DfE Explore Education Statistics alpha project.

The project was run using the GDS (Government Digital Service) agile methodology for Alpha projects.

We also filmed and shared Show and Tells for visibility, further fostering engagement across the DfE. We worked hard to created a ‘One Team’ ethos, encouraging an open, honest and collaborative working style through our defined Ways of Working.

The Alpha Project was broken down into 5 sprints (with an extended sprint over Christmas) and ran from the 14th November - 5th February.

The phases of the project were as follows:

• We focused on sharing knowledge, agreeing our ways of working across disciplines and began to get to know each other as new team members joined us. We concentrated on identifying the risks and goals of the Alpha project and defining our vision. We also held initial sketching workshops with the DfE to explore a first iteration at the new service, creating an initial HTML prototype that was user tested - all within our first two weeks!

• Over the next eight weeks, from an interaction and user testing perspective, we focused on developing and iterating the prototype to explore how to meet the varied users needs
• We engaged directly with users who have access needs and integrated the findings into the prototype, creating an accessible base on which to develop further
• Our content designer helped bring context to the service, informed by our user testing findings. We also held a workshop to defined the new service’s name
• From a technical perspective, we held a charting hackathon, chose a suitable charting tool and proved its feasibility. We also explored the data storage and agreed a common structure for the data hierarchy, created Build and Release pipelines, and built content and data APIs. We proved the level of data that was appropriate for the service and defined the proposed architecture
• We continued to review the assessment service criteria in each sprint and challenge ourselves by asking “Are we ready to move in to Beta now? ”

• In this phase, we looked at what we had accomplished and began to turn our eyes forwards, planning for the Beta and beyond. We pulled together all of the documents, artifacts and assets that had been generated throughout the project and began mapping these against the 18 service standard criteria.
• We prepped and practised for two weeks for our Alpha assessment - culminating in a 2 hour assessment on the 15th February.

Our key findings can be summarised as:

During the course of the project, we engaged with 52 users in various formats, and quantitative survey data is still being collected. From this user research we identified some key findings that have informed our approach, from design, to content, to technical development:

• Less is more. Users want to get the data in as few clicks as possible and tend look at what data/releases are available even if they are specifically interested in one thing, to “check” what’s new/there.
• Context is everything. Users want to be sure where a button or link will take them (or what information it will give them) to provide assurances and security. Terminology and calls to action need to be clearly expressed and consistent.
• Visualisations help. Clear key statistics presented in a visual way are useful, but they need to be clearly labeled -- not just for accessibility!
• Front load for access. Make sure that the information in an accessible format is presented first, with less accessible progressive enhancements presented as second or third options. It might sound simple, but when dealing with visualisations that are appealing, it’s key to remember that the most important thing is the information.

In passing our Alpha Assessment, we’re going to be starting the Beta phase on the 4th March and hope to deliver a new service in to Public Beta at the beginning of August. We’re once again uplifting the team numbers - bringing on board a third developer - so it’s important that we adapt and support that member as they join our team.

Initially we’ll focus on additional User Interface updates to the admin side of the new service, whilst the general public service pages are built to a full specification. We’ll begin training with the Statistics Producers and integrate with the Business As Usual team to support the service in Public Beta. Through all this, we’ll continue building, user testing, refining and iterating until we move in to a Private Beta for unmoderated testing and feedback.

We’re excited to be able to move forwards with this next phase of the project. We’ve loved every second of it so far and have been suitably impressed by the engagement, drive and determination of the Department for Education to work collaboratively with us to really make changes to their service - huge thanks to Laura Selby our Product Owner above all.