
At Co-op we always want to do the best we can for our members, customers and colleagues. User-centred design is an important part of making sure we do this for our digital products and services.
Thank you to the Content Design community and Customer Products team for their collaboration on this post.
Matt Tyas – Head of Design.
More information on topics in this blog post:
- Find out more about how we work at Co-op digital – You will need Co-op internal Sharepoint access for this
- An opinion piece about the Post Office Horizon included in Public Digital’s January 2024 newsletter