The roll-out of NBN Co's much-anticipated national broadband network across Australia is by no means an easy feat. From the physical construction of the network, to the installation of infrastructure in homes and businesses, to the liaison with Retail Service Providers (RSPs) - NBN Co has a lot to deal with. But the reality is this: all this back-end work is for nothing if the customer experience is not up to scratch.

With this in mind, the NBN Co Product Team sought to conduct in-depth research about the customer experience for the fibre optic component of the network, so they could gain a clear, holistic picture of how different customers interact with the product. Although NBN Co's actual customers are RSPs that on-sell the product to end users, the company regards end users as central to delivering a complete product offering as well - so the research had to include both groups.

NBN Co engaged Bienalto to conduct research with RSPs and end users, in close collaboration with various NBN Co divisions. The resulting insights - in the form of personas and journey maps - are now being used across NBN Co to inform product design and customer interactions.

How can you make strategic product design decisions without a very clear picture of how that product is being used? This was the question NBN Co's product team was asking in mid-2011, as the first end users of the fibre optic component of the network were connected.

NBN Co needed a clearer picture of how its fibre optic product was actually going to be used in people's homes at an everyday level. At the same time, it sought more in-depth information about the needs and expectations of RSPs, and how the packaging of the product would impact their experience of launching and selling fibre optic broadband to end users.

Bienalto was brought on board to work closely with NBN Co in developing these answers. With our strong track record in experience architecture and consumer research, and deep knowledge of research tools such as personas and journey maps, we were certainly up to the task.

The four-month research project was thus designed to deliver insights that would help NBN Co to better understand the holistic experience of RSPs and end users.

Bienalto proposed a three-stage approach, encompassing research, analysis and synthesis. At every stage, we worked in close collaboration with NBN Co departments - including sales, operations, communications, quality, community relations and solution/product engineering - to ensure that the questions we formulated, the insights we gathered and the solutions we proposed were all valid and relevant to the project's goals.

The research itself comprised a mix of surveys, interviews and workshops.

For the end users, the research started with an online survey about the installation process. From this survey, we recruited 14 residential and home business users to participate in contextual inquiries. These users came from NBN Co's first release sites in Willunga SA, Kiama Downs NSW, Brunswick VIC, Gulliver QLD and Armidale NSW. A second survey, two months after the first, was conducted to gather insights on the users' perceptions of the performance of the Fibre product.

For the RSPs, we interviewed 12 employees from five Internet service providers, including product managers, technical managers and support staff.

Bienalto then analysed the information gathered in the research to identify what end users and RSPs were thinking and feeling at each point of the interaction with NBN Co. From this analysis, we developed four detailed end user personas, three RSP personas, and two journey maps (one for end users, one for RSPs) for distribution throughout the organisation.

"Personas are useful for categorising different behaviours and understanding the users - leading to a more structured approach to design. Journey maps are a way of visualising the complete picture - from start to finish - of how a user engages with a product, making it easy to identify pain points and potential roadblocks."

Zafer Bilda, Manager, User Experience, Bienalto