Client:
DCMS
When:
March - April 2024
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is the department in the UK Government which is responsible for culture and sport in England, and some aspects of the media such as broadcasting.
Summary: Summary: Designing a platform to facilitate the data ingestion work done by the DCMS
Outcomes: tested and iterated prototypes, design and tech recommendations
My role:
DCMS supports many organisations in their work in culture, media and sports. These organisations share data with DCMS to show how the funding provided by DCMS is used to create an impact.
The challenge that DCMS faces is how to receive the data and process in a way that is effective and makes the process of sharing and receiving data easier for both parties.
Background:
I joined the team towards the end of discovery. There was user research done into what the process has been like for organisations sharing data with DCMS and what the different challenges were in handling that data.
My role as interaction designer was to use the research findings and work with the software engineers to design an interface for data collection that DCMS and the organisations they help could use.
Design process:
I led ideation workshops with the team to turn research insights into ideas which could be prototyped and tested with users. From these ‘How Might We’ sessions, there were many ideas which we condensed into three products to test the riskiest assumptions. I made a plan for how to approach the prototyping and testing during the Alpha phase. With timing constraints, I had time to create an initial set of prototypes for the three ideas (a Data Agreement, data sharing platform and automated data collection), test them with users and iterate twice.
The Data Agreement was more content design focused so I created a sample document with specific language to test with users and worked with the user researchers to create a discussion guide.
The data platform and automated data collection are intertwined and more technical in the design. I worked with the engineers to understand the back end specifics of using Deltasharing technology and what user would be able to do. I then used some off-the-shelf data marketplaces as inspiration of what users may have used before.
The feedback we received on the ideas was mixed;
63% of users were on board with a more digital and automated approach to data collection and we found this mostly to be because they were bigger organisation with more developed admin processes
22% of users were open to a different approach but were worried about the extra admin burden of a new system
15% of users were reluctant to adopt a completely new system mainly because they were smaller than other organisations and lacked the staff capacity
We were able to use this feedback to suggest that DCMS invest some time and effort into understanding the culture shift that would be needed for the change in data ingestion to be successful.
After testing and iterating, I was also able to make some recommendations to DCMS on the UI design, using the GDS design system and taking into account the technology constraints.
Data ingestion UI
Automatic data ingestion wizard
Automatic data ingestion wizard
Mission patches by me as a way to acknowledge and celebrate the team milestones in the project.
