How standards are drafted
In DfE, the majority of digital data technology standards relate to technology, architecture, security and data. They are written in different ways and are stored in different places. It can be tricky to know where to find them, so that teams can then apply standards at the right time in the lifecycle.
The responsibility for a lot of these standards sits in tech, data, security and architecture, so when it comes to drafting accessibility, user research and even content standards, the process and documentation that is currently used, does not suit all users. As a result, people create their own methods and ways to draft, document and share standards.
As part of taking a user-centred approach, we want to create one source of truth for users to draft, submit and publish standards. This led us to starting with looking at how to unify how we draft a standard, and get it ready for review by a standards forum.
Standard owners adapting current ways of working
Image caption: Example of the tech template.
Technical standards are drafted using the technical template. It works for technical specialists and includes everything they need – typically highlighting approved and tolerated technologies. Non-technical standards were struggling to adapt the template and it included sections and inputs that do not relate to other types of standards.
We conducted a content review of standards that relate to DDT products and websites and worked with standard owners across professions to understand:
- what content needs to be included when drafting a standard
- who standard owners consult with
- what process they go through
- how they categorise standards
We also walked through process flows and user journeys from identifying a need for a standard to getting input from communities, to review and publication.
Taking a user-centred approach
We then designed a template based on the needs of all professions. This is a space that, once a need is identified, a standard owner can draft and get their ideas together, before speaking with the relevant Head(s) of Profession and sharing with their community and people who will be applying the standard for feedback.
They will then submit it to a service (which the product team are currently working on and will talk about in our next post), ready to be reviewed by the standards forum.
The standards template includes guidance for:
- how to write a standard
- the journey flow from drafting to submitting a standard for review
- categorisation and sub-categorisation
- what each section means and is for
What’s next
We have started user research to learn about how each profession would use the template to submit a standard to the Manage DDT standards service ready for review before publication.