Sprint overview
Epic 1: A journey to receiving recommendations/ recommendation engine, with a focus on ICT.
Problem to solve
Overall problem statement:
Schools miss out on DfE's existing and emerging procurement solutions and related savings because they're not aware of them, and when they are, they struggle to find them and choose the right one for them.
Sprint problem statement:
Schools find it hard to navigate to a buying solution because the links are buried in hard-to-navigate GOV.UK guidance, and schools are time-poor and task-focused (findings from desk research).
Design challenge
HMW give users recommendations, and information to help them choose?
Design hypothesis
Getting users from A to B - We bet that if we provide a journey for users to get recommendations based on information around their buying decision, it will:
- meet the user need to help users find and navigate to the right buying solution
- allow users to feel confident that our recommendations are meeting their specific circumstances (meeting the personalisation user need)
Prototype
Prototype tested in Sprint 1 - Homepage Prototype tested in Sprint 1 - Questions followed by recommendations, ICT
User research findings
User research insights from Sprint 1 User research playback from Sprint 1
Design challenges
From user research round 1
- HMW make it clear that this service is for ALL state funded schools?
- HMW design a service for users who know what buying route and category to get to where they need to be quickly?
- HMW set up search to align language with the users’ mental model?
- HMW Get users to understand HOW any questions impact the results they get? (Expectations)
- HMW intelligently show users what they need, without effort/input on their part?
- HMW link budget to recommendations for those categories where it is a factor?
- HMW make recommendations that don’t promote one as better than the other?
- HMW differentiate training as not being a route to market?
- HMW make users aware of DfE approved buying solutions e.g., Amazon as approved?
Iterations
Completed in Sprint 2 prototype
- Changed intro text on the homepage to: “Here are resources to help you buy for your school, academy or trust compliantly, and save you time and money.”
- Changed the tiles and text on those to categories in listed alphabetical order, and added text to define the items within each category.
- We decided to remove the questions page altogether seen as the user research showed many pain points with this page and that it was ab interruption in the user’s journey. To meet user expectations, we show them all results available in the category and then they can filter down.
- By removing the questions page, as above, and getting users straight to the results from the landing page, without needing to input any initial information.
- Recommendations are now listed in alphabetical order. We can add text in the Sprint 3 prototype to further highlight this. Also, the recommendations page is no longer called “Your Recommendations” but “Energy” or “ICT”, for example.
- We added a new section on the results page, called, “Also see training and support”. We’re also using a different component for this section, to further highlight that these are training and guidance links rather than routes to market.
- We added a ‘DfE approved tag’ to all results.