Hi, I'm Alton Morgan, a User Researcher based in the Digital Delivery Centre Newcastle. I have a longstanding interest in understanding people and interpreting their attitudes, needs, motivations and behaviours. This interest shaped my subject choices throughout school and university, and led to a career as a User Researcher for HMRC.
I’ve been a User Researcher for about a year and a half. Since joining HMRC, I’ve been fortunate enough to work on some fantastic services including Child Benefit, the Childcare Calculator and most recently Tax Credits.
My current role in Tax Credits is within a multidisciplinary team of Content and Interactions Designers, Developers, Quality Assurance testers and Business Analysts.
I find the role of a User Researcher to be varied, challenging and rewarding. There are a range of research methodologies to familiarise yourself with and it takes time to understand which methods are appropriate for specific scenarios.
The training and development opportunities that I have received so far have exceeded my expectations. As an employee of HMRC, I feel there is a fantastic level of support for continuous learning, whether this is attending training courses, having access to the latest equipment and resources, having access to a library of books or being part of a community where blogs, journals and methods of best practice are regularly discussed and shared.
I thoroughly enjoy working within an agile environment where user research is applied throughout the product life cycle. I find that implementing user stories to define product features helps to focus minds on the needs of the user and ultimately creates products that are of great value to the user. On a personal note, I have also found it refreshing to work in an environment where change, innovation and collaboration is encouraged.
I’ve found my experience of working for one of the UK’s biggest government departments and being an advocate for potentially millions of vulnerable and disadvantaged people to be both humbling and inspiring.