1. Understand users and their needs
Develop a deep understanding of users and the problem you’re trying to solve for them.
Look at the full context to understand what the user is trying to achieve, not just the part where they have to interact with government.
Why it’s important
Understanding as much of the context as possible gives you the best chance of meeting users’ needs in a simple and cost effective way.
Focusing on the user and the problem they’re trying to solve - rather than a particular solution - often means that you learn unexpected things about their needs.
The real problem might not be the one you originally thought needed solving. Testing your assumptions early and often reduces the risk of building the wrong thing.
What it means
Service teams should learn as much as possible about the problem users need them to solve by:
- doing user research to understand what users need - and, where relevant, secondary research and analysis
- building quick, throwaway prototypes to test their hypotheses
- using web analytics and other data that’s available (for example, from government call centres or third party services to enhance their understanding of the problem
Related guidance
Learning about users and their needs
Related blog posts
How the GOV.UK Notify team used contextual research to improve the service
How GOV.UK uses data to help understand user needs
How a team used rich data from Citizens Advice to create insight dashboards
Service standard points
1. Understand users and their needs
2. Solve a whole problem for users
3. Provide a joined up experience across all channels
4. Make the service simple to use
5. Make sure everyone can use the service
6. Have a multidisciplinary team
8. Iterate and improve frequently
9. Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy
10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data
11. Choose the right tools and technology
13. Use and contribute to open standards, common components and patterns
- Last update:
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Added links to related guidance and other standard points. There is no change to the content of the standard point itself.
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Guidance first published