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The Global Guide to Research Impact

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    This list of how to’s provides an essential guide for a number of key communication and engagement activities that will help make your research travel.

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Featured

User Experience Modelling on Research to Action

By Betty Paton 03/02/2012

The Research to Action team have been very busy lately redesigning the functionality and usability of the R2A website. Not only have we been addressing the look and feel of the site, we have also been assessing how to deliver information to site users as effectively as possible. This is not an easy process; in order to work how a site should navigate, you first have to be sure of what information needs to be included and how it should be categorised.

To aid this site development, we underwent a process of user experience modelling by creating fictional profiles of a group of R2A users. These so-called ‘user personas’ are a well-known method for ensuring that the content of a website meets the needs of those that will be using it. They represent typical individuals within the target audience for R2A. We created eight personas in total and each had different goals and motivations for using the site.

With the user personas we were able to create five different typical user journeys to the R2A site, while taking a step back and approaching the content from different perspectives. This enabled us to truthfully asses whether the content is structured in a clear and beneficial way for our users.

In this short video, Pier Andrea Pirani from Euforic Services and I (Betty Allen from CommsConsult Ltd.) explain our method of persona testing and what we hope to achieve by the end of this process.

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Topics: CommsConsult, Euforic Services, Knowing your audience, research methods, User Personas, User Testing, website design, website testing

Betty Paton

Betty Paton is Research to Action's Communication Coordinator. She firmly believes that social media is a powerful tool in the communication of development research and is committed to embracing and understanding new, emerging and appropriate techniques for communicating development. She has a degree in Film Studies from the Combined Universities of Cornwall and an MA in Film and Cultural Management from Southampton University. She is also the Strategic Communication Manager at CommsConsult Ltd.

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About Us

Research To Action (R2A) is a learning platform for anyone interested in maximising the impact of research and capturing evidence of impact.

The site publishes practical resources on a range of topics including research uptake, communications, policy influence and monitoring and evaluation. It captures the experiences of practitioners and researchers working on these topics and facilitates conversations between this global community through a range of social media platforms.

R2A is produced by a small editorial team, led by CommsConsult. We welcome suggestions for and contributions to the site.

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