Constituency name and MP name are needed for reporting on free school projects.
The school places analysis (SPA) team aren't responsible for entering this information when creating projects in Free Schools Store. We agreed that regional delivery officers (DOs) would enter this data when managing the free school project.
First design
We provided text inputs for DOs to enter the constituency and MP. This approach was consistent with the rest of our product. However, we believed that some of this data could be pulled from other sources.
Desk research
We spoke with the Complete conversions, transfers and changes team, who use the constituency name to pull an MP's details using the Members API.
We also recalled that Prepare conversions and transfers (Prepare) provides an MP's political party as well as their name. Some of our subject matter experts (SMEs) said they would find this information useful.
Iterated design
We:
- adapted RSD's search for a trust design pattern for our second constituency design. This functions in a similar way to Department for Education's search for a school design pattern
- allowed DOs to search using a constituency name or postcode. The DO will know these pieces of information, according to our SMEs
- added a political party question based on our SMEs feedback and to be consistent with Prepare
Testing
We'll test the design with DOs and iterate accordingly.