Max Masure
Max Masure
Senior Product Designer & Inclusion Consultant
 

Moving from governmental siloed teams to successful complex collaborative projects

Improving NIH’s All of Us Research Program’s onboarding for underrepresented people through collaboration

The All of Us Research Program is changing how health research is done by building the largest and most diverse health databases of its kind, with 80% of underrepresented participants.

Key Role

I leveraged community-centered and trauma-informed Service Design to champion NIH's leaders in embracing change by implementing structural changes, boosting collaboration within cross-functional teams, and enhancing the onboarding user experience from problem discovery to tested solutions.

Over 12 months, I:

  • Spearheaded innovation through service design workshops, inclusive user experience design, prototype testing, and user research centering on underrepresented communities 

  • Expanded collaboration at NIH by building consensus in siloed teams and solving complex problems with compassion through gradual change practices

  • Overhauled the redesign of the All of Us website, leading to a 28% increase in registrations

My skills

  • Trauma-informed service design

  • Inclusive workshop facilitation

  • Underrepresented-focused user research

  • Inclusive and accessible UX design

  • Service blue print and user journey maps

  • Iterative prototyping and testing

Projects actors

  • Prospective participants from underrepresented communities

  • The All of Us enrollment staff

  • Deputy Chief User Experience Officer

  • Customer Experience Officer

  • Director of Communications

  • Director of Policy

  • Government-funded partners focusing on product design and engineer

 
 

Positively moved the group toward consensus.

“Max did a fantastic job facilitating collaboration between the UX team and the communications division on the redesign of the JoinAllofUs.org homepage. We worked methodically, starting with a review of the relevant UX research conducted to date. We co-created solutions that ultimately led to a product that was both intuitive and engaging for the intended audience. Max was a thoughtful listener and patiently and positively moved the group toward consensus.”

Karina Frassrand, Deputy Chief Communications Officer - National Institutes of Health - All of Us Research Program

 

Achievements

  • 28% increase in registrations after the redesign of the All of Us website homepage

  • Stronger and more efficient NIH teams that were historically siloed

  • Increased leadership’s awareness of underrepresented communities’ needs and pain points that led to human-centered actions and decisions

  • Implemented service design and UX strategy governance to solve complex problems with compassion through gradual change practices

Challenges

  • Pre-conceptions of problems to solve in the program’s onboarding.

  • Competing priorities from different divisions that were not based on inclusive research insights and data.

  • High interest from actors to share ideas and solutions with no experience with collaborative workshops, UX strategy, and UX design.

 Using service blueprints and user journey maps to build a future vision

To gain the leadership’s buy-in, I worked with my team on a service blueprint and user journey maps to reflect the current experience of the participants (from onboarding to retention), and offered a future vision base on the concept of the “Voice of Customer.”

 Building better feedback loops to improve UX over time

When I joined the Office of User Experience, there was a lack of feedback loops knowledge. After researching and parsing out the current points where a survey followed a participant action, I captured the information in a service blueprint user journey map. We ere able to identify opportunities for new feedback surveys when needed or remove unnecessary ones when redundant.

Redesigning participants' onboarding using inclusive data

 

Trauma-informed UX Research Insights

  • Prospective participants visiting the JoinAllofUs.org homepage did not find essential information about the program or in the form they needed. They had to forage and cobble it together.

  • This resulted in frustration and misconceptions, increasing the likelihood that they would abandon the site and not take the next step to register.

collaboration and organizational change

  • Midway through the collaboration work, I discovered several decision-makers had been left out of the conversation, and I adapted by adding them to the weekly workshops.

  • It’s almost always worth postponing the beginning of a project to ensure all decision-makers are involved and to avoid starting again midway.

  • My job was to build brave spaces where everyone feels comfortable taking risks, which led to innovation.