Establishing a User Needs Analysis Framework for the Canadian Centre for Climate Services

Client:

Canadian Centre for Climate Services, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC)

Location:

Vancouver – working remotely with client based in Ottawa

Dates:

January 2021 to April 2021

Background:

The Canadian Centre for Climate Services (CCCS) sought to advance its understanding of the needs of users of climate information and data produced or managed by CCCS. The goal was to improve awareness and access to CCCS products and services to help ensure the agency provides impactful and tailored climate services and products to both established and new user groups. Hatfield worked with CCCS to define a new user needs analysis (UNA) framework to help systematically understand who the current and future users are, define and categorize their diverse needs, and provide input/insight as to how climate services and products could be tailored to these needs.

The UNA framework developed for the project helps CCCS identify the motivations to use climate information, the intended use or application of that information in decisions or processes, and users’ values that inform their overarching goals.

Services Provided:

• Comprehensive desk study on lessons and best practices from relevant fields and approaches to conducting user needs analysis.
• Developed a draft framework to characterize and categorize users and their needs.
• Refined the framework through online surveys, focus groups with subject matter experts (SMEs) and interviews with climate service providers and users across Canada to test and align the framework with CCCS objectives.
• A final report with recommendations.