Becoming a teacher in England runs through several separate services, from training through to finding a job. The Department for Education’s service map lays out each stop along that journey.
I worked on two of them: Register Trainee Teachers, then Teaching Vacancies. They’re set out below in that order.
Register trainee teachers
Register trainee teachers does what it says on the tin, register trainees with the Department for Education and record the outcome of their training. Teachers across England will have their progress tracked using this service.
Where we started
We were replacing a legacy product which was relatively new but not at all designed or developed with users in mind. The existing product was inaccessible, and users complained of usability issues.
The product is essentially a CRM for trainee teachers, with user interaction largely focused on inputting data in forms. The original product had a number of issues:
- users were constantly being timed out
- a users progress wasn’t being saved
- iconography, language and error messaging was confusing
- forms were embedded within modals that presented significant accessibility challenges
User centred design
Working closely with user researchers on the team meant we could get into a rhythm of regular usability testing sessions, collaborative analysis, insight generation and iterative updates.
User needs define what we prioritise in design and what we ship first and there is no substitute for talking to actual users and observing them using the service.
Designing in flows
Some digital services are more transactional, with a relatively linear user journey. This service was far more complicated, where a trainee record may exist in the system for a number of years, meaning our users were required to return at multiple times to update data and complete tasks.
We mapped out complex parts of the user journey, allowing us to document the nuances around business rules.
Designing in code
We designed this service exclusively in code, building a functional prototype using the GOV.UK Prototype Kit, and using components from the GOV.UK design system.
We produced a browser based prototype that looked, felt and most importantly worked like the real thing which allowed us to conduct detailed usability testing as well as provide a valuable resource for the development team to follow when moving our designs into production.
What we did
A simplified dashboard provided:
- a focus on the key data a user needed to know
- links to critical guidance and task that needed attention
A significant issue with the existing tool was that users struggled to follow their progress when creating a record. The GOV.UK task list pattern helps “Task list pages help users understand: …the order they should complete tasks in and when they have completed tasks”.
This pattern addressed the user’s need for grouping related tasks and clearly signposting progress.
Users needed to track multiple trainees over a number of years. Trainee records can exist in multiple states and there was a need to provide a clear classification system and advanced filtering.
Documenting design
We frequently documented our design using a design history. The design history looks forwards and backwards, new posts show the team where the service is going and old posts tell us how we got to where we are now. It allows us to share what we learn with others and it ensures we’re being transparent and designing in the open.
Celebrating team milestones
Some government digital service teams celebrate milestones with mission patches, a tradition that comes from the early space missions. I led our team in a team workshop to decide on our spirit animal and designed our mission patches. These were printed and then, as we are all remote, mailed across the country to the team.
The private beta involved piloting the service with a sample group of live users before a public beta where the service was officially live.
Teaching Vacancies
Schools in England were spending around £75 million a year advertising roles on paid job boards. Teaching Vacancies is the free alternative.
I led the design and user experience of the service, working with a cross-functional team to keep it accessible, usable and effective. A few pieces of work that stand out are below. You can also dig into the design history for how we documented decisions in the open.
Improving how users sign in
We were getting a lot of support queries from hiring staff who were finding it hard to sign in. At the time, 24% of hiring staff sign in attempts failed because they tried to sign in as a jobseeker.
The language was ambiguous. The header “Sign in” link was clearly labelled, but it was only intended for jobseekers. “For schools”, the hiring staff login, was far less helpful. The jobseeker page was titled “Teacher sign in”, which did not help much when both groups can be teachers. Each sign in page also offered a way to log in as the other group, which added to the muddle.
We consolidated the header to a single “Sign in” link as the start of the journey for both groups. The next screen offered two clearly signposted options: sign in as a jobseeker, or sign in as hiring staff. Naming the groups and describing what each can do made it clearer who each path was for.
Jobseeker and hiring staff each get their own button helped create a focused funnel, with a short line on what that account is for.
Making filters easier to find
We wanted to understand why people were not filtering search results. Early reporting suggested almost nobody used filters. That data turned out to be wrong. For the same period, around 10% of searches already contained filtered results. Still low enough to dig into.
One hypothesis was that people could not find the filters. By default they sat inside accordions. GOV.UK guidance is clear that accordions hide content, and not everyone will notice them or understand how they work.
Job role, education phase and working pattern were tucked behind accordion headers. If you never opened them, you never saw the options.
We exposed the filters by default, following a pattern already used on Find postgraduate teacher training, Register trainee teachers and Manage teacher training applications. No extra click to open them, and far less chance of missing them.
Filters stay visible alongside the listings, so refining a search no longer means hunting for a hidden control.
We also wondered whether putting the search form above the filters encouraged people to search again instead of refining what they already had. An A/B test to decouple search from filtering was on the cards as a next step.
Redesigning the homepage
The homepage needed to do a lot for two very different audiences: people looking for a job, and hiring staff posting and managing vacancies.
I redesigned the homepage to put search front and centre, with popular searches as shortcuts, and clearer paths into job alerts, jobseeker sign in and hiring staff sign in. Browse options for role, phase, subject and location sat below for people who prefer to explore rather than search.
Search stays the main job. Everything else is a short path into alerts or the right kind of account.