Planning your user research effectively ensures that your research approach will deliver the right insight into your team, and that the research you are planning is safe and ethical. You will work with your team to define your research objectives and decide how you'll approach your research.

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Why you need a research plan

Planning your research at the start of the project ensures you begin with clear and defined research objectives. This means your research method and design will align with what the research aims to achieve, increasing the reliability of your research outputs.

It enables you to communicate the purpose of your project and helps to keep your team focused on the research outcomes, and provides a guide to ensure the research questions will be answered at the end of the project.

It helps you to think about ethical and safeguarding concerns in advance which ensures you, your colleagues and participants are safe during the research.

It identifies any costs associated with your research that will require budget approval, e.g. participant recruitment, travel costs for in-person research, licences for specialist tools.

Finally, a clear research plan is also vital for effective knowledge transfer, should you change teams or leave the DfE. Your research plan will enable others to understand what you did, how you did it and why you did it.

What to include in your research plan

There are many formats for a research plan. You can use a template, an online whiteboard, a PowerPoint, or any other format that works for you and your team.

You can find examples of research plans created by other DfE user researchers in our SharePoint library.

Whatever format you use, your plan must include:

  • your research objectives
  • previous evidence or desk research
  • timeline for the research
  • feasibility of the research in the time you have
  • appropriate methodology
  • who you'll speak to, including all relevant user groups
  • recruitment plans, including how you'll reach a diverse sample such as users with access needs and low digital confidence
  • how you'll ensure your research is ethical and safe
  • how you'll involve your team in the user research
  • what will happen with your findings e.g. what decisions will be made with the research

If we are in a pre-election period, refer to the pre-election period guidance before you begin to plan your research.

Store your research plan in a project folder, where it is accessible to others in your team, now and in the future. You should also ensure other people can grant access to your research plan if you leave DfE.

Creating and sharing your research plan

It is important to involve your team when creating your research plan to ensure that the research has clear strategic direction and scope, the process of user research is understood and that timelines are realistic and achievable.

You can involve your team in research planning by:

  • Co-creating your research plan with your team using a research kick off session. Discuss what the team want to understand from the research, how the research will connect to the wider team strategy, what the research aims and objectives are and how long you have to complete the end-to-end research process.
  • Discussing your recruitment strategy early in the research planning process as this is where challenges can arise. If you anticipate you might experience difficulties with recruitment, plan ways you can mitigate this by using a supplier, offering incentives or using existing databases or contact lists. Refer to the DfE recruitment standard and recruitment guidance when planning how you will recruit.
  • Sharing your research plan with your team to allow them to view your proposed approach, offer any feedback or suggestions and give you the opportunity to clarify anything which your team are uncertain about.
  • Delivering a user research teach-in at the start of a research project to help your team understand more about the user research process, outlining the steps you need to take to complete a round of user research, what input you need from the team and timeframes.
  • Utilising different research plan formats, including one-page plans or online whiteboards, to meet the needs of your team and stakeholders and increase engagement.
  • Insert regular checkpoints with your team to ensure your research plan still aligns with the team priorities.

Changes to your research plan

Research plans should have the flexibility to adapt in response to changes and issues which can arise during the research process, such as changes in team resourcing, difficulties with recruitment or new priorities.

When planning your research, consider ahead of time what expected challenges might arise and what impact a disruption to your research will have on your initial proposed timelines. By building contingencies into your initial research plan and communicating these to your team will support you in reacting to any changes which may necessitate a change to your research plan.