The National Archives: UX research for Project Alpha

At the start of 2020 I began working on the alpha phase of a very ambitious project for The National Archives. I was hired by the service design agency Digirati on a three-month contract to provide user research and operational support for Project Alpha.

But before I tell you more about my role, about what I did and what I learnt from it, let me give you a little bit of background. You’ve probably heard of The National Archives, but you might not necessarily know much about what it actually does and the treasures it holds.

The National Archives is the guardian of about 11 million physical and digital archival records, some dating back almost 1,000 years, stored with great care on approximately 100 miles of shelving — that’s about the distance from London to Birmingham!

And what are some of those records and documents?

You can find records featuring the real-life people who inspired the characters in ‘Peaky Blinders’; the last will and testimony of William Shakespeare; photographs of tattoos by Britain’s first Victorian tattooist; and arrest documents of the Suffragettes. There’s even proof that quarantine and social distancing was actually first implemented during Tudor epidemics. Not to mention the pages of the Domesday Book, the Magna Carta, prisoner of war records, and even a mummified rat!

Problem Statement

Archives are inevitably multi-layered and confusing, with complicated naming conventions developed over decades. They’re often very quirky. The National Archives is no exception, and it knows that its current offering (both on and offline) is messy, hard to navigate, and just plain baffling. So what can it do to remedy this?

In its Four Year Strategy The National Archives says that:

‘Four years ago we made bold decisions about the kind of institution we wanted to be. Archives are for everyone because they are about everyone — past, present and future. As the living, growing home of our national story, our obligation is to connect with the biggest and most diverse audience possible, in the most innovative ways we can.’

How can The National Archives provide a more straightforward, productive and enjoyable experience for all of its users — not just those skilled and experienced in using archives?

This was the starting point for Project Alpha.

Project Alpha goals

A discovery phase identified themes and ideas to explore and test with specific groups of users:

1. To identify how users find their way to The National Archives and then connect them with relevant content, providing meaningful context to encourage serendipitous exploration.
2. To help users ‘understand’ National Archives content, empowering them to navigate the rest of their journey with confidence.
3. To encourage user engagement with The National Archives, through active participation and expertise sharing.

Who are those users?

After qualitative and quantitative research a set of personas was created to represent the target audience.

Two user types were identified:

• A first-time user (someone who intended to visit The National Archives). We’ll call him ‘Frank’
• A non-user (someone who wouldn’t necessarily have been aware of The National Archives or know what it could offer her). We’ll call her ‘Nadine’

My role

I joined a multi-disciplinary Agile team, which was made up of five in UX (including me), alongside content designers (x2), UI designers (x2), a product owner, delivery manager and data analyst, in addition to the project manager and dev team from Digirati.

I joined mid-way through the project, as it had become clear that the scope of the project had doubled in size.

Initially I was hired to run the operational side of things, but I ended up wearing a number of hats. My tasks included:

• Writing scripts for testing prototypes
• Recruiting candidates, recording and transcribing sessions
• Conducting on site, remote and guerrilla testing sessions
• Compiling findings and reports to feed into insight Show and Tells
• Managing user consent forms and ensuring GDPR compliance
• Participating in daily stand-ups with the team, design workshops, critiques and retrospectives, following the Agile methodology

The process

A number of prototypes (available to view here) were developed for Project Alpha, but the three that I worked on — for a Collection Explorer, a Story hub, and a Record Details page — were designed specifically to help users interact more enjoyably with the content.

Pic 1: Collection Explorer

Mapping a user journey

These three prototypes combined for a typical user journey, i.e. a user might land on the Collection Explorer page without a deliberate intention of where to go next. They’d then make a selection based on theme and/or time period. And then they’d click on a content ‘card’ or ‘story’ that grabbed their interest.

This would bring them to a Story hub, a page of curated content around, for example, ‘Shakespeare’s last will and testimony.’

By this stage they should be really engrossed — trapped in the best kind of wormhole — and they’d want to explore further.

The content on the Story hub would link to documents mentioned in a story, so users could click through to a Record Details page of a document. Such as a copy of William Shakespeare’s actual will. (Only a handful of copies survived, and The National Archives has one of them!).

Working with medium-fidelity prototypes, this three-step journey specifically addressed Project Alpha goals 1 and 2.

Let’s get testing!

Recruiting users

I had to recruit candidates for our two user groups — first-time and non-users (who had an interest in cultural and heritage pursuits). This had to be done quickly so I ran a screener survey to filter the candidates.

[Note: this was in early 2020, when everything was still normal. We’d started off by testing on site with visitors to The National Archives, but it became clear quickly that we’d need to test remotely and then online].

To find users offsite, I put a call out to my own network from previous jobs, e.g. in cultural organisations and the acting world — the right kind of users for our project.

My goal was to find five or more suitable candidates, including users with accessibility needs and from underrepresented backgrounds.

A Story hub (Shakespeare’s will)

Organising the logistics

Once candidates had confirmed their participation, I agreed a time and place (or URL) for the testing session. I also arranged to have an observer and note-taker from The National Archives along for the session.

I also, of course, made sure that I was fully stocked with paper and pens, and that all of my tech was working — and that the candidates knew what their requirements would be.

Last but not least, the paperwork! Before any testing could take place, I’d make sure that candidates had given their written consent, to meet GDPR compliance.

Preparing a user testing script

I’d make sure I fully understood what prototype elements we wanted to test by meeting up with both the product owner and the content designer. This would shape my line of questioning. A couple of drafts later, and with a final read through by the UX lead, and my script was ready to go.

Testing with users

The world changed in early 2020 and I was forced to switch testing from on site, to remote (usually a nice coffee place), to the world of Zoom. But what didn’t change was my first priority: putting users at ease — introducing myself, making them feel comfortable, and ensuring they knew how the session would run.

I used the script in the same way with each user, without deviating or encouraging a user to respond in any particular way.

To give you a snapshot from a typical day:

On one particular day I had four users testing the Collection Explorer prototype:

• Age range 20–40
• Two users from underrepresented backgrounds; one user with accessibility needs
• All different devices: Surface Go; Asus laptop; Macbook; Chromebook
• Each had little experience of using archives

All four had different responses to a gentle scene-setting opening question: ‘In your own words, could you describe what an archive is and what it is for?’:

• ‘An archive can be a collection of information, useful for research, preservation, etc.’
• ‘A place for storing items, books, and works of art.’
• ‘Historic things being secured securely.’
• ‘A library of precious articles, events, a collection of history in a capsule-type thing.’

My user testing script for each prototype included questions aimed at finding out if the users understood things like labelling and functionality, and if they were managing to do what we wanted them to do, for example using more than one selection option (e.g. ‘Subjects’ and ‘Years’) in tandem to produce a tailored search.

Let’s see.

• ‘Actually I don’t know (what the blue lines are about)…Oh! It would be that you potentially selected those so it is like a filter.’
• ‘The categories are broad, some more specific, some vague.’
• ‘I feel more drawn to the time period descriptions now — they are more specifically interesting.’
• ‘The information is what I expected with the transcription and the photo, and the content on the black boxes on the side makes it clear that it is a separate entity.’

Those comments were a bit of a mixed bag, but they revealed plenty of insights to take back to the wider team, so it was a productive user testing session.

Outcomes & findings

The sessions I ran gathered important feedback to feed into iterations of the three prototypes. The concept of having interesting stories and curated content was a success; some of the functionality and labelling confused a few users; some felt the outputs of what they selected were too broad (others felt they were too narrow!).

I found that the process of testing prototypes remotely (e.g. via Zoom) was less successful than in person. Low- or medium-fidelity prototypes that are not interactive are harder for users to engage with. Users like to be able to click on things, or hold things in their hand.

My contract ended with this phase of Project Alpha, but all three prototypes will be developed in the next phase of work at The National Archives, which is due to start at the end of 2020. I am excited to see how they progress, and I’m really glad to have contributed to something that I hope will become very successful with users.

Lessons learned

COVID-19 meant having to change the way of working, and adapting quickly. On the downside, it meant reduced contact with the rest of the team and made it harder to get up to speed with the progress that had been made up to that point.

On the upside, it presented a different set of challenges and responsibilities, which I enjoyed taking on. It meant being more autonomous, and taking the initiative more to structure tasks and schedule remote meetings with the rest of the team.

Having to run user testing sessions on my own made it easy for imposter syndrome to kick in, and this psychological barrier was hard to overcome at first. But I grew in confidence and learnt a lot over the course of the contract.

The most valuable lesson for me as a contractor was to always get up to speed with a project as soon as possible, by reading documentation and talking to everyone on the team. It’s also a good idea to keep a project diary, no matter how tired you get. And, above all, you should always trust your capacity to learn and adapt!