From Assumptions to Insights: Rethinking Support for Parents

I made assumptions about the parents of bullied children. It turns out I was wrong.

When you work for the same charity for a while, it’s easy to make assumptions. You’ve written so many social media posts that you think you can predict what your audiences will want. And so I found myself thinking, as I worked on Kidscape’s Parent Advice Line, that I knew how to make it better. It was only open for a few hours a day, and we needed it open for longer. But Kidscape is a small charity, and that wouldn’t be easy.

As luck would have it, it was around this time that I was enrolled on Newid's Designing Digital Services course. They asked me to think about what my ‘skateboard’ would be: the easiest and simplest way to get from A to B, and make our Advice Line just that little bit better. And they introduced me to the Double Diamond model: a way of designing services which revolutionised my approach, and put users at its heart.

Rather than simply imagine what our parents wanted, I reached out them. I listened to their answers and plotted their journey, from hearing that their child was being bullied to seeking our help. Doing so meant that I could see where their frustrations were – and meant that I heard what really mattered to them. It wasn’t that we needed the Advice Line to be open all the time. Kids were coming home upset after being bullied, and parents wanted solutions in that key period after school. They needed to know what to do before their children went into school the next day.

Over several weeks, I developed a ‘skateboard’ solution with the help of the brilliant team at ProMo Cymru. Their passion and energy were contagious, and I began to create a series of videos for parents. Even though we couldn’t have our Advice Line open in the evenings, we now had a series of videos to help parents with common concerns. And we had an idea of how to guide them to the right video in a friendly, human way, with the help of easy software and Kat, our Parent Support Manager. Best of all, the ‘skateboard’ approach focussed on free solutions – so we now had a much more user-centred service that actually met the needs of our clients, and it hadn’t cost us a penny.

I’m honestly so glad that I took part in the course. Not only did I get a solution to the Advice Line, and meet lovely people, but I’ve also changed the way I think about design. They’ve got me totally on (skate)board.