Testing iteration 2 with users
We conducted usability testing of the the iteration 2 designs and the mocked up GOV.UK guidance page with 4 current and ex-teachers.
Participants were asked to imagine they were looking for a new teaching role and were applying via Teaching Vacancies. They were asked to try and look up their TRN via the Find your TRN prototype.
Key findings from the research
1. Participants would welcome help when having to provide TRNs on forms
Participants were told to imagine a scenario where they were applying for a job vacancy using the Teaching Vacancies service.
Most participants had a good idea of what a TRN was and where they might find it e.g. payslip, qualifications documents etc. However, they would welcome more guidance and possibly a way to look it up.
2. Participants were unsettled by the exact match email look up journey
Participants were uncomfortable with the exact match email look up. The system felt insecure with validation against email address seeming too light.
Participants also mentioned that their emails change over time so it seemed odd using this as a means of identifying them. They would have been more comfortable being asked for more immutable things like National Insurance number (NINO) or date of birth.
3. Participants would not wait 5 days to get their TRN from the helpdesk
All participants said they would not wait five days when they noticed the SLA on the helpdesk email response. They said they would look for a way to call the TRA service.
The scenario given was they were applying for a teaching vacancy. They said it was necessary to quickly apply for these roles.
4. Some participants did not understand what had happened on the failure path
When they saw the ‘Check answers and request TRN’ page, some participants did not realise that the automatic TRN check had been unsuccessful. They interpreted the service to be just a TRA helpdesk request form which would take 5 days.
5. Most participants did not have their NINO to hand and would have to look it up
Not surprisingly, the majority of participants did not know their NINO off hand. They would need to look up their NINO. They mentioned they might find it on a payslip or in a personal documents folder.
Some participants said they would just say they don’t have a NINO and try and get as far as possible with the service.
Other findings
- Teachers who had been in the profession for a while, knew the TRN under different names (e.g. GTC, DfES) and needed reassurance that this was the same thing as the TRN
- None of the participants could find their TRN on their payslips, as suggested by the GOV.UK guidance
- After reading the mocked-up GOV.UK guidance, participants were left with the misleading impression that a NINO was mandatory to complete the service digitally
- One participant wasn’t sure why the service was asking them to provide their personal data
- Some participants were expecting the ITT provider page to auto-complete their provider name as they typed
- One (non-native English speaking) participant needed a moment to remember which way around first and last names were
Changes made in response to the findings
Guidance
- Expanded the ‘Before you start’ section on the Start page to mention what information the user will need to provide, and explained how the matching process works.
- Added previous names for the TRN to the Start page.
- Added an interstitial page before the personal data questions, which explains why the service is asking for personal data.
Name question
We changed ‘first name’ and ‘last name’ labels to ‘given name’ and ‘family name’, as suggested by the GOV.UK Design System guidance. We need to now test and see if this change causes any issues with native English speakers.
NINO question
We added a third option on the NINO page: ‘I have a NINO but I do not have it available’. If the user selects this, they are warned that they can continue but it’s less likely that we will be able to find their TRN.
If the user has proceeded to the end of the service unsuccessfully, the ‘No match’ page will prompt the user to re-enter their NINO and try again.
Unsuccessful journey
We replaced the ‘Check answers and request TRN’ with the same ‘Check answers’ page used by the successful journey, so that this page did only one thing.
We added a new ‘We could not find your TRN’ failure page. This page explicitly suggests phoning the helpdesk if the user needs the TRN urgently. A second way to recover from the failure is to re-use the previously provided user details to create a TRA helpdesk ticket and get a response by email.
New screen flow
Screenshots
Start page
We will ask you some questions
Do you have a National Insurance number
Your email address
Check answers
Success
No match
Get a response by email
TRN request submitted
