Master of Applied Data Science Workload Investigation
UX Consulting
MY ROLE
UX Research Consultant
RESPONSIBILITIES
UX research, User interviews, and Affinity wall building
TEAM MEMBERS
UX Researcher and Librarians
PROJECT TIMELINE
Aug - Dec 2022
OVERVIEW
PROCESS
RESEARCH
FINDINGS
TAKEAWAYS
The EyesOnYou Team spearheaded a contextual inquiry. This provided insights into MADS' workload data collection process, the Course Operations Team, and their connection to instructors.
Challenge
What strategies can be implemented to effectively address workload data collection issues and offer actionable recommendations for improvement?
Methods
Background research
Stakeholder interview
Contextual inquiry
Data analysis
Background Research
My team and I conducted individual background research. We collaborated to create a comprehensive interview protocol, testing and refining it for gathering insights from various departments
Contextual inquiry
We conducted 6 interviews with faculty and staff from various departments.
Data analysis
We identified three key issues: departmental transparency, automation without follow-up for instructors, and inconsistent terminology in workload data collection.
Below is a graphic illustrating the current communication flow between stakeholders.
Below is a graphic illustrating the lack of transparency between stakeholders.
Following interviews, we were able to understand communication and identify gaps within the process.
Our model below depicts an ideal vision of the process.
We developed a multi-step system to standardize data collection, disbursement, and utilization, with recommendations for transparency, communication, surveys, and debriefs.
This system includes smaller-scale improvements that can be implemented in different combinations to achieve specific goals.
Developing recommendations to improve a data collection process taught me that many factors must be taken into account before drawing conclusions on the problem.
The interview process revealed that interviewing different participants yields different and overlapping insights. It really highlighted the importance of interview questions and how that can impact your ability to retrieve information.