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Use your plain language skills to improve your survey

Caroline Jarrett 20 April 2022 20 April 2022
Use your plain language skills to improve your survey

Plain language skills are vital for surveys.  If people can easily understand your questions, then that will help them to give accurate answers. And plain language specialists are constantly thinking about their audience and its needs – which is vitalContinue reading… Use your plain language skills to improve your survey

Get more insight from smaller surveys by patchworking

Caroline Jarrett 8 April 2022 8 April 2022
Get more insight from smaller surveys by patchworking

There’s a dilemma in the world of surveys: we want to find out lots of things by asking people questions, but they do not want to answer Big Honkin’ Surveys any more. Patchwork is the art of putting small piecesContinue reading… Get more insight from smaller surveys by patchworking

Surveys that work: a 10hr workshop for Rosenfeld Media

Caroline Jarrett 21 March 2022 7 March 2022
Surveys that work: a 10hr workshop for Rosenfeld Media

My publisher Rosenfeld Media invited me to join the Rosenfeld Media online workshops program to teach an intensive 10hr dive into surveys. It was a pleasure to work with participants from the United States, Canada and Germany. In sessions onContinue reading… Surveys that work: a 10hr workshop for Rosenfeld Media

Surveys that work for the Harvard User Research Community

Caroline Jarrett 7 March 2022 19 January 2022
Surveys that work for the Harvard User Research Community

I was delighted to begin this year’s presentations by talking about my book, Surveys That Work, as part of the Brown Bag Book Club series organised by the User Research Center at Harvard University An encouragingly large group of HarvardContinue reading… Surveys that work for the Harvard User Research Community

All projects (and services) start in the middle

Caroline Jarrett 7 March 2022 17 November 2021
All projects (and services) start in the middle

I’m a big fan of the user-centred agile approach to service delivery that is gradually being adopted by most government departments in the UK, and many other organisations too. I mean – let’s turn those words around. Who would wantContinue reading… All projects (and services) start in the middle

Why plain language and Plain English are different

Caroline Jarrett 11 March 2022 16 November 2021
Why plain language and Plain English are different

When a user says to you “why can’t they write in Plain English?”, that’s a very reasonable request for us to think harder about how we are writing content. What I’m going to discuss here is the difference between “plainContinue reading… Why plain language and Plain English are different

Don’t be afraid of the big long page

Caroline Jarrett 21 December 2021 11 November 2021
Don’t be afraid of the big long page

This post is co-authored by me and Amy Hupe. Long pages of content can seem daunting, so to make them look shorter, designers and developers often reach for things that hide some of the content, such as accordions, tabs, carouselsContinue reading… Don’t be afraid of the big long page

Research needs space to breathe – an Effortmark poster

Caroline Jarrett 23 March 2022 10 November 2021
Research needs space to breathe – an Effortmark poster

‘Research needs space to breathe’ is a poster in my continuing collaboration with illustrator Julia Allum. The words come from a blog post by user researcher Amy Everett. In her post, Amy talks about setting expectations when doing research, aboutContinue reading… Research needs space to breathe – an Effortmark poster

How to prototype a digital form on paper

Caroline Jarrett 23 March 2022 9 November 2021
How to prototype a digital form on paper

Here are three ideas for creating paper prototypes of digital forms. Or any form, really. Print widgets onto stickers Long, long ago – in 1999! – Gerry Gaffney made a paper prototyping kit that is free to download. It’s aContinue reading… How to prototype a digital form on paper

Try a preliminary sift to streamline your card-sorts

Caroline Jarrett 21 December 2021 8 November 2021
Try a preliminary sift to streamline your card-sorts

Here’s my favourite tip for card sorting. I get each participant to first of all put the cards into four categories: Things I definitely need or would do right now Things I have done or needed in the past ThingsContinue reading… Try a preliminary sift to streamline your card-sorts

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  • How to research components and patterns: common challenges and how to overcome them 9 August 2022
  • Can you say something that SDinGov 2022 needs to hear? 5 August 2022
  • Rest it and test it – poster 20 July 2022
  • Do not use “reading age” when thinking about adults 4 July 2022
  • Thank you Gerry Gaffney for UXpod 29 June 2022

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Retweet on Twitter Caroline Jarrett Retweeted
sara_ann_marie Sara Wachter-Boettcher @sara_ann_marie ·
22h

"I don’t believe that work has to be either an all-consuming passion or no more than a paycheck.

There’s nothing feminist about asking women to choose between two shitty options."

I wrote about the end of girlboss, "anti-ambition," and meaning at work. https://medium.com/nice-work-from-active-voice/where-do-we-put-our-ambition-now-71b37ee01869

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cjforms Caroline Jarrett @cjforms ·
22h

So. I was about to remove Twitter feed from my site (access to user-generated online content) to take it out of scope of the Online Safety Bill when the bill was postponed. Now an investigation by @torres126CP, prompted by posts by @webdevlaw, says links have to go too. Gah.

Heather Burns @WebDevLaw

Speechless. No irony intended.

A follower‼️who is a high school student‼️FOI'd DCMS to dig into the #OnlineSafetyBill's impact assessment on every side project - including theirs - deemed collateral damage in the vendetta against Big Tech.

Young people, online, are the best. https://twitter.com/torres126CP/status/1558122692053766144

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cjforms Caroline Jarrett @cjforms ·
12 Aug

In today’s episode of “Fix the forms, one at a time”, @FarrarTamara describes how @NHSDigital is making an important service truly inclusive.
- research with seldom-heard-from people
- recognition that some don’t have a current address
- just as much care for paper option

Tamara Farrar @FarrarTamara

Always a privilege 💙
Huge thanks to the organisations we worked with, and the wider team who are still working hard on this service 👏🏻 https://twitter.com/nhsdigital/status/1558025909470466049

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Retweet on Twitter Caroline Jarrett Retweeted
farrartamara Tamara Farrar @farrartamara ·
12 Aug

Always a privilege 💙
Huge thanks to the organisations we worked with, and the wider team who are still working hard on this service 👏🏻 https://twitter.com/nhsdigital/status/1558025909470466049

NHS Digital @NHSDigital

'At times, the situations and experiences we heard about were a real life lesson for us to learn from.'

Here's how Senior User Researcher @FarrarTamara worked to ensure seldom heard groups were considered in the design of a new GP registration service.
https://digital.nhs.uk/blog/design-matters/2022/overcoming-barriers-to-gp-registration

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Retweet on Twitter Caroline Jarrett Retweeted
laura_yarrow Laura Yarrow @laura_yarrow ·
12 Aug

For those at the back: you don't need to compare making something "easy to use" with "your mum could use it". It's an outdated, lazy analogy to insinuate women/mums aren't technology literate. I'm a mum. I also have a computer science degree. And so do many, many others #uxdesign

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