ROLE: DESIGN LEAD & SERVICE DESIGNER / YEAR: 2021 / CLIENT: NHS
NHS Innovation Service: supporting innovation in healthcare
Sparck BJSS worked with the NHS Accelerated Access Collaborative to build the Innovation Service. The service aims to help innovators to take their healthcare innovation from idea to adoption by matching them with the relevant support organisations. As Design Lead, I guided a team consisting of one User Researcher and one Product Designer through the entire end-to-end design process, from research to delivery, ensuring a user-centered approach that met both business and stakeholder needs.
According to 2022-23 data from the NHS Accelerated Access Collaborative: Link here
Challenge: improve the service during the Public Beta phase
The GDS (Government Digital Service) provides a framework that is split into 4 distinct phases: Discovery, Alpha, Beta (Private and Public Beta), and Live. During the Public Beta phase, the service was made available to the public, and improvements were made based on:
1. system analytics;
2. insights from user research;
1. Using system analytics to identify some of the pain points
An analysis of the system analytics from the previous phase (Private Beta) allowed us to understand how people were behaving while using the platform and identify a few pain points in the user journey: onboarding and filling in the innovation record.
2. Using qualitative research to gain a better understanding of the user needs
In collaboration with the Product Designer and the UX Researcher, we devised a plan to tackle the research questions through the collection of data, synthesis of the insights, ideation, and testing. Phases 1 and 2 were carried out during the initial sprints of the project. Phases 3 and 4 were repeated in each subsequent sprint until the end of the project.
Phase 0: Pre-Discovery
We began by analyzing the existing service to gain a deep understanding of the end-to-end user experience.
Phase 1: Exploratory research
Method: Retrospective interviews
Aim: Extract high-level insights from users; gain a better understanding of the problems; inform the Delivery Roadmap V1
Who: UX Researcher (interviewer), Service Designer, and Product Designer (observers)
Interviewees: Users from the 4 user groups (Innovators, Needs Assessment team, Qualifying Accessors, and Accessors)
Phase 2: Research analysis and synthesis
Method: Affinity Mapping workshop
Aim: Identify the right problems; generate problem statements to create the Delivery Roadmap V1;
Who: UX Researcher, Service Designer, and Product Designer
Evidence-driven story map
Method: Delivery Roadmap
Insights: Retrospective interviews, data analytics, and business priorities
Aim: To use the insights from the retrospective interviews and the business priorities to create a bird’s-eye view of the user experience from end to end, and trigger discussions about solving problems for both the organization and the users.
Who: UX Researcher, Service Designer, Product Designer, and Technical Architect
Phase 3: Ideate &Test
Methods: As-is usability testing (optional) + Prototyping + To-be usability testing + Prototyping
Aim: Identify usability issues and opportunities for improvement in a particular feature or user journey, prototype accordingly, test the new prototype, and make the necessary amendments.
Who: The Product Designer was responsible for conducting As-is usability testing and prototyping, while the User Researcher focused on To-be usability testing. The goal was to avoid confirmation bias by having different individuals handle the design and testing phases, ensuring an objective and unbiased approach throughout the process.
Phase 4: Delivery
In this phase, I worked with Software Engineers, QA, and Project Managers to implement the solutions devised.
The website navigation was improved with the introduction of Breadcrumbs, Back button, and Previous & Next buttons.
A Notification Centre was implemented: a centralized hub that aggregates all the Notifications.
The existing email set was optimized to enhance the user experience.
For example, we introduced a daily digest email to replace the multiple email notifications received by Innovators
Find out more
Matt Newman, Deputy Director of the Accelerated Access Collaborative, discusses the purpose behind the service, the support available, and how it aims to accelerate innovation adoption.