The School Places Analysis (SPA) team are responsible for adding and managing free school data in FSS.
The team adds data into FSS by:
- creating a single 'presumption route' free school project, and
- uploading multiple 'central route' free school projects
Projects in the new FSS
We created a prototype in alpha sprint 2 which would:
- Validate the idea of replacing the current FSS without changing the current work processes.
- Test some of the hypotheses identified in alpha.
We created a design that allowed SPA team members to create one or upload multiple free school projects into FSS.
This would give the data that DfE teams need.
Testing our design
We did usability tests of our design with:
- two SPA data analysts
- one SPA team leader
The users logged into our prototype and tested creating single and multiple free school projects. We asked them questions to understand whether the design worked for them and what could be improved.
Positive user feedback
The link to create new projects is useful because those are the main things SPA will use
It looks kind of familiar. Even though it's a new thing
It is useful that the new FSS is accesses via a browser and no software to install is needed
Constructive user feedback
- an individual project could be uploaded using the bulk upload option, so the hint text for these options is not exclusive
- no other system is accessed to get data to create a project record, so data pulled from other systems should not appear on the Check your answers page
- the field names on Check your answers are not accurate
- "send your application" is not correct. Users are creating a project record, not sending an application
- they need to see a temporary project ID on the single project confirmation page, not a reference number
- it's not clear what notification is sent to team leaders. Is this a Teams chat message? Email?
- bulk upload confirmation should not display a reference number because there's one temporary project ID for each free school
Next steps
- Iterate the design based on feedback - see sprint 5 design iteration.
- Test iterated design with SPA users.