Iterating our user registration and account management prototypes

Note: Since our last design history post, the early career framework (ECF) programme has been renamed to the social work induction programme (SWIP). We’ve updated our design histories page to reflect this.

For links and passwords to the prototype discussed in this post, please contact danstringer@education.gov.uk

In our previous design history posts, we discussed our initial designs and prototypes for the user registration and account management section of the digital service. Since our last post, we have significantly iterated and tested these designs as we move towards a build for private beta.

Our current prototype was built to test full end-to-end journeys for:

• coordinators creating new user accounts for their organisation
• early career social workers (ECSWs) and assessors accessing the service for the first time and completing their registration

This post will cover some of the major updates we’ve made to these designs.

Look and feel

As we now know that the digital service will sit under a GOV.UK domain, we updated the prototype to use styles, components and patterns from GOV.UK Frontend instead of DfE Frontend to provide a realistic look and feel in our user research.

We also made some usability improvements to the designs, including sortable columns and improved pagination on the account management dashboard.

The prototype before the rebrand using DfE patterns:

The prototype after the rebrand using GOV.UK patterns:

New features in the prototype

We’ve added several new pages and steps to the prototype to allow us to test end-to-end journeys with users.

Invitation email and start page

We needed to test the complete registration journey for new users, from their initial invitation to the completion of their registration on the digital service. This involves the following steps:

1. The coordinator creates a new user account
2. The new user receives an invitation email with a unique registration link directing them to GOV.UK One Login
3. The new user creates a GOV.UK One Login account or signs in with their existing account
4. The new user is directed to the start page to enter the service
5. The new user completes some registration questions on their first sign-in

To make sure users could follow this process, we added an invitation email and start page to the prototype that explain the steps they need to follow. Because the email will be users’ first point of interaction with the service, it also contained some explanatory content such as:

• some context for the digital service
• useful information on GOV.UK One Login
• the time limit to use the unique registration link
• how to request a new invitation if the link has expired

Our user testing showed that users could follow the registration steps quickly and easily, but most users skipped over the explanatory content and headed straight to the links and calls to action. We iterated these pages to cut down word count and prioritise the most important details.

Eligibility questions

We need to make sure that funding is only provided to organisations for social workers who are eligible to take part in the SWIP programme. We added some eligibility questions to the prototype that coordinators must complete before they can add a new ECSW.

These questions asked coordinators to confirm that the ECSW:

• has the right to work in the UK
• currently works in statutory social care in England
• completed their social work qualification within the last 3 years
• is not an agency worker

In the version of the prototype we tested, coordinators were told they could not register the user if they did not meet all of these criteria. They were informed that the user is ineligible for the programme and cannot be added to the digital service.

In user testing, some participants mentioned that their organisations allow social workers to undertake the current ASYE programme for training and development even if they are not eligible for funding. After discussions with policy colleagues, we decided to allow coordinators to register agency workers and those who completed their qualification more than 3 years ago on the digital service. These users will be able to access the learning and assessment materials but will not be eligible for funding. We added an extra screen to the registration process to inform coordinators if the user is ineligible.

We also changed the question around right to work, which now asks coordinators to confirm that the ECSW is currently registered with Social Work England.

Demographic data

We need to collect some demographic data from participants in the SWIP programme around protected characteristics, background and qualifications. In the current ASYE programme, coordinators collect this information from ECSWs and input it into their systems. We decided to reduce the admin burden on coordinators by directing ECSWs to input this information themselves as part of the registration process.

We used the approved wording from GDS patterns for the questions on protected characteristics except for the question on disability, which was amended at the request of the Public Sector Equality Duty team to allow users to self-identify as disabled on the basis of the Equality Act.

Coordinators responded positively to this change in user testing and agreed that it would reduce their admin burden. It was noted that coordinators would still be better placed to provide some of the information (such as programme start and end dates) so these questions were moved to the coordinator journey in future iterations.

Features we removed

Some of the features we tested in previous rounds of research have been removed from the current prototype as we narrowed the scope of our minimum viable service (MVS). These features may be restored in future designs, but they have currently been deprioritised for our private beta build.

Linking, unlinking and pausing accounts

We previously tested a process for moving user accounts between organisations by ‘linking’ them to employers. This functionality is not needed for MVS as the service will only be adopted by a small number of organisations in private beta. We’ve also currently descoped the ‘pause’ function that marked users as taking a temporary break from the programme.

Searching existing users

We descoped the ability to search the digital service for existing user accounts for MVS as the service will be brand new and there will be no existing accounts.

Social Work England API checks

We prototyped a feature that would check a service user’s name against the online Social Work England register to confirm their eligibility. This was tested as part of a round of research on unhappy paths where we looked into the impact of failed or mismatched searches, and we found that it introduced significant confusion for users. This has been descoped from MVS in favour of a simple eligibility declaration.

Dashboard statuses

As a result of descoping some of the features above, we were able to remove some redundant status labels from the account management dashboard. We’ve streamlined the statuses to 3 for MVS:

• Active (users who are currently taking part in the programme)
• Inactive (users who are no longer taking part in the programme)
• Pending (users who have not fully completed their registration)

Going forward

We’ll continue to make iterations to these designs based on feedback from user research and policy, but the large part of our design work on this area for MVS is complete. We are now moving our attention towards the assessment area of the service, which will be hosted on the learning management system Moodle. Our work on assessment and Moodle will be covered in future posts.