This design history post was written during the Check an early years qualification project’s alpha phase. You can read more about the project and where we are now in our project overview.
In alpha, we have been using design hypotheses to help us:
- document our assumptions
- plan what we want to learn from user research
- establish the artefacts we need for user research
- test whether our assumptions were supported or not
- plan what our next steps are
There are currently 5 hypotheses, plus a 6th overarching hypothesis that we can evidence if the other hypotheses are met. We’ve iterated our hypotheses over time as our understanding of the problem space has developed and we’ve focussed in on the design choices we’re exploring.
There are many formulations for a hypothesis. We chose the ‘We believe that… we feel that… will result in…’ structure as it felt natural to the team. We also felt that it was a good fit for the extent to which we can provide evidence in the alpha phase. We expect that during the beta phase there may be more opportunities for qualitative and quantitative measurement.
Our design hypotheses
Here are the hypotheses as they stand, in Sprint 4 of our alpha:
Hypothesis 1
We believe that nursery managers and practitioners use guidance from DfE and the Ecctis Early Years Service as a means of documenting that a qualification is or isn't 'full and relevant'
We feel that DfE providing documentation for each full and relevant qualification
Will result in them having the evidence they need to record the result, and reducing the need to contact DfE for guidance about qualifications taken in the UK
Hypothesis 2
We believe that nursery managers and practitioners need to know what to do when they become aware that a qualification is not full and relevant
We feel that DfE signposting to providers of courses that are full and relevant
Will result in them understanding what the next steps may be to gain a qualification that is full and relevant
Hypothesis 3
We believe that nursery managers and practitioners need to know if a qualification is not full and relevant
We feel that DfE providing them with a way of filtering qualifications through a ‘one question per page' digital journey
Will result in them being confident that information presented to them is accurate and up to date
Hypothesis 4
We believe that nursery managers and practitioners need a structured way of checking if an early years qualification is full and relevant
We feel that DfE providing them with a way of filtering qualifications through a 'one question per page' digital journey
Will result in them having confidence that the information they have for a course being full and relevant is correct and up to date
Hypothesis 5
We believe that nursery managers and practitioners need a structured way of checking if multiple early years qualifications are full and relevant
We feel that DfE providing a way to check qualifications one after another
Will result in them having confidence that the information they have for a course being full and relevant is correct and up to date
Hypothesis 6
We believe that nursery managers and practitioners rely on professional, personal and social networks to interpret early years qualifications guidance
We feel that having evidence in support of the other hypotheses
Will result in them achieving what they need to on the service without relying on a 3rd party for confirmation that what DfE have presented them with is correct, up to date and complete
For every user research interview we conduct, we’re using our collaborative Lucid working board to document the ‘experiment’ we’re conducting and our findings and insights for each hypothesis. Doing this in the moment means we’re capturing that insight and making it available to the whole team quickly. Insights are tagged to anonymised participant references, so that we can tie our evidence back to its source.
We will continue to refine and develop these hypotheses during alpha and subsequent phases should this work progress further.