Overview
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) held a census rehearsal in autumn 2019. The rehearsal provides an important opportunity to test the processes, systems and services used for Census 2021.
The problem
To support the needs of a member of a household (individual responder) in submitting a questionnaire independently, even if they have been included in the household response.
Users and audience
Everyone in England and Wales must complete a census or be included on a census for their household. The 2019 rehearsal areas were selected to give a range of area types – Ceredigion, Carlisle, Tower Hamlets and Hackney. The householder should either answer the individual questions for all household members, or ensure each member answers their own. If a member of a household doesn’t want to disclose their information to others, they can request an individual questionnaire, a personal form that asks questions about one person only. Individual questionnaires are also used by people living in communal accommodation.
Roles and responsibilities
Identifying gaps in task flows between multiple touchpoints a user undertakes to reach their goal. Key deliverables include the need for inclusivity and allow users to respond independently to the household survey.
Individual responder’s feature team:
- User Researcher
- Content Designer
- Service and UX Designer (me)
- Frontend Developers
- Business Analyst
- Product Owner
Additional designs and workflows delivered:
- Webchat
- Email enquiry form
- Choose survey language
- Request a code via alternative methods
- Household survey hub status concepts
Process and what I did
Scoping
- Understanding business requirements
- Supporting Business Analyst and User Researcher in scenario and story writing to set context
- Working with User Researcher to identify user goals and needs based on the known scenario(s) and context
- Identified user touchpoints
- Create UX canvas to support the scope of work
Analysis
- Task analysis and task flows based on the scenarios identified
- Ensured all entry touchpoints support the user in easily accessing the service
- Review business and system requirements and align with user goals and needs
Design
- Workflows – whiteboards, sticky notes, digital diagrams
- Low-fidelity to high-fidelity prototypes – paper, Sketch, digital screen flows, coded prototypes
- Content design with guidance and reviews from Content Designers
- Design decision documentation
Test and iteration cycle
- Prototypes ready for user testing
- Review feedback with team
- Question issues to fully understand any problems
- Iterate / update designs
Outcome and results
Our goal in delivering the individual responders feature was successfully integrated within the Census 2019 ecosystem. It allowed many individuals to respond independently with confidents and in discretion.
By working collaboratively during the rehearsal phase, areas for improvement were identified and captured as stories and opportunities within the backlog for the Census 2021 workload. Such examples include the ‘address lookup’ component and data sets had usability issues. Our recommendation on improving the component would be to review data and feedback following the rehearsal. This pragmatic approach will give us a better understanding of why the component is not fully supporting the user, how we can reduce the failure rate and better support users in recovering from any error states.