Social Work England digital user research, user experience, accessibility and content

Tender description

Summary of the work User research, user experience design and associated services for GDS compliant digital services for Social Work England Expected Contract Length April 2018 to 31 May 2019 Latest start date Monday 2 April 2018 Budget Range up to £550,000 (exclusive of VAT and expenses) Why the Work is Being Done Social Work England will become the regulator of social workers in England no earlier than Spring 2019. Social Work England will be a digital first organisation. Strategic services including a register of social workers, reporting a concern and enabling the finding of approved social work courses are required for the new SWE website on socialworkengland.org.uk. These need to be user-led and meet user need. We also need to ensure that each phase adheres and passes GDS service standards. As part of our wider programme for building the new organisation, the GDS compliant digital services will support the establishment of SWE. Problem to Be Solved - Discover an evolving understanding of SWE users and their user needs through user research, user experience and design to deliver the user research / user experience outcome for each project phase - Understand and articulate the accessible user needs - Contribute to overall development of bespoke services - Engaging content that meets user needs - Articulate the user needs through ceremonies and iterative user stories to other team meetings to ensure the products meet the needs Who Are the Users Our initial understanding: social workers, their employers, students, graduates, potential social workers, universities, regulators, local authorities, opinion-formers, media and press, political representatives (such as MPs and government researchers), and policy makers to report a concern, find an approved course, look at the register of social workers, see reports, find education information, find consultation and corporate information, news and contact details the general public to report a concern, look at the register of social workers, find about us information, reports and contact details potential employees to find recruitment information and contact details. They need to access the service 24/7. Work Already Done An interim website due to go live in April 2018 for transitional information (not offering full services). Logo and digital branding. Pre-discovery on the strategic project has included research on exemplar regulators and service design. Two sprints of Discovery have taken place for SWE digital services looking at finding a course and other core services. Networks have been contacted to build a database of users to talk to. An initial UR plan is drafted, user interviews have taken place for initial understanding of needs and the development of the first personas. Further partnering with other regulators to understand lessons learnt. Existing Team Two delivery managers, two product owners, Senior Responsible Owner, Digital Programme Manager, two business analysts, one senior user researcher, branding agency Design 102, one architect, regulator service design consultants, communications manager Current Phase Discovery Skills & Experience • Deliver user research, user experience, accessibility digital services within a multidisciplinary agile team, using visuals, iteration and prioritisation. • Working as an inter-organisational team with team members in other organisation • Deliver to GDS principles • Demonstrable experience of rapid and iterative user research including for users with accessibility and assisted digital needs • Demonstrable experience of rapid and iterative user experience prototypes and design • Demonstrable experience of producing engaging content that meets user needs • Presentation of progress and understanding using audio and visual media at show and tells and similar ceremonies. • Demonstrable experience of working with organisations like Social Work England Work Location Social Work England Department for Education/Department of Health 2 St Paul’s Place, 125 Norfolk Street, Sheffield S1 2FJ Working Arrangments Quasi co-located working. Attend daily stand-ups, ceremonies, show and tells face to face. Use Slack, Jira and other devices. Interviews and other work can be offsite. Informal status reports required weekly Work with the Agile team to deliver the outcomes facilitated by the SWE delivery manager/scrummaster. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria • Evidence of delivering user research and user experience design activities and outputs in line with the Government Digital Service’s Design Principles and Digital Service Standard • Evidence of delivering user research and user experience design activities for a digital service during an iterative development project • Evidence of facilitating face-to-face and remote sessions with end users including those with accessibility needs • Evidence of producing content that meets user needs based on an organisation’s draft • Evidence of analysing and developing actionable recommendations from user research Cultural Fit Criteria • Work as an inter-organisation team with our organisation and other suppliers • Be transparent and collaborative when making decisions • Take responsibility for their work • Understand organisational goals Payment Approach Capped time and materials Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 10% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers 1. Is there an opportunity to provide just the accessibility portion of this piece of work please? No. We expect proposals for the full scope of this work please. 2. One of your essential skills states "•Demonstrable experience of working with organisations like Social Work England". Can you please define what would constitute "organisations like Social Work England" as this is highly open to interpretation. Can you also provide guidance on how you intend to score this question ie are some organisations to be considered more like Social Work England than others? Regulators, arms length government bodies, social work organisations‎, new arms length bodies and regulators are some examples of organisations similar to Social Work England. We will mark against the standard criteria. 3. We note that you require a written proposal and presentation in order to appoint a supplier prior to the project start date 2nd April. Please outline the next steps and timescales to allow us to plan the next stage if we are shortlisted. Suggested dates for... - Detailed brief issued - Q&A deadline - Proposal deadline - Presentation dates - Award date Project start date will be later than published.The following dates are guidelines only:27 March – proposal requests sent to shortlisted suppliers and times for interviews5 April – proposals received6 April – interviews in Sheffieldw/c 16 April – contract starts 4. What are your timings for the project phases you mention? Our draft initial Agile high level phases are (subject to change):Discovery until end of May 18Alpha until end of September 18Private beta (including iterative build) starting in October 18 5. By 'inter-organisation' do you mean, working with you or working with multiple agencies? We mean working with us and potentially other agencies (eg web development) as one inter-organisation team. 6. What was the reason for undertaking two weeks of discovery prior to this larger project starting, rather than rolling everything in to one project? The digital programme is already underway with Cabinet Office and GDS approved Discoveries taking place into the services Social Work England is expected to deliver as a regulator e.g1 Register and reregister to be a social worker e.g2 Find an approved course. The services this tender covers will be part of the existing projects within the programme and the resources aforementioned to deliver the outcomes. 7. What technology have you used for the interim website and are you committed to using this (or any) for the permanent SWE website in the future? We are not committed to using the interim website technology for the strategic site. The interim site will be based on the WordPress CMS. As per the GDS Technology code of practice, going forward we will look to reuse existing technology where and if effective e.g. GDS Notify platform. 8. Are you working / have you worked with any suppliers or agencies to implement the pre-project work? As per previous answers the project with the Social Work England digital programme is already underway and today we are in our final week of Sprint 2. The team is progressing the Discovery phase against GDS principles in an Agile and iterative way. No other suppliers have been involved in ‘pre-project work’. 9. Do potential suppliers need to be able to evidence any of the following to be successful? 1. A minimum Security level clearance 2. ISO 27001 (Data Security) accreditation 3. Cyber Essentials Plus Certification 4. Any other accreditations/kite marks? We would expect the supplier to follow GDS guidelines on site design and also follow W3C accessibility and content guidelines. We would expect a robust approach to management of data. The accreditations listed in the question are useful. We would expect to learn about the supplier’s overall experience and approach during the application process. 10. What are your expectations in terms of tools/formats/ or are there any tools already selected? We are agnostic as long as the tools deliver the outcomes and they are both comply with GDS principles and are accessible. For example, the prototypes could be delivered using Axure or Marvel or they could be done on paper – as long as the journey and the outcome is the right one. 11. What type of platforms/devices are you considering to work on Mobile/Tablet/Web etc,? We understand from existing research that our users use digital in different ways. Social work students and socials workers use existing services on mobile and tablet but some activities – eg – in depth research and decision making to find an approved course currently lends itself to be done on a laptop. 12. Are there any technical constraints or project risks that have been identified yet? Yes, generally:- that we don’t understand our users nor their user needs- we don’t pass Cabinet Office spend controls and GDS approvals at the end of each phase- we don’t deliver the services to time, cost, quality and features for when Social Work England becomes the regulatorTechnically: the IT choices the new organisation makes impact negatively the services we design. 13. How will success be measured qualitatively and quantitatively? Each of the phases will be assessed against the GDS service standards. The success criteria is published on gov.uk. For example, for Discovery it is published here: https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/agile-delivery/how-the-discovery-phase-works#how-you-know-discovery-is-finished 14. Are there any existing user related materials that we will have access to in order to better understand the problem? (analytics, feedback logs, call logs, survey results etc.) Yes, you will have access to all of our materials. 15. Will the supplier be provided with any required facilities for user testing? (labs, devices etc) You will need to provide labs and devices. So far for our research we have always gone to where the users are – e.g. meeting students after lectures. 16. Will we have full access to users in order to carry out relevant qualitative research? Yes, you will have full access to the users. We have a user database you can have access to. 17. Will the supplier be the responsible for developing content? The supplier would be leading on digital content working collaboratively with Social Work England. We would expect that most content would be developed from content drafted for other sources e.g. key lines to take. 18. Is there a preferred team structure? Throughout the digital team structure needs to follow GDS principles. Beyond that there is no specific preferred team structure for this service but it needs to be both proportionate to the phase of development and the objectives of that phase as well as integrating with the existing project team to deliver success. 19. Except for the existing team are there any other stakeholders working on the project? Who are they and what will be their role? For wider stakeholders inputting there are subject matter experts, GDS partners and of course the users we are talking to. We listen to these stakeholders and they are shaping the products. Whilst they aren’t working on the project there is also the supplier developing the interim website. We also have commercial and finance colleagues working around the project.