The GO platform is the IFRC’s online emergency operations centre. Understanding the potential of such a service, as well as the needs and expectations of our thousands of users requires constant research and engagement.
This blog describes how we approach this in general, as well as the extra effort we put in every two years to gauge how the platform is used, and what we should prioritise improving or developing next.
The GO survey was shared with all GO users, but is now closed.
Background
Every new feature on GO is informed by and tested with our users. We generate designs from interviews, gather feedback on wireframes and confirm the final version through User Interface (UI) testing. We also maintain and review core user personas to make sure every new piece of functionality on the platform meets our original aims.
We also run biennial holistic studies across the user experience on the platform. The most recent GO Study in 2022, provided feedback and prioritisation of the platform. The three areas of main focus over the past couple of years have been around developing National Society pages and dedicated functionality, expanding the regular use of GO during operations, and providing reliable and trusted data for the IFRC.
We are now reaching out to our users to get feedback on the progress we’ve made on these three areas, as well as get ideas and priorities to guide our workplans and investments.
Member-centred design
Ever since the launch of GO, we’ve worked with the User Experience Design agency Yellow Umbrella, to put the principles of human-centred design into practice. To explain what this means, and how we’ve translated this to what we call a ‘member-centred design approach’ the IFRC network, please find a previous blog here.
In addition to the biennial Study efforts, the ongoing development of the platform is guided by two main groups — one made up of interested users from National Societies, and one comprised of Directors from the IFRC Secretariat. Each quarterly meeting tackles a different topic, and please get in touch (im@ifrc.org) if you wish to be invited to the next meeting in October where we will discuss the results of the GO Study.
GO Study — 3 ways to gather your thoughts
The GO Study plan is here. The purpose of the design research study for the IFRC GO platform is to get insights from the active and less active users regarding their usage and usability of the tool, as well as to validate a few concepts and ideas in development by the GO team or the IFRC network. We use a mixed set of quantitative and qualitative research techniques to test a number of hypotheses, with the following overall aims:
· Interpret users’ perception of the platform for the changes of the last 2 years
· Assess current use case patterns and workflows, including blockers
· Gather insights on the specific features of the platform (e.g. non-emergency sections, email notifications, etc.)
· Validate users’ experience with the overall current featureset of the platform and whether any enhancements are needed
· Guide the prioritisation of features and updates to the platform
The GO Study is a big investment in searching for opinions, feedback and insights from users and non-users alike. We therefore would encourage anyone within the Red Cross Red Crescent family, with a small amount of time and some opinions to spare, to get involved so that we can gather as wide a cross-section of views as possible.
Survey: This was sent to all our users in August and aims to assess:
a) participants’ experience with the platform over the last 2 years, which will allow us to compare with the previous results.
b) questions focusing on specific features of the platform, such as non-emergency sections and support features.
The survey is open until end September 2024. Please click on this link to spend 5–10 minutes showing us how you use GO.
Interviews: In-depth discussions with users allow us to collect specific feedback and detailed insights in one-on-one sessions. The expected outcomes from these sessions are:
- Overall feedback from the users about the platform: satisfaction with the feature set, challenges and opportunities.
- In-depth usability testing, i.e. reviewing specific flows, test scenarios and hypotheses with the participants.
- Strategic level interviews with IFRC senior management, as needed.
If you are interested in participating in a 1:1 interview, please email IM@ifrc.org, with the subject header: GO Study 2024.
Observational — In order to have a wider reach and capitalise on the support of IFRC Regional Offices, the observational study aims to gather additional insights from National Societies via in-person meetings/interviews. The observational study is an opportunity to see how the users use the GO platform in action. The benefit of this methodology is to gather first-hand accounts from the users and observe the actual situations in which they use the tool, as well as to validate most common use cases.
The purpose of the observational study is to:
- Observe how, in which situations and settings, the users use the GO platform
- Explore gaps and opportunities that the GO platform could fill
- Create case studies with the detailed information on the activities of the NS with the platform
- Provide an opportunity for the National Society to share their experience and needs
If you are interested in participating in an Observational Study session, please email IM@ifrc.org, with the subject header: GO Study 2024.
Translating into action
Once the data gathering has been completed, we intend to
- Review answers against outlined hypotheses and questions
- Review feedback on the overall usability, users’ experience, non-emergency-specific & support features, notifications and others
- Propose a set of improvements to discuss and validate with the GO team
- Prioritise feature sets/improvements with the GO team
- Write up a comprehensive report with the details of the study
We will present insights from the GO Study at the next GO quarterly briefing. If you want to get involved in any of the stages described above, please contact IM@ifrc.org.