User research and interviews

Sustainability Victoria runs a ResourceSmart Schools program that helps school communities benefit from embedding sustainability into their operations and taking action on climate change. By participating in the program, schools implement appropriate systems of solar generation, energy efficiency and other sustainable practices through curriculum, operations, culture and community.

To execute the program, schools and administrators communicate and log progress and achievements through an online platform.

Sustainability Victoria engaged Tundra to conduct user research with teachers, facilitators, and administrators of the ResourceSmart Schools program, to identify and understand issues and opportunities with the current platform before progressing with their planned redesign.

Kick off and immersion

To kick-off the project, we began by immersing ourselves in the current platform to understand the program and the enabling technologies.

An internal review of potential issues with the platform was also conducted to develop an unbiased understanding of where problems and opportunities may lie. This understanding would form the basis of the hypothesis we would use to create the interview scripts.

After this initial immersion, we ran a kick-off workshop with Sustainability Victoria to validate our understanding of the program and how the platform is used.

Problem statements and hypotheses

To provide structure to our research activities, we devised a series of problem statements that described the issues Sustainability Victoria had identified in schools’ usage of the platform. For each issue, we developed a series of hypotheses as to why schools experienced these issues. This allowed us to create targeted, detailed lines of questioning that would guide the conversation in each research interview.

Scripts and survey developed

We developed interview scripts for each of the key user segments, including teachers, principles, program administrators and facilitators.

Each interview focused on gaining a deep understanding of:

• How the RSS program interacted with each group's day to day activities
• The sentiment surrounding the program and the underlying reasons for that sentiment
• The primary use cases of the online platform
• Who the end-users of the platform are
• What areas of the platform provided value and which didn't
• How well the platform aligned with the realities of program engagement for each group
• What users ultimately wanted from the program and the supporting platform.

One-on-one interviews

We conducted 27 interviews with teachers, facilitators, coordinators, and administrators involved in the ResourceSmart Schools Program.

These interviews focused on experiences of using the RSS platform, the particular features and processes they found useful or difficult, and the context surrounding their usage.

Through these discussions, we determined common themes and challenges with particular features or processes, which allowed us to identify a prioritised list of suggested opportunities and improvements that Sustainability Victoria could take into their planned redesign project.

Final report

We compiled a report of our findings and presented this to Sustainability Victoria. The report was divided into a number of core themes, each accompanied by quotes from the interview participants to add further context and support.

Our final report also included a number of recommendations for key improvements and opportunities for Sustainability Victoria to consider in their redesign.

The user research provided Sustainability Victoria with a clearer understanding of the opportunities related to their ResourceSmart Schools Platform. These insights will provide the necessary context and evidence to plan the redesign of the platform through a user-centred lens, resulting in a more intuitive and user-friendly experience for their audience.