Jay Rainey

j.rainey2@newcastle.ac.uk

My research explores the design of digital tools to make qualitative research practices more participatory, inclusive, and accessible for everyone. Initially, I worked with academics and a local charity organization to examine and augment their existing qualitative practices through deploying prototypes.

This action-oriented approach informed the iterative design of Gabber, a digital platform that: (i) structure audio conversation capture through a mobile device; (ii) support collaborative coding on the original audio; and (iii) the production of audio playlists to represent insights from across conversations.

Gabber has been used across a range of local, national, and international organizations to enhance their existing qualitative practices, for example, I led the TalkFutures campaign with International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent (IFRC) to enable their distributed members to contribute and analyze experiences from 86 countries to increase the perspectives in the ongoing strategy development process and the National Health Service (NHS)’s has used Gabber facilitate internal staff experience research with the aim to listen, understand and respond to what matters most to their staff.

My research has also supported the successful qualitative research of others, including: facilitating training delivery by an NGO in India, tailoring the delivery of sensitive workshops to perpetrators of domestic violence, supporting reflective discussions of individuals with complex needs, and support peer-based feedback in research training, etc.