Content: Michael Soane, Ivy Halstead-Dawber
Policy: Tony Leavy
Interaction Designer: Laura Power
A task is essentially a group of subtasks, such as school census (task) and submit your school census data (subtask). A subtask is a to-do item that appears on DfE Connect for School Business Professionals (SBPs).
Terminology
Tasks and new tasks are a new concept. Subtasks are not labelled or referred to on DfE Connect. It was therefore difficult to decide what to name them. There was a lot of back and forth in the team and lots of different terms proposed for tasks and subtasks, such as activities and tasks or projects and jobs to do. There was no research to go on as the names are only used within the DfE Connect team, we decided to choose the terms we liked the most and agreed on the most.
We decided on subtasks and tasks because ‘subtasks’ are smaller, actionable requirements that are related to a larger, overall task. Therefore, the name ‘subtask’ was allocated to those items that make up the larger task. An example of this would be the ‘Annual Accounts’ task which has the subtasks ‘Submit your cover sheet to us before the deadline’ and ‘Review the changes to your accounts we’ve requested’. These two subtasks are required to complete the Annual account task.
The terminology for ‘tasks’ and ‘subtasks’ will be explored and tested as we expand to additional user groups. We will be interested and making note of any language we see used organically with our users.
Data requirements
We created validation rules to ensure the relationship between tasks and subtasks remain accurate and avoid any duplication on DfE Connect. We also detailed their relationship to services and tags to ensure sustainability and alignment with the underlying data.
Search function
Using the table component and adapting the filter functionality, tasks may be searched for, filtered and viewed. We adapted the filter component and functionality iteratively. This is yet to be tested with end users and will be iterated based on usability feedback moving forward.
Creating a task and its subtask
Building on previous designs, we have refined and designed a more detailed journey for creating a new task. Within this journey, users add task details, create subtasks and add categories and tags for insight purposes which feeds into Explore your DfE Connect data.
Using a range of design components, we opted to have multiple fields on pages as superusers are considered experts of the service. In the future we’ll explore reducing the number of fields on a page and providing more guidance for users who may need support. The journey follows government guidelines and design system, including a check your answers page and tailored error messages to support superusers and ensure mandatory information is complete before publication.
Viewing tasks and subtasks
Upon opening a task, a superuser can view the details in a summary card component, with a sub-navigation component highlighting key details above. All possible actions are grouped together for findability. From a task, superusers can navigate to view a task’s subtasks and service in a similar page layout.
