user research case study
the project
He kai kei aku ringa is a well-known whakatauki that signifies resilience, empowerment, and hope. It refers to our ability to use our skills and resources to create successful and sustainable outcomes for the future.
We know and trust that Māori hold a piece of the puzzle for creating innovative solutions to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. We have a responsibility to our tamariki, our mokopuna, and generations to come to continue to seek solutions that contribute to managing and mitigating the impacts of climate change. We also know that for these solutions to be enduring we need to embark on a journey of developing our understanding with whānau Māori.
Approximately 5% of Aotearoa is Māori freehold land under collective Māori ownership. Māori land owners face a unique set of structural challenges that make it more difficult to access and use agricultural greenhouse gas emissions information and to make decisions about whenua that could reduce emissions.
In August 2023, the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre (NZAGRC), engaged VHC to develop a digital tool that could help to educate, engage, and activate Māori land owners, Māori farmers, and their whānau and communities to empower them to make decisions toward reducing agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. VHC is working in partnership with Toihau, the Māori Advisory Board to NZAGRC.
We’ve just completed phase 1 of this project, and before we make a start on phase 2, we thought we’d take stock and share how we approached this piece of work, and what we learned from it.
our approach
We started on He kai kei aku ringa where we always start: with discovery and research. As with any project, we tailored our activities specifically to the issue at hand. In this case, we wanted to understand Māori land owners’ beliefs, drivers, aspirations and challenges – in particular:
- the significance of whenua Māori to different people
- how different people engage with information about greenhouse gases, what drives them, and barriers to engaging with it
- the similarities and differences between the journeys of Māori in their roles as land owners and Māori in their roles as farmers
- how our solution can best achieve the right balance between holistic ao Māori approaches to land use and Western approaches.
We also sought to test the hypothesis that if we make data and information about GHGs accessible and understandable, then people will be more likely to care about the issue, and therefore more likely to act to reduce their emissions.
To do this, we completed extensive user research. User research is a methodology that focuses on collecting rich in-depth information and data from the people who will use your solution. Its purpose is to help the design team learn, understand, and document the drivers, challenges, and needs of the people they are designing for. It ensures that designers can ensure their solution is addressing the underlying problems and opportunities, and it helps them to identify where and how to make the most impact for users.
We talked to Māori landowners and farmers, and those involved in Māori agriculture, all around the motu to find out what their needs are, what’s currently available to them, and where they see gaps in information and support.
Alongside this, we completed research to find out what information, tools and resources related to GHGs were out there already, and built a catalogue of datasets and information relevant to our audience.
insights and outcomes
Our user research show us that most people don’t really care about agricultural GHG emissions. But, the people who do care about it already care deeply about whenua.
We realised that people need to care about something before they can turn information into action, and they also need to deeply care about something before they will deviate from their familiar or normal way of living or working. We believe the more we can awhi whānau to take the journey of connecting to their whenua and whakapapa, the more we’ll see the challenge of combating climate change and GHG emissions taken on by other whānau in the future.
During the user research process, we also heard and saw how Western systems have constrained, de-emphasised and ignored mātauranga Māori, and imposed alien measurement frameworks on Māori decision-making. We found that the data and information sources available to Māori land owners relating to agricultural GHG emissions tend to dictate measures, pathways, and decisions. This undermines the creativity of Māori land owners and farmers and the autonomy to decide their own solutions.
Using our findings and insights to develop a digital solution
For a digital solution to be successful it must address a problem or gap for users that is not already solved or addressed by another product or solution, and meet their needs relating to that problem or gap.
For He kai kei aku ringa to succeed it must connect agricultural GHG emissions to things that people already care deeply about, like whānau and whenua, or their farm. It must give Māori autonomy over their decision-making by enabling them to enter and navigate the complex agricultural GHG emissions space through the lens of a subject they care deeply about – be it whenua, climate change, or enterprise. To achieve this, we’ll be creating a website:
- with a user experience designed in a way that is distinctly Māori
- that offers multiple pathways for users, acknowledging their context
- that provides users with a tailored experience
- that realises the essence of the whakatauki, ‘He kai kei aku ringa’.
We know that people care about their whenua, their whānau, their enterprise, and te Taiao but they may not see how these are connected. Our digital solution must provide pathways from each of these entry points:
Read our detailed findings and insights
We believe there’s an opportunity to reframe and refocus the available information and data sources related to whenua, farming, and agricultural GHG emissions, to engage and leverage the deep history of knowledge held by whānau Māori. We encourage you to take a more in-depth look at our user research and how we approached this piece of work. We hope it will give you an insight into not only what we do at VHC, but more importantly, the challenges facing whānau and whenua Māori across the motu as well.
Read the website strategy we developed using our findings and insights [PDF, 10.9MB]
what's next
Our next phase will be to design, build, and deliver a digital solution or solutions to support whānau to get the knowledge and advice they need to continue acting as kaitiaki for their whenua, and tackling the issues around GHG emissions and climate change. We’re aiming to have the website and any associated tools ready to publish by the end of 2024. We’ll continue to update the information on this page as we reach new milestones on the project.
If you’d like to find out more about He kai kei aku ringa, or get advice on an upcoming project of your own, get in touch below – we’d love to hear from you.