Get Into Teaching Beta Assessment Report
The service looks to inspire, inform and support people who are interested in training to become a teacher.
Get Into Teaching Beta service assessment report
| From: | Government Digital Service |
| Assessment date: | 19/01/2021 |
| Stage: | Beta |
| Result: | Met |
| Service provider: | Department for Education |
Previous assessment reports
Service description
The Get Into Teaching service looks to inspire, inform and support people who are interested in training to become a teacher.
The service aims to provide:
- inspirational content for those considering teaching as a career
- information about eligibility, financial considerations & support
- the steps to follow to become a teacher
- access to one to one support for candidates meeting criteria
- a means of transitioning eligible candidates to find and apply for the right teacher training course for them
The service comprises inspirational content which aligns with the ‘Inspire the next generation’ above & below the line marketing campaign. The service provides factual information which will help prospective teachers to understand if teaching is for them, what qualifications are needed, the financial considerations and support available.
The service also delivers 3 interactive journeys which align to users’ differing levels of commitment:
- signing up to receive information about teaching and teacher training
- signing up for an event to learn more about teaching and the steps involved
- getting tailored support from an adviser for those looking to apply for teacher training
The service looks to transition eligible candidates to the Find Teacher Training Courses and Apply for Postgraduate Teacher Training services, which are out of scope.
This service is classified as a ‘campaign’ rather than a .GOV.UK service.
Service users
- career Finders: I graduated a few years ago and have been working, but now I’m looking for my vocation
- career Changers: I currently have a career but am thinking of changing paths completely and becoming a teacher
- students: Currently finishing my undergraduate degree and am thinking about how to become a teacher
- overseas Candidates: I’m a qualified teacher who wants to teach in the UK
1. Understand users and their needs
Decision
The service met point 1 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has addressed the points raised in their alpha assessment. They created a user experience map and a service blueprint.
- the team continued to conduct user research with end-users adding more to the knowledge they have about them
- the team used data analytics and user research to guide the further development of the service
- the team is collaborating with other service teams related to this service
- the team is sharing research findings with the policy team
- the team has created a user research plan for the next stage of the development of this service.
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- the team must explore how the end user’s mental model is matched by the design of the service. People’s mental model will help the team further iterate the service
- the team must continue to conduct research with people with access needs and low digital skills to further inform the design of the service, in particular, the offline path
- the team has observed how the pandemic has changed the landscape of getting into teaching. This has also affected how users are thinking about teaching and their needs. The team should explore how they can get a further understanding of this and check how their proposed solution meets those needs
- the team should collaborate even closer with the policy team by inviting them to observe research sessions. Observing first hand the end-users will help shape future policy changes in the area
- even though the user researcher has a background in content design, it is not encouraged that they will act within the team as both researcher and designer due to difficulty in managing bias.
2. Solve a whole problem for users
Decision
The service met point 2 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team have acted on previous recommendations and found that mapping the journeys helped to visualise and validate assumptions around how people jump between different content. This means the team can design a service that caters for these needs.
- the team maintain a clear view of the contribution of this service, its products and journeys, to the overall policy aim
- the team is able to clearly explain how the transaction they’re working on will join up with other things into a journey that solves a whole problem for users
- the management of the service is integrated with the wider work of the department in this space, particularly how there is clear responsibility for agreeing how this user journey will work with colleagues responsible for different parts of it
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- be honest about whether by this point and after years of operating, this service is really still a campaign
- continue to evolve the opportunities offered by the system with policy colleagues so they are aware of what may be possible with a digital service
- continue to make sure services are scoped according to how users think - not too narrow or too broad
3. Provide a joined-up experience across all channels
Decision
The service met point 3 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- they are working together with other teams, for example, the marketing, comms and events teams and that the team feel supported by an SLT that sits across
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- ensure plans are in place to maintain non-digital journeys for users. The team should work with those channels to make sure that any user journeys that cross over between the digital service and the offline service work for users.
4. Make the service simple to use
Decision
The service met point 4 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the service has its own branding and design patterns but the team have based new patterns on the GOV.UK Design System as well as sharing existing tools from other departments
- the team have used data to inform design but have also tested changes with users
5. Make sure everyone can use the service
Decision
The service met point 5 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team design with accessibility in mind, they use automated checks alongside manual checks
- as well as basing their patterns on the GOV.UK Design System they have had internal and external accessibility audits and have a process in place to deal with any issues identified
- in one example the team identified that by asking for certain information upfront they had a large drop-off. The team tested this hypothesis and reduced the drop off significantly. This was a good example of using data and hypotheses to identify and resolve issues while making a simpler service for users
- feedback is gathered throughout the journey
- case studies have been created to allow people to see how others got into training
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- there were a number of issues raised in the Digital Accessibility Centre’s report, the points up to AA should be addressed before the service can move into Beta.
6. Have a multidisciplinary team
Decision
The service met point 6 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the multidisciplinary team in place is appropriate to what they need to achieve during this phase of the service’s development
- the team has responded effectively to the challenges of delivery in a fully remote, COVID-19 context.
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- consider if the flexibility discussed during the assessment, with staff working on different products and services in the broader team, impacts on accurate resource management and costings
- continue to focus on changing the team as necessary for the evolving challenges of development
- continue to plan for the move to ongoing delivery for the service, alongside the other elements of the overall policy space
7. Use agile ways of working
Decision
The service met point 7 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team have documented their approach and can talk through how design work happens, how features/stories are prioritised.
- the team applied agile methodology in how they worked, tailoring this to their circumstances
- the team had necessary remote-working provisions in place and had begun to consider what the exceptional COVID-19 circumstances meant for delivery
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- continue to focus on engagement with stakeholders across the broader service
- further develop engagement with those stakeholders who are a little more removed in order to broaden those who are exposed to the work. The panel felt that engagement was very strong with those senior leaders and service-line colleagues, but felt that broader show-and-tells or similar could bring more eyes and voices to the work
8. Iterate and improve frequently
Decision
The service met point 8 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has used data, including heat mapping and analytics to iterate the service.
- the team prioritise by looking at their riskiest assumptions first
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- consider sharing any new design patterns and research with the wider design community and with the Design System team too
- make sure there is a content designer available to iterate not only long-form content but micro and navigational content. Consider how much time a content designer will need to be able to actively input into design iterations
- continue to focus on the sustainability of the team, particularly reflecting the different challenges of maintaining a core business system (CRM) alongside the external-facing “campaign” elements
9. Create a secure service that protects users’ privacy
Decision
The service met point 9 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team have the appropriately approved privacy and cookies policies
- the team has approved the use and storage of user data from their security team
- the team has appropriate encryption of the data
- the team has obtained the appropriate signoff from their SIRO and privacy team to enable them to use Google Analytics along with social media engagement tracking tags
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- consider very carefully the detail and handling of data within the service. As presented the service asks users for a lot of data, without being clear about how it is relevant or managed.
10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data
Decision
The service met point 10 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has produced a well defined performance framework to determine their KPIs. Multiple stakeholders were consulted when developing the framework
- the team holds weekly insights meetings with their Performance Analyst to discuss findings. The findings are then added to the team’s backlog tor actioning.
- the team showed good examples of where user behaviour data was used to make positive improvements to the user experience.
- the team has produced a comprehensive Data Studio dashboard showing insights and KPIs
- the team use Google Analytics with Google Tag Manager to collect user behaviour data with PII data removed before collection takes place
- where the data is available the team has set appropriate benchmarks against the legacy service
- the team uses a multiple of additional user behaviour data sources including Hotjar and web log files
- the team showed there is a good data culture within the team where user behaviour data is actively used to help make considered improvements to the service
- the Performance Analyst and User Researcher work very closely together to develop hypothesis for testing with data
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- ensure they anonymise the IP address in the Google Analytics tagging
- consider including some higher level KPI’s, rolled up from the more granular data in their Data Studio dashboard. This may be more suitable for senior management users of the data
- continue to explore, measure and emphasise KPIs that measure the cost and success of the whole end-to-end service
11. Choose the right tools and technology
Decision
The service met point 11 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team is using right tools and technologies such as Ruby on Rail, C# ASP.NET Web API, RESTful API for integrating with the CRM, Github etc.
- the team is using a good set of alerting and monitoring tools for running this service
- the team is using right tools for CI/CD pipeline and are able to release the changes as and when required
- the team is using Postgres and Redis cache for backend services and appropriate tools for testing
12. Make new source code open
Decision
The service met point 12 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has published the code on Github
- the team is using various Gihtub tools like Application Code Management, Markdown Content Management, Github Action Automation
13. Use and contribute to open standards, common components and patterns
Decision
The service met point 13 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team is using the GOV.UK PaaS, GOV.UK Notify, Terraform for provisioning GOV UK PaaS
- the team is using DfE Form Builder codebase to provide the GOV UK Design system
- the team is using Get into Teaching RESTful API and the Microsoft SDK for Common Data Entities to facilitate communication with the CRM
14. Operate a reliable service
Decision
The service met point 14 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has set up the appropriate level of the SLAs
- the team has tested the capacity and load
- the team is using appropriate audit, alert, and monitoring tools like Sentry IO, StatusCake, Logit IO, Prometheus, and Github Actions
Published 22 July 2021