Digital

Trove.scot – user engagement

October 23, 2024 by Stewart Hamilton No Comments | Category Digital Assurance Office, Digital Scotland, Technology Assurance Framework

Guest blog by Laura Johnstone, Continuous Improvement team, Digital Assurance Office.

This case study explores how the trove.scot Service Team took a user centred approach. This is the last of three case studies that have been prepared with Historic Environment Scotland (HES) to capture their activities and reflections. Check out the first two case studies exploring how the trove.scot Service Team embedded the Digital Scotland Service Standard (DSSS) and their reflections from the assessment process and how they worked with their supplier.

Starting from the development of the business case and built in explicitly to the tender for the supplier to design the service there was a clear ambition for a user centred design approach.  The DSSS assessment noted that the Service Team had well established ways of working, keeping users (internal and external) at the heart of everything that they do with this being particularly evident in efforts to design a digitally accessible service. This case study explores what the Service Team did and the lessons they would like to share.

Activities

• at the earliest stages of the project, to inform the development of the business case, there was engagement to understand how the existing websites were being used internally by HES and by external users – a user panel (see more below) was created and work was done to break users down into personas, this panel has been used throughout the design and development of trove.scot
• the supplier provided dedicated user design and user research resource and there was a significant amount of user testing
• the approach to testing was developed collaboratively with the supplier and utilised the skills and experience of both HES and the supplier
• the DSSS assessment prompted the team to do more focused work on user journeys where the user does not have access to digital skills or devices, this has also prompted more work around offline journeys across the wider HES business
• the Service Team created a user panel to support them in the design of the trove.scot service
• a number of approaches were used to recruit the panel including advertising through the surveys on the websites that were in scope for trove.scot and call outs through social media – around 200 people wanted to participate, these were largely external users but there were some HES staff too, information governance advice was secured to ensure all legal requirements were met
• the Service Team prioritised accessibility and use of assistive technology in the development of the service, this was achieved in a number of ways:
• the need for the service to meet accessibility requirements was specified in the tender documentation and during brand development, such as consideration of colour contrast and font legibility
• as part of user testing, users were invited to bring their own technology to allow the service to be tested using a range of tools e.g. different types of screen readers
• the Service Team drew on the Scottish Government digital accessibility team at an early stage, who did the trove.scot accessibility audit
• the Service Team engaged with an external agency to involve users with protected characteristics
• taking HES on the trove.scot journey has been critical as teams in HES, as well as being users of the service, will be the ‘front face’ of the service when engaging with external users – this has been achieved through workshops, presentations and communications directly from the project and as part of corporate publications

Reflections

• HES set up the user panel and closely managed the use of the panel by the supplier
• the panel has enabled consistent engagement throughout the project and its success has meant that HES will continue to use the panel after trove.scot is launched
• due to information governance requirements the panel needs to be revalidated every six months, which is an overhead, however the benefits are seen by HES to outweigh the costs
• using an external agency for recruiting people with protected characteristics to help test the service worked well
• using a variety of tools and techniques for engaging with users was important such as surveys, interviews and tools such as Treejack, MIRO and Figma (for wireframes and design patterns)
• the project was managed using a PRINCE2 approach with software design delivered through an agile methodology
• the pace of the project made it challenging to keep internal users informed and involved at the right time, particularly where there was a lack of understanding of the rhythm of agile delivery
• the time between the beta assessment and launch enabled a final programme of engagement with HES users which has been valuable and will support business sign off before trove.scot is launched
• the right balance of engagement with internal stakeholders has been hard to achieve – show and tells with primary stakeholders were a great way to showcase work and seek feedback but some people found them too technical and involving suppliers was at a cost
• dedicated team demonstrations have enabled the Service Team to test the service on an ongoing basis, ensuring it continues to meet the needs of users – these dedicated sessions are time consuming but impactful due to their tailored nature
• the team have regularly reviewed and refined internal communications as the project has progressed

Find out more

For more information about this case study contact: trove@hes.scot.

The Technology Assurance Framework (TAF) is designed to help prevent digital projects from failing for common reasons, improve delivery and ensure that the lessons learned from previous experience are reflected and embedded in future practice. The Digital Assurance Office are working with organisations to share information which might help others deliver digital projects and we have been publishing our insights and case studies on our digital blog. We have published insights on the common challenges for service teams going through a Digital Scotland Service Standard Assessments in 2023-24, this includes recommendations around user centred design and making sure everyone can use the service.  We have also worked with Transport Scotland to publish a case study on the  National Entitlement Card smart ticketing project and their approach to user centred design.

If you want to get involved contact us at: DigitalAssurance@gov.scot.

For expert guidance on delivering a digital project visit the Digital Scotland Service Manual.

The Scottish Digital Academy is the public sector centre of expertise for digital capability and can provide information, advice and guidance on developing digital, data and technology skills to support transformation.

The Social Security Programme: Our Story Team are part of a wider legacy portfolio, whose goal is to capture and disseminate eight years of acquired knowledge, capabilities and lessons learned to demonstrate that irrespective of the size, nature or maturity of your Programme, your profession or career pathway, ‘Our Story’ has the potential to build individual and team skills and capabilities whilst improving the effectiveness and quality of your delivery. They do this through a variety of means from building case studies, including a Case Study on User Research, interviews and blogs to facilitating workshops, which also includes two User Research workshops, Unlocking Research Operations and User Research: Methodologies and Strategies and resource loans, for the benefit of Social Security Scotland, the wider Scottish Government and public sector. You can access their resources on Pathways or contact the team: socialsecurity.ourstoryteam@gov.scot

For further information and signposting to advice and support on programme and project management contact the Programme and Project Management Centre for Expertise. The Scottish Government programme and project management principles are available and apply to any project of any size.

Tags: Continuous Improvement, Digital Assurance Office, Digital Scotland Service Standard, Historic Environment Scotland, Technology Assurance Framework

Comments