First iteration
The service aims to give schools a better understanding of their technology needs by assessing their current use of technology and provide recommendations to improve. Given a self-assessment tool has the potential to cover a wide range of topics related to technology, the Alpha team recommended starting with a limited number of topics that are fundamental to supporting technology planning.
Research was conducted at the start of private Beta to:
- identify whether there is a similarity or difference between our target user roles within schools and what they consider valuable to focus on better understand which categories of technology are considered valuable by the user roles, as they work towards their idea of digital maturity.
We discovered that the topics users found valuable varied drastically depending on the type of user involved in technology planning and their level of digital maturity. User roles that lacked technical expertise tended to prioritise soft topics such as safeguarding, and strategy and management, or technology for teaching and learning. IT leads also valued safeguarding but realised the importance of having a reliable IT infrastructure as being first step when building a digital strategy.
Our first MVS iteration therefore focused on the first building block of a digital strategy: connectivity, with the following subtopics: network cabling, network switches, broadband connection, broadband back-up, and wireless.
Above: Screenshot showing the self assessment start page.
Second iteration
When testing the prototype with head teachers who weren’t digitally mature, we found they:
- couldn’t see the connection between connectivity topics, and teaching and learning, and therefore didn’t consider the topics to be as valuable
- didn’t think the service is for them, so would likely delegate to an IT role or drop off
As a result, we decided to add softer topics that build towards achieving an outcome for schools of getting the basics right, to test the following hypothesis:
- Headteachers are key to enabling digital change in schools and need to collaborate with other roles. However, they won't engage with topics they don't understand to be relevant to them.
- We believe that by adding topics non-technical roles perceive as relevant to them, and by framing the topic grouping as building up towards a goal, this will make it more likely for users to understand the value of completing the self-assessment and engage with it.
Above: Diagram showing how the scope expanded to include Leadership and Governance content.
Third iteration
The next round of usability testing showed there was some confusion around the topics, with some users thinking Leadership and Governance was a subset of Connectivity.
As a result, we swapped the topic order in the following iteration, which made it clearer that they were two distinct categories. This has tested much better with our target audience during our pilot phase.
Above: Screenshots showing how the topic order changed on the self assessment start page.
Fourth iteration
After piloting our service over several weeks, users reported finding it easy to use, however they would have liked more topics to self-assess against, and receive recommendations for.
We have therefore decided to add more content ahead of public Beta, and have gone back to our early round of prioritisation research to decide what to add. Our next iteration in private Beta will include additional topics to support school leaders to achieve goals they consider valuable, getting the basics right and preventing harm.
Above: Diagram showing how the scope expanded to include Filtering and Monitoring content.