User researchers (URs) conduct research to understand the needs of people that we are designing services for. URs have several routes to recruit participants. You can explore these further by reading these blog posts about recruitment strategies and managing biases …
The social work induction programme (SWIP) is a two-year programme requiring newly qualified social workers to demonstrate their skills and knowledge with evidence from their practice. At the end of the programme, social workers are assessed against the new post …
In late 2023, the Department for Education (DfE) DesignOps team noticed a recurring problem across the services DfE provided to users. Many of our digital services did not have accessibility statements, or had out-of-date, or incorrect statements. This issue made …
On a crisp spring morning, user researcher Sree and interaction designer Claire travelled to Sheffield to visit the Department for Education’s Accessibility Lab. Their goal was to understand how digital services function for those who navigate the world differently. Inside …
In digital, data, and technology in DfE, we’ve published a Plain Language standard. The Plain Language standard ensures that users can: The standard incorporates our ways of working and best practise for user-centred design in government. It should not create …
Filters are a common component used in many services across DfE. There are many variations and we as a department have no guidance on how to use filters. There are a lot of differences in filter styling and functionality in …
Robert Gammon is the Technical Architect on the Early years qualification checking service, currently in the private beta stage of development. Protecting a public service: how and why When developing a new digital public service, you might wonder why it …
At the Department for Education (DfE), all designers working on service teams are required to work ‘in the open’. One way we do this is by sharing our design thinking through design histories. Design history posts are blogs that record …
When working on content-heavy services like our Early years child development training and Support for social workers, it’s crucial to agree on and document a workflow. This is because: For guidance, refer to reviewing and approving content and user-centred design …
Every piece of user research we do seeks to understand something about the people who use a DfE service or are impacted by a policy. We call that group a ‘population’. When we conduct user research, we need to find …
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