Prioritising User Experience: The Genius Finder™ Research Results 

At Genius Within, a key aspect of our working culture is continually improving and adapting in response to feedback from our community and clients. Having launched our digital platform, the Genius Finder™ two years ago now, we wanted to make sure that our updates and changes have moved the user experience in the right direction.  

With this in mind, we commissioned Birkbeck University to conduct some research and let us know what they found. We have now received their report and in the name of total transparency we wanted to share with you the good, the bad, and the changes we will be making as a result. 

We created the Genius Finder™ to address a very real need for scalable neurodiversity inclusion. The one-at-a-time approach to reasonable adjustments is not working for most companies and means support often doesn’t reach those who need it until they are already struggling.  

Our goal was to create a user friendly, accessible platform that could bring immediate solutions to the workplace without the need to disclose a diagnosis or wait indefinitely on a list. This would provide organisations with a data-driven solution to Neuro-inclusion and a self-serve companion to support individuals who want to work independently or alongside their specialist neurodiversity coaching. 

Everyone at Genius Within is so excited about what we have created, but we know that refining and fine tuning is essential to make sure we are getting it right. This is what we have learned: 

Positive highlights 

· 82% of users implemented at least one of the recommended strategies either in the work or home context. 

· 100% of users stated they would recommend the Genius Finder assessment to others, believing it to be useful and beneficial. 

· 88% of users had no trouble understanding the assessment questions. 

· 100% of users did not report any issues in navigating the online interface. 

We could not be happier to know that every single participant would recommend the Genius Finder™ and found it useful! Whilst we continue to work on the finer details of the platform, it is wonderful to know that it is already making a difference for our clients. 

In addition to the positive feedback, we have also learned that some participants found the ‘Action Plan’ hard to navigate with 65% of users saying they found the length of the report overwhelming. We are grateful to our community for continuing to take part in the co-creation of the platform and we have already started actions aimed at improving this feature. 

Some of these participants also suggested that having coaching alongside the report would be useful, helping to break it down and provide guidance on which strategies to prioritise. We would absolutely encourage Genius Finder™ users to use coaching as an additional support when needed. 

Feedback on the style and content of the strategies themselves did not indicate a consistent pattern with some (67%) preferring the shorter more simple strategies, and others (18%) preferring the longer options that gave more explanation. In response we have reviewed the language in the strategies and organised them to have both a short and a longer description. 

We want to thank The Centre for Neurodiversity at Work for helping us gain these important insights, and we hope our clients will like the latest updates. We are incredibly proud of the Genius Finder™ and the impact it is having. As with any digital platform we will continue to evolve in order to bring maximum benefit to our community and clients. If you are interested to try the Genius Finder™ you can find out more here. 

NB: This data comes from 39 interviews conducted by Julia Gawronska and Almuth McDowall. ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia and Dyscalculia were all represented, with 66% of participants identifying as neurodivergent.