Posts
Collecting contact numbers
We needed to design how to collect local authority professionals' phone numbers and contact preferences, so voluntary and community sector organisations could get in touch about their requests.
Local family support services directory
26 June 2023
Creating a variable option for costs
When users add services to 'Manage family support services', they provide details about what the service costs. User research showed that binary options for ‘it costs money’ and ‘it does not cost money' were not enough for some users.
Local family support services directory
24 July 2023
Changing how users add information about when a service takes place
Users of ‘Manage family support services’ need to add information about when their services happen. However, user research showed that we needed to improve our service so they could.
Local family support services directory
24 July 2023
Improving the ‘add a service’ journey
Users can add services to our directory. User research showed that the ‘add a service’ journey was confusing, and gave us ideas for improving it. This post outlines what we changed and why.
Local family support services directory
25 July 2023
Softening our language for VCS professionals
Our service relies on voluntary and community sector professionals using it to support families. Without them we have no service. So, we made our language softer and kinder.
Local family support services directory
28 July 2023
Designing changes to the word ‘family’
We needed to cut down on the use of the word ‘family’ across our service to be more inclusive and relevant to users.
Local family support services directory
28 September 2023
Eligibility checking - round 3 design update
For our final round of User Research, we focused on a ‘Check now, apply later’ journey for parents.
Check your eligibility
13 December 2023
Updating the add a service journey
We identified some improvements that could be made to the way services were added in ‘Manage family support services’ (Manage) to make it easier for end users to find the support they need.
Local family support services directory
27 March 2024
Providing key performance indicator (KPI) metrics
We wanted to find a way to display KPIs on ‘Manage family support services and accounts’ (Manage).
Local family support services directory
16 April 2024
Allowing account managers to hide services
Our team identified a user need to either delete or hide existing services from the directory.
Local family support services directory
5 June 2024
Allowing LA account managers to view VCS services
We identified the need for local authority (LA) account managers to have more oversight of services added by volunteer and community sector (VCS) organisations.
Local family support services directory
4 July 2024
Allowing local authority account managers to delete services
Our team decided to implement a delete functionality to allow users to remove services from the directory.
Local family support services directory
26 September 2024
Creating a single directory: reasons why and initial design thinking
The family digital project team has begun work on merging the two directories, 'Find' and 'Connect'. A single directory will help to improve the user experience and reduce maintenance efforts. This article explains our reasoning and initial planning.
Local family support services directory
19 December 2024
Single directory: understanding how parents find family services
We needed to understand how parents look for local services, what information they needed, and what would make the single directory valuable to them.
Local family support services directory
2 April 2025
Investigating using Open Referral data for the single directory
We explored the option of importing service data using the Open Referral standard and what this would mean for features, usability and design.
Local family support services directory
2 April 2025
Summary of the family hubs digital project
The project team worked to understand the problems faced by families in accessing support services, and design solutions to address these.
Local family support services directory
4 April 2025