Overview I worked alongside researchers for the Money and Pensions service (MaPS) where our goal was to understand the motivations and behaviours of individuals in need of and both accessing or not accessing debt advice. The initiative was part of MaPS’ ten-year strategy to increase debt advice accessibility by 2 million people.
Over four months I worked alongside researchers in a design context to identify eight key barriers to accessing debt advice, and develop behavioural solutions for testing. My responsibilities included consolidating research across both qualitative and quantitative methods, and developing a detailed journey map and personas.
Findings were published with the Money and Pensions Service (full report can be found here).
Money and Pensions Service (MaPS)
Research | Behaviour
Interview preparation
I worked alongside researchers to help deliver a high quality interview experience, developing recruitment materials, sending out email call outs to debt advisor groups, and preparing post-interview support materials. I played a support role in interviews where I took notes on several occasions. I prepared for the next phase, research consolidation, by listening into debrief sessions with the researchers.
Research consolidation
Consolidating research findings I helped to develop a journey of accessing a debt advice service alongside the research team. Within this we identified several key barriers that users were facing across the journey.
I facilitated a workshop with the research team where we conducted an empathy mapping exercise to consolidate their findings and develop a shared understanding of service users.
I used the workshop outputs to build out five personas covering a diverse range of needs and contexts.
Developing and testing solutions
The barriers and personas were played back as part of a workshop with MaPS stakeholders where we then used this as a base to brainstorm solutions as a group.
From here I helped to prioritise and design solutions, two of which would be tested in a behavioural experiment. I was responsible for visualising the solutions and scenario screens for testing. I used Figma to create sets of illustrations for two solutions, a money health checker and a debt advice journey map.
The visuals were developed while sensitively considering the ethical implications of the survey experience. I illustrated subtle progressive emotional symptoms, and contained the tangible impacts of financial debt as part of our approach as a team to ensure the participant was not negatively impacted by the experiment.
