In the Department for Education: SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan, published earlier this year, we stated we will:
- develop digital requirements for EHCP systems to improve experiences for parents, carers and professionals
- reduce bureaucracy
- improve our ability to monitor the health of the SEND system
We carried out research earlier this year with local authorities and suppliers about their experiences of implementation and use of digital EHCP systems. We also spoke with families to understand their experiences of using digital EHCP systems.
Findings in discovery
Based on these findings, we are exploring how DfE can support suppliers, local authorities, and their partners in health and education, to develop digital EHCP systems.
We are:
- investigating what guidance and support local authorities and their local area partners need to support their digital journeys, from service design through to rollout and maintenance
- exploring EHCP data standardisation to support easier reporting and make it easier to move records when a child or young person moves between local authorities
- engaging in research with digital system suppliers to understand what support they may also need
Using the recommendations from discovery and our riskiest assumptions, we formed a plan for how design, user research and business analysts will work together.
Creating a prototype
We initially developed a prototype to test the riskiest assumptions about what was most valuable to local authorities. We did this by taking topics identified in discovery and listing them out with descriptions in a card layout.
Choosing not to test a prototype now
After mapping the people we plan to talk to with our riskiest assumptions, we decided our best approach was to talk to local authorities ahead of showing any form of prototype.
We felt that a protype listing potential topics and descriptions was not going to add enough value at this stage, and it would be better to start from open enquiry. We wanted to ask the local authorities what they would like to see, rather than focussing their thinking onto a solution at this stage.
The full team worked together to help develop the discussion guides for the one-to-one user research sessions.
Initial design questions
These are some of the key questions from design for the first rounds of user research with local authorities who have already got a digital system and those looking to digitise their EHCP process:
- What would they be most interested in finding out from other local authorities?
- What standards and associated guidance do they follow? (such as IT) ?
- What is the biggest challenge regarding EHCP digitisation right now?
- What guidance or support could the DfE provide them that would be of use now?
- What would that guidance or support look like?
We think having these types of insight will inform how we move forward with any prototyping and co-creation work.
We might not get the answers to all these through user research, which is why we are planning workshops and already conducting desktop research as well.
Ideation and planning
Whilst we gather and evaluate the insights from the first rounds of one-to-one remote research, we are starting to think how we can use various methods of research and design to create a useful prototype.
We are going to hold workshops with local authority SEND leads to playback initial findings and do some co-production.
We have also been seeking inspiration from other services, such as 'Get Help Buying for Schools'. We are starting to form ideas that we need user research to help us define, and then we will be thinking about how we can explore these in the future workshops.