One minute you’re asking how someone uses a digital service. The next, they’re telling you something deeply personal – sometimes sensitive or even traumatic. These moments are rare, but they do happen. And when they do, we need to be prepared. Both to support participants and protect our researchers and our teams.

Why planning matters

We plan every research activity sensitively and with safety at heart. Questions we regularly ask ourselves include:

• have we built in extra time for breaks or emotional space?
• have we chosen safe interview locations – research labs are best, public places can work, and only visit people’s homes if absolutely necessary (and take someone along with you)?
• what are the escalation routes, especially when working with children?
• have we offered companions for vulnerable participants – while balancing the need for honest responses?
• is everyone aware that it’s ok to stop, even if the session feels incomplete?
• have we checked in with researchers before and after to make sure they feel safe and supported?

These are part of the ethical responsibility we take seriously.  

This planning stage helps make sure that we’re prepared for the unexpected. And in user research, the unexpected is more common than you might think.

When a simple subject takes a hard turn

Even seemingly light topics can take a serious turn. In one research study about moving house – packing, removals, bills and utilities – most participants described the usual stress. But one woman became visibly upset. She explained she had to move quickly due to domestic abuse.

In situations like this, even well-meaning reactions can cause harm. Trauma-informed practice teaches us:

• don’t press for details, even if they seem relevant.
• don’t try to solve the problem or steer back to the research too quickly.
• do acknowledge what’s been said with care:  “Thank you for sharing that – it sounds like it was a really difficult time.”

We avoid making assumptions or showing pity with phrases like “You must have been terrified” or “You should call the police.” Instead, we stay present and steady. Neuroscience tells us that calm behaviour helps others regulate their own stress. Offering water, a break, or the chance to pause helps create calm. Even confirming they’re happy to continue with the session can restore a sense of control.

Later, we let the participant guide what happens next:

We don’t need to continue if you’d prefer not to.”

You’ve already shared a lot that will help us improve things for others.”

If the conversation feels safe enough to continue, we still offer lightness. Not minimising their experience, but giving them the chance to move to a neutral topic:

If it helps, we can talk about something else,  or I can just thank you and let you get on with your day.”

We finish by making it clear they’re in control of what happens to their data:

You’re in control of what we keep.”

But we’re also honest about limits to confidentiality. We provide consent and information sheets to all participants before each session. And on the very rare occasion where a safeguarding concern is presented, follow-up action may be needed.

Why we trained the whole team in trauma-informed practice

Because of these real-world complexities, we knew that planning on its own wasn’t enough. We also needed to invest in equipping our people with the right tools and frameworks.

Last December, our whole user research practice took part in trauma-informed practice (TIP) training. We brought in Kate Cairns from KCA Training who specialises in this type of work and spent a full day exploring what trauma-informed practice really means in the context of user research.

The session included an introduction to the principles and theory, but most of the time was spent in scenario-based exercises – thinking about how we use language, how we recognise signs of discomfort and how we can reduce the risk of retraumatising people we’re speaking to.

Our user researchers at Made Tech, often work on public services in areas such as health, justice or housing, where the people we speak to may have experienced trauma.. Even where the topic being discussed  seems relatively neutral, participants can sometimes disclose unexpected and sometimes very personal information.

That’s why it was important for us to train the whole team. We needed to be confident that anyone running research was equipped to respond in a sensitive, ethical and appropriate way and to create a psychologically safe environment for participants.

Real-world complexity in user research

Public services are often used during times of stress, grief or crisis. Our job as researchers is to understand what people need, even when they can’t always say it, by listening to their experiences and the context they’re in.

⚖️ Working with victims

In our work, we often speak with people who’ve been through very difficult experiences, but you don’t always know what someone will say.

They may open up about personal experiences such as serious illness, past traumas, or other life-changing events – even when these aren’t the focus of the discussion.

There’s no script for those moments. What matters is being able to hold space for the person, recognise what’s been shared and steer the conversation in a way that feels safe for them and for you.

🌊 Hearing distress in the detail

As part of a project exploring how councils respond to anti-social behaviour, we heard stories that showed the real emotional impact such experiences can have. 

People described feeling unsafe in their own homes, with fears around noise, suspected drug use and possible retaliation shaping how and when they chose to speak.

Thanks to the training we’d had, our team knew how to recognise the signs and respond by adjusting the pace and direction of the session. We didn’t need to ask about the distress directly. We just needed to listen and give space for people to speak through their experience of anti-social behaviour.

🧒🏽 The complexities of researching with children

We also occasionally run research with both children and school staff. I’ve spoken to very young children myself, but others on the team have worked with teenagers, which can be especially complex.

Before these sessions, we think carefully about how to plan for safety – both theirs and ours. For example:

• do we have the right team involved?
• have the teams been pre-briefed in terms of expectations?
• would the children benefit from having a trusted adult along with them at the session?
• how do we build in breaks?
• do the researchers know what the escalation routes are if they hear something concerning?

Even something as simple as knowing when to stop an interview can make all the difference. It sounds obvious, but in the moment – when you want to finish your discussion guide or collect that last bit of insight – it’s easy to keep going when you shouldn’t.

Supporting our teams too

At Made Tech, we embody best practices – we follow the code of conduct from the Market Research Society, GDPR and Government Digital Service. 

But our standards don’t just echo the best practice – at Made Tech we go further. We also address how to support our own teams during and after emotionally intense research.

Trauma-informed research isn’t just about participants. Researchers and delivery teams get affected, too.

On one project, our user research team dealt with death-related cases every day. Applying our best-practice standards, we planned rest days to help everyone process the emotional load.

Good research is about planning and protecting

We often say good user research is about listening. But it’s also about planning, protecting and responding with care.

Trauma-informed practice doesn’t just help us gather better insights. It helps us build better services and relationships. Relationships rooted in trust and respect.

For more information about our user-centred design services take a look at our web pages.

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Humour and user research: a partnership

Surprisingly, humour has been an unexpected asset to my career as a researcher so far. Here’s 4 ways you can use it in your next research project to get the most out of your insights. 

Opening up by breaking the ice 

Using humour can help break the ice as users can often be nervous when they come to a session. A common worry I hear is that the session may be overly formal or professional. In this situation people may withhold information or not feel completely free to speak their mind. By being able to laugh at yourself and show your personality users will often mirror that behaviour and feel free to be themself in return.

A great way to incorporate this into user sessions is through themed ice breakers. One of my go-to’s when starting a workshop is asking users to pick what cat they are. For example, giving them the option to pick a photo of a cat that aligns most with where they’re at for the day – sad cat or happy cat etc. Nothing groundbreaking, yet a really effective way to create a lighter mood and get people to open up. Give it a try at your next workshop. As a bonus, you may find users enjoy the session more – which is always a win if you’re planning follow-up research.

Think outside the box to boost engagement 

While recently working on a central government project, I found engagement in our regular user group session quite low and lacking in energy. I wanted to turn things around. I tried to think of times where I have felt engaged in meetings or workshops and why they were fun, so I could gain more from these sessions. I decided to gamify the situation by turning it into a pub quiz-style workshop. 

This was a great decision. We created teams, introduced some friendly competition and the fun element really helped people relax and be present in the moment. This quiz also kept users focused – which was a big challenge as we were hosting the session remotely and many attendees chose to have their cameras off. 

This was also a great exercise for me. It really tested my ability to laugh at myself as I was often the only person speaking with my camera on. My awkwardness paid off. There were a huge amount of comments in the chat box. Those comments provided useful insights to help direct the research while highlighting any immediate problems that could be resolved at pace. This approach also prompted debate between users – helping me to see the key differences in user needs.

Have fun with creative thinking

From my stint as a childcare worker I’d often observe the children while playing  – anyone who has spent time with children will understand that they’re not only having fun, but learning new things too. What I realised was, this can work in research as well. 

I might ask the user to imagine stepping into the shoes of another member of the team. Asking what they would do if they were designing the service for example. This gives the user freedom to imagine new ideas and think creatively. Quite often users have been doing the same things in the same way for a long time. Trying to imagine doing it any other way can seem impossible. Here’s where you can give them the opportunity to play a different role. You can use examples to prompt them if they get stuck, like showing them 2 images and asking which they prefer and why.What might they keep, what would they change and why.  

I was recently involved in a project where the organisation was going through a lot of rapid change. One user had been working there for many years and was not happy about this. They explained that they felt like the many changes were making things at the organisation complicated. While this could be a tricky situation, I asked them to pretend that I was a new member of staff and that they knew all about the updated system we were designing. I then asked them to explain to me how I should use it. The user was able to talk me through step by step on how to complete a set task. 

By doing this I was not only able to validate that the new system worked, but that they understood it well enough to teach someone. I also discovered where things within the system were a bit more tricky to understand based on their struggle to explain the steps. 

If a user is stuck thinking something will never work, try to instil a ‘just give it a go attitude’. When we don’t take these things too seriously people are more likely to get involved and tap into their creative side. Make it clear that no ideas are set in stone and it can be just a bit of fun – that’s where we see the magic happen.

Building your team relationships

Working in multidisciplinary teams can be hard. Particularly when it comes to complex projects where you’re trying to keep up with your developer’s explanations of different coding issues. In situations like these, this Taylor Swift quote comes to my mind, ‘the more that you say, the less I know.’ Having the ability to laugh at yourself and be honest about where you’re at helps to create positive communication within the team, something that is so important when it comes to collaborating. 

For this I find it’s best to be honest. In the scenario above, I’ll usually try to lighten the mood with something like “Sounds fabulous, but you lost me at bugs.” As a solo researcher on a project it’s okay to sometimes feel a bit out of your depth. It’s essential to remind yourself that you’re there to find stuff out. It’s okay that you don’t know everything. By asking clarifying questions from the start, your team will often get into the habit of doing it. I recommend booking in specific times for questions so that you’re not just blindsiding the team at stand up (I am so guilty of this). 

Having a good team relationship means the work can flow better. After all, we’re all working to the same goal – creating and building better services for society. 

Finding your voice a user researcher

Humour is the way I’ve always been able to deal with challenging situations. I’m proud it’s something I’ve also been able to bring into my work as a researcher as I engage users and unlock valuable insights. 

But one last piece of advice, I’d always advise you to take time to think about who your users are. One of the important aspects of our job is knowing when humour can help a situation, but it might not always be the right option. Some questions to ask yourself about your users include:

• what is their working environment?
• are they at home or in an office? 
• do they have a hierarchical organisation that may make junior staff uncomfortable? 
• can you separate users? 
• is this a stakeholder?
• is the topic sensitive?

Every situation is unique. Remember, some of us may be able to laugh ourselves out of a crisis but not everyone can. Take the time to think about who you’re speaking to and whether laughter will be an asset or distraction. 

In this post I’ve shared a few of my tips, but overall I think it comes down to finding your own particular style. For me it’s not just about dropping in multiple dad jokes (though this can help) or becoming a comedian overnight – it’s about not taking yourself too seriously. People want to feel good and most of the time a bit of laughter helps that. If nothing else, I hope this post inspires you to bring a bit more of yourself to your role so your team and users feel comfortable to be themselves too. 

Looking for a career change or to make the jump into user research? We’re always looking for great talent. Take a look at our open roles – our friendly team are always happy to have a chat.

The post How humour makes me a better user researcher appeared first on Made Tech.

When it comes to designing for impact, the real magic happens behind the clicks. Dani Swift, Designer, shares spell-binding tips for prioritising user needs and explains how these principles fuel ‘tech for good’.

Q: How did you end up doing what you’re doing now?

When I joined Made Tech in Summer 2021, I started as a bid manager. Whilst writing and submitting bid responses I discovered that I was fascinated by the user-centred design (UCD) projects and wanted to find out more about how these projects helped our clients create great services. When an opportunity arose to join Made Tech’s UCD academy, I applied, got accepted, and was thrilled to start my journey in tech as a designer. Since then, I’ve worked on some really exciting projects.

Q: What’s an interaction designer versus a service designer?

As an interaction designer, I focus on web-based user experiences. Right now, I’m working with a government department to improve one of their internal tools. It’s currently in the beta testing phase before final release, where we’re looking to spot any issues, action any feedback and identify any last minute things we can improve. My job specifically is to review screens based on user research and make those small changes that will enhance the user experience.

When I’ve worked on projects as a service designer, my focus has been more on understanding the bigger picture and all the moving parts of a service. There’s some overlap between the two roles since both involve working closely with user researchers. However in my experience, service design takes a more ‘zoomed out’ approach.

In the discovery projects I’ve worked on, I identified pain points and opportunities for improvement from both the process and the people perspective. The scope becomes much broader, with many layers to consider. The output might be a map or diagram to make something easier to understand. I’ve found that people are much more receptive to something visual that distils complex messaging into something more palatable!

Q: Can you share some top tips from some of the projects you’ve worked on?

I’m really passionate about the ‘tech for good’ philosophy. I think that some of the following tips actually mean that you end up producing tech solutions that are truly user-centred and genuinely beneficial to citizens.

1. Put the user front and centre: Always advocate for what users need first, rather than focusing solely on business goals. Understanding and prioritising user motivations and requirements is really important if you want to build effective services.
2. Follow a design process: Take the time to go through all the design steps before starting build and development. This really does save time and money and avoids the wasted effort of creating features or products that users don’t need.
3. Build a good rapport with research participants: When participants feel at ease, they’re more likely to be open and transparent, providing richer and more valuable insights.
4. Make the most of user researchers:  Every user researcher I’ve had the pleasure of working with has been brilliant. They bring a really deep curiosity to the team which helps to gain a deep understanding of pain points and needs.
5. Work collaboratively: When collaboration works well, it means that raw data can quickly and effectively be synthesised into meaningful information that can guide the project. Being on the same page about objectives and goals means that everyone is committed to putting their best work forward.
6. Stay true to the data: Make sure that your analysis remains objective and free from personal bias. It’s really important to keep everyone focused on the actual data, maintaining some element of scientific integrity in the process while understanding the importance of focusing on the bigger picture
7. Balance quantitative and qualitative data: While quantitative data provides measurable insights, qualitative data gives more context. But as in the bullet above, make sure you don’t let personal opinions influence your analysis of the qualitative information, and keep in mind the bigger picture.

Q: Can you tell me more about how you’ve used some of these tips on a specific project?

A security and intelligence client asked us to explore a cross-government, economic decision-making model to improve the UK’s resilience and security. At first, I felt daunted because of my lack of knowledge and expertise in this area, and imposter syndrome started to creep in. However I decided to push myself out of my comfort zone to see what I could achieve.

Our client was interested in testing a collaborative approach called ‘collective intelligence,’ which involves bringing together subject experts to solve complex problems. 

Using collaborative workshops, we gathered insights from a selection of 23 stakeholders, spanning academia and different government departments. This knowledge-sharing fed into design-thinking sessions, helping us to come up with early ideas.

We conducted a mini-discovery and mini-alpha phase using GOV.UK guidelines, to explore the problem and potential solutions. By doing so, we saved time and effort and stayed on track to develop a model that met both the user and client’s needs. We continuously tested and refined our assumptions, so that we were able to quickly see if the ‘collective intelligence’ approach was proving successful or failing.

We left the project with a really compelling hypothesis; that policy decisions might be improved in this area if there was better collaboration with academia. There’s so much knowledge required in this specific sector, you’d really need to be a global economics expert. It would be practically impossible for one single person to have this breadth of knowledge, so a ‘collective intelligence’ approach makes sense to bring together the experts in the field.

Q: What’s been the biggest career challenge you’ve faced ?

Building confidence has been a significant challenge for me, especially in areas like realising it’s okay to just be myself and public speaking, which used to terrify me.  To improve at public speaking, I’ve delivered lots of internal presentations at Made Tech which has been incredibly helpful. The safe and supportive environment allows me to practice, making it easier to present to stakeholders and senior staff, though it’s still nerve-wracking. Practising regularly, even in small ways, has made tackling bigger challenges feel more manageable and less scary. 

Time has helped me realise that people gravitate to you so much more when you’re authentic! I usually blend this into my presentations as I feel like a fraud when I’ve got to be overly formal. I’ve learned that by dropping in a personal story or anecdote to presentations really helps me to feel like my actual self, and this helps with the nerves too. 

Q: #1 tip for people who think tech is not for ‘people like them’

There’s a misconception that working in tech means writing code. I’m a hobbyist when it comes to front end coding, so while I enjoy creating a user interface in HTML/CSS, I can see how it can be intimidating for folk who don’t think the tech industry is for them. Saying that though, I’d recommend having a try. There’ are some great resources online like Codeadademy for example which have been a big help to me

But, if it’s still not for you, there’s more to working in tech than coding, especially if you look into user-centred design roles, or an adjacent profession like delivery management.

If you’re good at listening, have empathy, and are skilled in analysis, roles like user research, design, product management, business analysis, and delivery management might be a perfect fit. These positions use transferable skills and don’t involve coding unless you really want to go down that route. The tech industry is such a rewarding sector to be in, whether you’re writing code or whether you’re doing user-centred work.

Q: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

Something that’s stuck with me since day one of the UCD academy was a very simple phrase; “You are not the user” (thank you Clara & Mark). And it’s so true. Something that works for me, doesn’t necessarily work for all users, especially those with different accessibility needs or levels of web proficiency. 

If you want to learn more about design I’d recommend “Ruined by Design” by Mike Monteiro. He draws parallels between the Hippocratic oath in medicine and a set of principles for designers to make sure our designs are for the benefit of users. The book’s case studies on unethical design practices have made me more critical of my motivations as a designer and more mindful of the impact of my work. In fact, I’d highly recommend it to anyone in tech, not just designers.

Interactive designer is an ace job – no question about it. Even if I’ve not convinced you to put in a job application today, hopefully I’ve made you question whether you’re putting the user at the heart of what you do. 

To find out more about jobs at Made Tech browse our careers or take a look at some of the user-centred services we provide to clients.

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