Private beta research, multidisciplinary workshops, prioritisation and backlog impact

Context

I led user research for a defence digital service preparing to move from private beta towards public beta. The service supports complex governance, approvals and version-controlled workflows across multiple user roles and interdependent services.

The work sat within a highly regulated environment, requiring careful handling of user insight, accessibility considerations and close collaboration with delivery teams.

Illustrative UX canvas used during scenario-based testing in private beta workshops to capture structured user feedback across multiple scenarios. The canvas supported comparison of what worked well, points of friction, clarity issues and improvement ideas, including accessibility considerations. Content abstracted for confidentiality.

My role

Lead User Researcher, responsible for planning and delivering private beta research, facilitating multidisciplinary workshops, and translating insight into prioritised delivery actions.

Approach

• Planned and delivered scenario-based usability testing across the end-to-end service journey, covering multiple user roles and operational contexts
• Ran hands-on, in-person research sessions with defence users, including accessibility participants
• Used a combination of methods (scenarios, heat maps, UX canvases and prioritisation) to capture different types of evidence
• Worked closely with designers, engineers, QA and business analysts to align user insight with system behaviour and delivery constraints

To understand how users navigate complex workflows and decision points, I mapped end-to-end journeys across key roles. The example below illustrates one of the more complex user pathways, capturing interactions, dependencies, and moments of uncertainty.

User journey – simplified and anonymised for confidentiality.

This helped surface where users experienced friction, ambiguity, and increased cognitive load, particularly in relation to governance steps and system feedback.

What we learned

Across users and methods, consistent themes emerged around:

• Navigation, filtering and sorting
• Terminology, governance and clarity of mandated steps