The researcher experience

We recently came across a fascinating article from Cambridge Libraries that described and shared the work they have done to explore the researcher experience.

The work was carried out as part of a user-centred design project on the Research Councils UK (RCUK) block grant, provided to Cambridge University to support the RCUK open access policy. The aim of the project was “to design products and services”, so the project team started by “trying to understand what academics did and what services they needed”[1].  

The project outputs are hugely valuable resources for those of us wanting to understand the researcher experience. They are freely available and explore the emotional highs and lows of researchers, from the day-to-day (such as this day in the life of an early career group researcher) to the publishing experience from concept to post-publication. This publishing experience map is full to the brim with contextual information, capturing pain points, organisational touch points, and emotional highs and lows.

Paul Jervis-Heath, who shadowed researchers during the project and created many of the resources now available, commented on the project insights: 

We are seeing multiple sides of the disruptive changes in scholarly communication through our work with Cambridge University and projects with funders and academic publishers. Conducting ethnographic design research with world leading academics has been a unique opportunity to gain an unprecedented level of insight that we are now applying to invent future products and services.

Paul now works at consulting company ModernHuman.

[1] Dr Danny Kingsley, Cambridge Libraries