We’re designing a service that supports how standards are:
- submitted for approval
- reviewed and approved or rejected
- published and managed
This work is part of building a single service for managing all DDT standards in DfE.
Designing the service
We’re creating a digital service that makes it easier to manage standards.
It will include:
- a Content Management System (CMS) where standards will be stored
- the Manage standards service, an internal-facing product to draft, review, approve, or reject standards before they’re published
- an external Standards manual, a public-facing product where users can find and use published standards
The current process
Right now, standards are managed in different ways by different teams. Some are stored in shared drives or individual files, while others are emailed between people.
This makes it hard to:
- track the status of a standard
- know who has approved it
- make sure standards are up-to-date
- find standards when teams need them
We’ve also found that:
- there’s no clear process for submitting a standard for approval
- there’s no consistent way to review and approve standards
- standards often don’t include important information, like who they apply to or when they should be used
The CMS
We’re using Strapi for the CMS which is an open-source, headless CMS which means we have complete control of the source code, and how we use it.
Strapi will be used to store all content relating to standards, and be the one source of truth for standards in DfE.
We will make use of the Strapi API framework to publish standards in the manual, and manage standards using workflows in the management product.
We can then use these APIs to provide access to standards relevant to different professions, for example, publish accessibility-related standards in the Accessibility manual.
Caption: Strapi is an open source, headless CMS.
We have designed content models to be structured around a standard, and make it easy to version standards and related links, such as categories, exceptions and products.
Manage standards
Using our lessons learnt from the Service assessment service we built earlier in the year, we have built a digital service to interact with the CMS which uses a task-based and workflow process to draft, approve, and publish standards.
This same product helps standard owners to make changes to standards and handles versioning as well as getting standards reapproved if needed.
Caption: view to create a new standard.
Caption: view to administer standards.
We are currently testing these journeys with participants as part of a round of user research and will make any changes as needed based on insights and findings.
Caption: screengrab of user research notes during round of testing.
Standards manual
The Standards manual is a public-facing website where anyone can find and use approved standards.
It’s designed to:
- display standards clearly and consistently
- include guidance on how to apply each standard
- allow users to search and filter standards by category
The manual is the single source of truth for DDT standards in DfE. It ensures that teams can easily find the standards they need to follow at the right time.
The product is being iterated to show published standards from the CMS using a filtered list which will enable people to then view the detail of those standards.
Caption: the new standards homepage.
Caption: A view of the standard content with the detail of how to meet the standard and any additional information people will need to apply it successfully.