Designing for real world complexity: Hippo at UX Scotland

Design teams are often asked to create services that are accessible, inclusive and useful in conditions that are rarely simple.

Projects can involve sensitive topics, limited access to users, strict security processes, safeguarding considerations, time pressure or environments where standard tools are not available. The people using those services may also be stressed, distracted, overwhelmed or dealing with difficult circumstances.

Good practice matters in that context. Methods, standards and style guides give teams consistency and a shared sense of quality. But they still need to be applied with judgement.

UX Scotland provided a forum for practitioners from across user experience, research, content design and service design to explore the practical realities of that work. Across the two day programme, Hippo contributed two workshops exploring different areas of design practice.

Hippo at UX Scotland

Rachel Abbott, Lead User Researcher at Hippo, led Constraint as catalyst: the creative researcher’s SCAMPER guide to method adaptation. The session explored the decisions researchers make when methods need to change. Research plans often start with a clear approach, but real projects can quickly challenge that plan. Participant needs, restricted access, security rules, safeguarding considerations or difficult environments can all affect what is possible.

Miriam Vaswani, Senior Content Designer at Hippo, led Make trauma informed design part of your style guide. Her session focused on the decisions content teams make when guidance needs to account for people who may be distressed, overwhelmed or under pressure. Style guides help teams create consistency, but they can also help practitioners think more carefully about how language, tone and structure affect people in sensitive situations.

Both workshops were practical in focus, but they approached the work from different places. One explored how research methods can adapt when the planned approach no longer fits. The other looked at how trauma informed thinking can become part of everyday content guidance.

Together, the workshops reflected the breadth of conversations happening across UX Scotland, from research adaptation to trauma informed content practice.

Constraint as catalyst

Constraint as catalyst: the creative researcher’s SCAMPER guide to method adaptation focused on a challenge many researchers will recognise.

Research plans often begin with a method. An interview, usability test, workshop, survey, diary study or card sort. But projects can quickly challenge that plan. Participants may not be able to take part in the expected way. Security rules may restrict access. The environment may make digital tools difficult to use. Safeguarding or ethical considerations may change what is appropriate.

In those moments, the constraint becomes part of the design problem.

Rachel’s workshop used the SCAMPER framework as a practical thinking tool to help teams adapt. Substitute. Combine. Adapt. Modify. Put to another use. Eliminate. Reverse. The point was not to create a rigid checklist, but to give researchers a way to think creatively and systematically when the original method no longer fits.

One example from the workshop showed this clearly. A team had planned a remote interview to understand someone’s experience of being tested for Covid 19. The participant was non speaking and autistic, which meant a spoken interview would have excluded them entirely.

Instead of forcing the participant through the planned approach, the method changed. The verbal interview was removed. A Miro board was adapted so the participant could screen share and type responses using sticky notes. Signals were agreed for thinking time and the session allowed extra space for the participant to respond.

That is method adaptation as an inclusive research choice. The change was not made to make the session more interesting. It was made because the participant needed a different way to take part.

Making participation possible

The workshop also showed that adapting a method does not mean lowering the quality of the research. In many cases, it is what protects the quality of the work.

When in person research was not possible during the pandemic, physical test kits were sent to participants so teams could still explore at home testing experiences remotely. When a journey involved digital services and offline letters, physical objects were built to stand in for the parts of the journey that did not yet exist. When individual surveys were not practical in primary care settings, the approach was simplified into a large scale sticker based exercise that allowed people to contribute quickly and privately.

In another example, a team replaced Mural with Google Slides because the tool itself was getting in the way. Internal users were unfamiliar with Mural and too much session time was being spent on troubleshooting. The adapted approach reduced friction and helped the team gather better data.

These examples point to a useful principle. The best method is not always the most sophisticated one. It is the one that helps the team learn what they need to learn without creating avoidable barriers for the people involved.

Constraints can force teams to look again at what the method is really asking from people, and whether there is a clearer, safer or more inclusive way to reach the same insight.

Trauma informed design in everyday content practice

Make trauma informed design part of your style guide approached a different but equally practical part of design work: the words, tone and guidance that shape how people move through a service.

Style guides are often seen as a way to keep content consistent and accessible. They help teams make shared decisions about language, terminology and tone. But Miriam Vaswani’s session pushed that idea further by looking at what happens when those decisions need to account for people who may not be approaching a service with calm, time or certainty.

That matters because content is rarely neutral in sensitive contexts. The order of information, the way an instruction is phrased, the amount someone is asked to remember and the tone used at moments of uncertainty can all affect how easy a service feels to understand and complete.

Trauma informed content is not about making every service sound softer. It is about recognising that people may be reading under pressure, with limited capacity to process vague or indirectcomplex information or while dealing with circumstances that make the task harder than it would be for someone with a lower cognitive load.looks on paper.

That makes the style guide a more active part of service design. It is not only there to keep writing tidy or consistent. It can help teams think about what a piece of content is asking from someone, where language might add unnecessary weight and how guidance can support people through clarity.without being vague, over familiar or unclear.

For teams working on health, crisis, justice, education or other sensitive services, that kind of thinking can make content decisions more deliberate. A clearer instruction can reduce uncertainty. A better ordered piece of guidance can reduce how much someone needs to hold in mind. A more considered tone can help people feel less judged or overwhelmed.

In that sense, care becomes part of the everyday mechanics of writing, reviewing and maintaining a service.

Where this leaves design teams

Taken together, the workshops offered a useful reminder that good practice is not just about having the right method, standard or guide in place. Those things matter, but they still have to meet the reality of the service.

That is often where the more difficult design decisions sit. A research method can be valid, but still ask too much from a participant in that setting. A style guide can create consistency, but still need to account for people who are reading under stress. A service can follow an expected pattern, but still feel difficult for someone trying to use it during a pressured or sensitive moment.

The value of the conversations at UX Scotland was in bringing that reality closer to the surface. They showed how much thoughtful design depends on noticing when the usual approach no longer fits, then adapting without losing care, rigour or clarity.

For teams designing services, that means creating space to challenge the method, question the guidance and look again at what the service is asking from people. Those conversations will not always sit neatly with one role. They often move between research, content, design, delivery, policy and technology.

Bringing them into the work earlier gives teams a better chance of spotting where a method needs to change, where content needs more care and where a service may be adding pressure at the wrong moment.

Design should not expect people to meet us in perfect conditions. It should be shaped around the real ones.