About
Access to Work is sometimes referred to as Government’s ‘best kept secret’. It is a grant that can fund support to Britain’s 4.4 million people who have health conditions or disabilities that affect them at work.
I’ll use myself as an example. I am dyslexic. If I felt that I was struggling to do my job due to my dyslexia, I could apply for a funding from Access to Work for support such as dyslexia software. Despite being a fantastic service in principle, from a digital application perspective Access to Work was designed poorly and consequently leaving applicants feeling confused and offended.
Our mission was to completely refresh the service from the ground up, significantly enhancing the user experience in parallel and capturing all the complex network of data points required by policy and case managers.
7 minute read
Meet the core team
THOMAS BLACKIE
Project Management
DAVID DOHERTY
Product Design (UX/UI)
LOIS WENTWORTH
Content Design
OLLIE MEREDITH
BA & Data
DEOLA ONASANWO
User Research
The research
DISCOVERY
We started the project by understanding the digital landscape of the service. We conducted accessibility, UI and content assessments which unfortunately showed that Access to Work was breaking several laws on accessibility.
By speaking to applicants and case managers, it was clear that the digital service was not fit for purpose, with poor UI-logic and weak content that confused applicants. More shockingly, the service was only capturing a tiny snippet of the data required by DWP. This meant that case managers had to call applicants multiple times in the application process, resulting in a significant amount of time spent on admin.
So - as you can tell, our discovery was very revealing and highlighted that the service we inherited contained several pitfalls. We started to group common trends and themes that emerged to be used as the inspiration, catalysts and building blocks in future design workshops.
Our findings
User experience
Some design patterns disrupted users from completing the application
What's required
Users did not understand what data was needed and why
Accessibility
Alternative formats were not clearly signposted
Content
Some of the wording was offensive or unhelpful to users completing the form
Tone of voice
Empathy and respect was required at all touch-points of the application journey
Understanding
More guidance was required around what Access to Work can provide
Empowerment
Users didn't feel empowered to complete the application
Updates & tracking
Users need to track their application and engagement with case managers
Notifications
Citizens need to be notified on the status of their application
Our approach
DISCOVERY
ALPHA
Access to Work was a complex service to design for. We had to be cognisant of three key ingredients in our formulae: data, research and GDS.
DATA
Policy requirements
In many projects, you design and build based on the insights identified by the user research. This project differed as the policy requirements had a huge influence on the direction of the design.
Our Business Analyst did a fantastic job at uncovering and mapping out the data landscape that DWP needed to process an Access to Work claim.
Using this 'treasure map' we could start building a picture of how a future service would fit together.
RESEARCH
Testing and iteration
User research was instrumental in uncovering the key pain points and needs identified by applicants and case managers.
We tested our new design concepts on a weekly basis with a range of users with accessibility needs.
This allowed us to iterate quickly and optimise our designs to account for both user needs and policy requirements from DWP.
GDS
Consolidation
GDS design principles were the perfect way of marrying up the data and user research requirements.
The abundance of components and patterns allowed us to explore the art of the possible in our workshops. We could be ambitious in designing for our riskiest assumptions with the relief of knowing that they would be thoroughly tested, allowing us to build a fully optimised service.
Key design decisions
ALPHA
BETA
I am particularly proud of three designs within the journey that we developed, tested and iterated. They are simple and empower the applicant.
The research
Accessibility was a stand-out issue within the service that we inherited. It was covered in poor components that would be a nightmare with any screenreader. In addition, support signposting was almost non-existent.
Since all of our applicants had a disability and health condition of some kind, we felt that it was critical to test a series of designs that were accessible by default.
One design that tested particularly well was a signposting question at the very start of the service asking 'Would you like support completing this application?'. Interestingly, applicants who didn't need support still appreciated this question as it seemed inclusive and helped to validate they were on the right service.
Eligibility
Like many services, telling a user that they were eligible or ineligible for the grant was a huge pitfall in the existing service. Among other things, the questions were too far into the journey, after the user had already spent time filling in other detailed questions about their condition or disability.
We tested several hypotheses to fix this conundrum – ranging from an API checker based on the user’s National Insurance number, to asking individual ‘yes’ or ‘no’ screener questions. Both solutions tested well but provided headaches, such as security considerations and the amount of time and clicks it would take to answer the questions.
We wanted to find a way to cut down the number of screens, whilst also making it quick and easy for the user to find out if they are eligible. After much experimentation, our solution became apparent: clear content with the checkboxes component. By having this screen towards start of the journey, it means that it’s immediately obvious to the user if they’re eligible for Access to Work. It’s also future-proof – if the eligibility criteria for Access to Work is ever changed, it’ll be easy to tweak the content or add another checkbox.
Task list
The pre-existing digital journey for Access to Work was severely linear and limited, meaning that many users weren’t aware of what support was on offer. By using the power of the task list pattern, the user is able to understand the huge range of support that the service offers, at a quick glance.
In addition, each user has different needs, which the task list pattern accounts for in a great way. Do you not know what support you need? That’s fine, we have catered for this and will be in touch. Do you know exactly what you need and how much your support will cost? Bingo, please tell us and this will speed up your application! The genius of the design is that the user can input as much or as little information as they need to, for the sections that are relevant to them.
If you are ever stuck with how to design for a complex service with a lot of variables, look at adopting this pattern. I found it as a great building block to break up the service into bite-sized chunks. Then within each chunk, test and iterate to get the questions right. For example, run a sprint with your team solely focusing on the ‘your job and employer’ section of the task list.
The outcome
In just a short space of time DWP’s Access to Work apply journey was completely transformed, solving 9 out of 9 of the key research findings.
9 out 9 solved research findings
Improved navigation
Users could now seamlessly navigate and complete the application process in a bespoke way without disruption or confusion
What's required
Ambiguity was completely removed and the new designs clearly highlighted what information was required for a case managers to make their decision
Tone of voice
Empathy, sensitivity and respect was carefully worded and incorporated to each part of the service
Empowerment
Easy-to-use and accessible GDS components and patterns were added to the service
Notifications
Clear signposting was added throughout the service to set customer expectations. Careful consideration was given to the customer communication process post-application
Accessibility
Alternative assistance methods and application formats were clearly signposted at the start of and throughout the application. The service was also brought to WCAG AA and AAA standards
Content
Written content was completely refreshed to meet GDS standards
Understanding
Well-structured GDS pattens such as the Task List provided a platform for the application to clearly highlight the diverse range of possibilities of what Access to Work could provide
Updates & tracking
Our research was relayed to the team building the agent-facing service to coordinate the successful implementation of the tracking on their service
What the users said
This is brilliant. I love the fact that you're catering to all kinds of disabilities
It's opened my eyes up to further support that could be useful to me
I appreciate that you take on our feedback and can see that in the iteration, instead of doing what you think we need
Clearly there has been a lot of work done on this, and it looks really straightforward
Working with David
Since joining the Access to Work team David has hit the ground running with an enthusiastic, collaborative and empathetic approach to his work. He has been keen to understand the complex service he is designing for and has a wonderfully pragmatic approach to creating low-fidelity designs to test early and learn more.
He actively seeks out ideas and inspiration from other places – looking at how we can do things differently and meet users needs in unexpected ways. David has been great at presenting ideas and designs to stakeholders and the other Digital teams as well as passing a critical eye over the existing service.
Senior Product Manager
Key client stakeholder
David’s designs have been previewed on large scale across the department and feedback has been excellent, clearly showing the initial brief has been fully understood and very effectively realised. Comments from Case managers centred around the clarity in the way the information was displayed, the easy to navigate layout and the positive way the products would drive efficiencies in the service delivery process.
David has been wonderful to work with as he actively seeks feedback on the granular details his designs while still maintaining the larger product focus. Taking on board feedback and clearly and effectively iterating changes to meet the customer need has led to a well realised and effective design which can be taken forward into the service delivery space.
Senior Case Manager
Daily Access to Work user
David is clearly a very talented designer. He approaches every task with out of-the-box thinking and proposes creative solutions to problems.
He is extremely collaborative and I really enjoy working with him on design tasks. Working with David has taught me a lot about how UX/UI and content can work together in the most effective way to create designs that meet user needs.
He delivers work at a very fast pace, allowing us to test and iterate prototypes quickly. His behaviour is clearly aligned to agile principles.
Access to Work
Team member
