My approach
Taboos are hard to talk about and deeply connected to ideas and behaviours that are resistant to change - often making them the heart of the most interesting design briefs. It requires empathy and creative tenacity - not to mention a great research toolkit - to tackle them confidently. Many taboo issues intersect with experiences of trauma, and I have spent the last 6 years learning about and practicing with a trauma-informed approach to research. This means that I centre the principles of safety, agency, trust, collaboration, empowerment and hope in my practice.
Creativity
Tackling systemic issues or challenging deeply ingrained assumptions takes teams of creative thinkers to overcome. I'm experienced in being both a part of, and leading such teams. Once we have clearly defined insights, we start to craft opportunities, and imagine and create new solutions. That might be designing content or developing innovative products, services and systems of change.
Empathy
Everything I do is rooted in building empathy for the people I’m researching. Often people I speak with have been silenced by the stigma and shame around experiences they had no control over (such as health issues, suicide bereavement or sexual assault). Designing products and services to support them requires navigating sensitive topics with care and expertise. Building trust intentionally is what helps me to gather strong insights.
Strategy
I know that the ‘so what?’ following research is the most pressing question for clients and partners. So, everything I deliver builds a clear bridge between what users need and what a brand or organisation can legitimately do. That means getting to know you, your sector and other offerings in your space, and identifying the areas in which you can have unique impact.
Being a creative strategist as well as a researcher means you’ll get three things from working with me:
First up, I meet with you to chat about your challenge and to co-design a project brief. I’ll help you assess whether research is necessary, and if so, I spend time designing the right research approach and methods for you. In the steps below you’ll find some of the steps I take to support you in getting from questions to answers.
I work closely with client teams across design, marketing and innovation functions up to senior management, inviting them to join live research as much as possible by making sessions digitally available.
I regularly share my research learnings within teams, providing mini insights via slack or email to look out for as we go along, as well as organising weekly check-ins, running synthesis workshops and hosting clear debriefs. This means teams can stay up to speed, be inspired by what we’re learning and action insights quickly and effectively. Of course, by joining in with research they also learn a bit about best practice too.
Throughout the process I use collaborative tech tools for transparency and speed. These include G-suite, Slack, Loom, Zoom, Otter, Figma, Miro and Calendly to work and collaborate for best results.
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For each project I’ll choose the right mix of research methods that project needs. I’m an expert in qualitative interviewing as well as cultural/trends research, and frequently work closely with data analysts to explore product problems together. It might be that we want to run quantitative surveys, interview users, hear from experts, AB test some prototypes or review how competitors are solving the same needs as you. I work to all kinds of budgets and will share ideas for what we could do before kicking off.
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For qualitative work, I think intentionally and creatively about what type of profiles will help us learn the most, while balancing considerations such as bias and intersectionality. I have expert partners around the world who are on hand to pull off niche recruits to a tight spec. I’ll often find your rejectors, lapsed users or the most loyally committed ones to provide extra insight.
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Encouraging people to talk about highly stigmatised or taboo issues they’re facing means going the extra mile when it comes to ethics and informed consent. I do thorough groundwork with participants to ensure they feel safe and empowered to contribute in the way that they want and we need. I treat data with great care, for example limiting who sees Personally Identifying Information (PII), anonymising notes and transcripts, designing bespoke consent forms, and storing and deleting recordings correctly within digital platforms.
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One of the best ways to learn about people’s needs is to put ideas for solutions in front of them to get their gut reactions, early on. It shifts the conversation from abstract to tangible. It also helps users feel less in the ‘spotlight’, especially during sensitive discussions. This makes sketched up concepts a great research tool. It also means that by the end of the process, with ongoing iteration, we have clear ideas tailored to the problem we need to solve, which have actually been co-created with your users.
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This is the turning point in any research project and where you’ll get most value from me. I will quickly transform large amounts of raw data into sharp insights that illuminate design directions. I identify and share learnings that make total sense while feeling brand new, and bring you into that process if you’re interested to learn how. This is about crafting insights that you will act on - a creative exercise - while staying committed to the truths that our users have shared. I’ll help you make decisions with clarity and confidence.
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I know that getting teams excited about research and new directions often relies on compelling and memorable user stories. These I will bring to life beautifully with photography, video, personas and data visualisation. I deliver confident suggestions for design and business strategy that pack in strong insights from users and clear stories about what their unmet needs are.
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Workshopping creative solutions derived from insight is my favourite thing to do with clients and where they usually get most excited too.
Here we really interrogate what research and creative opportunities might mean for your business or organisation. Getting the right people in the room to discuss the implications of a specific story, problem or opportunity is where we turn interesting insights into powerful results for you.
We can also spend time in these sessions prioritising outcomes, and assigning teams to them, so we are already roadmapping pieces of work by the time I hand over to you.