Turning one research project into a toolkit so HS2 teams could keep doing it themselves.
IT decisions risked being based on assumptions as HS2 grew and working patterns changed.
Supported user research across five sprints and helped develop personas and a toolkit.
Gave HS2 clearer evidence about user needs and working patterns.
Helped make the research reusable for future IT service decisions.
HS2 was growing quickly and needed its IT services to support a much larger, more complex organisation. The challenge was not just to run one piece of research. It was to help HS2 understand its users properly, create evidence-based personas, and leave behind a practical toolkit so research could continue after the project ended.
My role was to support a broad user-needs research project across HS2 staff and partners, helping gather insight into how people worked, what they struggled with, and what IT services needed to support.
The output was not only findings, it was a reusable research toolkit and persona set that helped HS2 keep user needs at the centre of future IT decisions.
HS2 was moving from a smaller organisation focused on early delivery into a much larger organisation building a railway. Different teams, locations, and working styles created different technology needs.
IT decisions were at risk of being shaped by stakeholder assumptions rather than direct user needs. And the organisation was still changing, so even a strong one-off research project would have aged badly. HS2 needed not just findings but a way to keep updating understanding as the organisation evolved.
The practical problem was that not everyone in IT was a researcher. Any continuing research would have to be doable by people without specialist training, supported by clear, opinionated guidance.
The project combined mixed methods: stakeholder mapping, guerrilla mini-interviews, in-depth interviews, surveys, cultural probes ("week in your life" kits), workshops, and thematic analysis. Over 100 users were engaged across the engagement, 56 through early mini-interviews, 38 through in-depth interviews, and 9 through cultural probes. Sampling deliberately covered different directorates, roles, locations, and working styles, so the personas wouldn't reflect a narrow view of the organisation. Findings were sense-checked back with staff and stakeholders through exhibition-style playback before being turned into personas and the reusable toolkit.
IT decisions were at risk of being shaped by stakeholder assumptions rather than real user needs. The work grounded future decisions in direct research with staff and partners, and made it harder to rely on "what we think they want."
HS2 was moving from a smaller organisation focused on early delivery into a much larger one building a railway. Different teams, locations, and working styles created different technology needs. A single "HS2 user" wouldn't have been honest research.
A one-off research project was useful but not enough. HS2 needed a way to keep updating its understanding as the organisation kept changing, the toolkit was the structural answer.
The personas weren't decorative. They were designed to help teams keep different user types in mind during future IT and service decisions, usable by product, design, and delivery teams, not just researchers.
The toolkit needed to be usable by people who weren't specialist researchers, with clear guidance on sampling, interviews, surveys, consent, analysis, and personas. Opinionated where it mattered, without assuming research expertise.
The work gave HS2 a clearer view of its IT users, their ways of working, and the pain points affecting their productivity. It produced personas, research outputs, and a toolkit designed to help HS2 keep updating its understanding as the organisation evolved.
The main value was not just the research findings. It was leaving HS2 with a practical way to keep doing user research, challenge assumptions, and make better IT service decisions over time.