The Pathology and Diagnostics team at NHS England is taking a user-centred design approach to the development and implementation of new information standards to enable the sharing of Pathology results, but what is User Research?

User Research is the methodical study of target users—including their needs and pain points—so that the people who design services and products have the sharpest possible insights to work with to make the best decisions.

Personas are fictional characters that represent a group of users with the similar behaviours, motivation needs and goals. Good personas are realistic, give actionable insight and reference for future decisions. 

A journey map is a visualisation of the process that a person goes through in order to accomplish a goal. In its most basic form, journey mapping is a series of user actions mapped into a timeline. Then user thoughts and emotions are fleshed out in order to create a narrative that helps build empathy and understanding for a user within the delivery team.

User stories help to convey the need of a user, and also articulate the value hoped to be gained by that need. A user story is also underpinned by 'acceptance criteria' which describe how the resulting 'product' will look and feel, or operate when its finished.

View our User research findings from engaging with healthcare practitioners in the field of Pathology.