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Redesigning a face-to-face service using Miro

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The Carers Centre provide trusted information, advice and support to people looking after their loved ones in Bath and North East Somerset.

Use this Guide if you are designing, developing or reviewing a service. It shows you how to use Miro to capture and explore research data, develop ideas, map their implementation and create prototypes. You can use this Guide for creating digital and non-digital services. It allows everyone on a project to have more equal voices.

Jump to steps
Key software:
Miro
How they set it up:
Followed simple on screen instructions
Setup costs:
None.
Ongoing costs:
None.
Guide in use since:
February 2023

Steps to using Miro to design any service

There are lots of different digital tools available that can help you work on a project together, including Miro, Mural, and Trello. When you are trying to choose one, ask yourself:

  • Is it easy for staff and volunteers to use?

  • What training and support resources are available?

  • Is it accessible for everyone?

  • What are the costs?

  • Can it integrate with our other software if needed?

  • How and where is our data stored?

  • Does it fit with our values and ethical policy?

The Carers Centre run ‘carers cafes’ in different areas as a service to support carers who can easily become isolated.

The charity wanted to take a step back and re-evaluate if the cafes were still meeting carers' needs before deciding whether to expand them. They needed a place to bring together different information they had from various sources like surveys, interviews and monitoring tools.

After looking at different options they chose Miro because it was a good fit with 5 values they were looking for in a tool. The team used an acronym, FISHES, to keep these values in mind:

  • Fair - using Miro meant that everybody’s voice was equal and everyone could contribute

  • Innovative - using Miro was fun and different, it encouraged people to ‘think outside the box’

  • Supportive - using Miro’s existing templates and tools gave the team a framework and foundation for the project which made it feel less overwhelming

  • Honest - using Miro helped to make their planning process more transparent, and allowed them to capture people’s views in their own words

  • Empowering - collecting everything in one place that everyone could see increased people’s sense of ownership and accountability

  • Sustainable - recording every step of their process in Miro helped the team to ‘see the journey’ and not just the task in front of them.

Look at all the information you already have about how people use your service and any problems they might encounter. Use Miro to keep everything in one place.

Notice if there are any gaps in what you know. Conduct further discovery research if you don't already have enough insights. You can use surveys, interviews, analytics data, and informal feedback to understand people's needs.

 Research resources collected in a Miro board discovery section

The Carers Centre team added their project goal and journey map to Miro at the start of the project, so that they could easily refer back to it and stay on track.

They also collected all the existing information they had about the Carers Cafe service and added it to Miro.

One of the most important insights came through informal feedback from carers. They said that they weren’t sure what the cafe service would offer them: peer support, a chance to socialise, or both?

When you are designing a new service or improving an existing one it’s important to speak to people who use the service as part of your research. Understanding their experiences can help you make the service better.

Using an online whiteboard tool like Miro or Mural allows people to work together in different places and at different times. You can use Miro to:

  • Conduct interviews or group discussions remotely while writing down notes, comments, and ideas on the whiteboard at the same time.

  • Use sticky notes, drawings, and shapes on the whiteboard to visually organise feedback.

  • Map people's existing 'user journey' through your service. Use Miro’s sticky notes feature to visualise the different steps people go through as they use your service.

  • Look at all the information collected from people using the service. Identify common themes or issues, and decide what is most important.

  • Create user personas based on the research findings, to better understand people’s different needs and preferences.

Make sure you leave plenty of time to show people how to use the tool, so that everyone can take part.

 A café user persona, created in Miro

The team shared the Miro boards they created with their colleagues, and with carers who used the Carer's Café service.

To introduce Miro to others, they:

  1. Played a fun game called 'Go Fish' as an icebreaker. They have shared the Miro template for this game.

  2. Had a small group start using it first

  3. Played with it - used a practice board in Miro for activities and games to get comfortable with the tool

  4. Got feedback - as the group tried Miro, they provided likes/dislikes.

  5. Expanded slowly - they started small with just a few people and grew from there.

Miro helped them to learn more about what carers needed from the service. They used these insights to come up with ideas for improving it.

Brainstorm ideas in Miro using sticky notes, mind maps etc. Encourage people to come up with lots of different ideas rather than getting bogged down in the details of one or two. Encourage people to build on each other's ideas.

Organise ideas into themes and groups. Use dot voting to find out which ideas people think are worth exploring. Discuss which ideas to tackle first.

The Carers Centre used Miro to view and collaborate on their ideas. It worked even though they weren’t all in the same place. As well as helping them keep all of their insights in one place, Miro was fun to use. It felt like they were in the room together.

Use Miro's templates and drawing tools to create simple ‘wireframe’ drawings showing how the new service will work.

You can also connect Miro to other tools like Invision to create clickable models of the new service design on the Miro board. This is called a prototype.

Set up a separate Miro board for testing the prototype with instructions and areas for people to share their thoughts.

Invite people who use your services to view the Miro board on a computer and test the prototype while sharing their screen with you.

Ask people to leave notes, drawings, or comments directly on the Miro board to share their feedback during testing.

You might need to go through several rounds of prototyping and testing until you find a solution which works well. Using a tool like Miro supports your process.

 Comic strip showing a user's journey through a Carer Café, created in Miro

Using Miro helped the Carers Centre to keep focused on their goal of improving their service. It also allowed carers to have an equal voice in the project.

Further information