Apprenticeship Applications - Alpha Assessment
The report from the alpha assessment for SFA's Apprenticeship Application on 17 April 2014.
Department / Agency:
BIS / SFA
Date of Assessment:
17/04/2014
Assessment Stage:
Alpha review
Result of Assessment:
Passed
Lead Assessor:
R. Reynolds
Service Manager:
V. Chiesa
Digital Leader:
T. Knighton
About this service
The exemplar’s vision is to create an easy to use digital service where apprenticeships can be advertised and applied for, with the transaction supported by clear information to inspire and advise users, so that they can self-service, leading to minimal additional support being required.
https://www.gov.uk/transformation/apprenticeships
Outcome of service assessment
The Apprenticeships service has been reviewed against the 26 points of the Service Standard at the end of its alpha development.
After consideration GDS has concluded that the Apprenticeships service is on track to meet the Digital by Default Service Standard at this early stage of its development.
Reasons
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Good evidence of iterating based on user research, including weekly testing sessions and development and validation of personas.
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The service is challenging of the wider organisation by bringing in agile practices against a backdrop of uncertainty.
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Strong continuous delivery and the ability to deploy very quickly (for example the demonstration to stakeholders of fast speed of turnaround at a show and tell).
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Design clarity, and sensible re-use of interaction patterns established in other services.
Recommendations
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The user journey for employers will need to be thoroughly tested, including with employers who are not already experienced with Apprenticeships, to ensure employers are able to use it unaided. You should include explanatory text where necessary.
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Continuous delivery using cloud is going well. It will be important to ensure that good practice is continued through the beta, while exploring any options and avoiding vendor lock-in.
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Ensure that a content designer is embedded with the team during the beta, as planned.
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Agree a plan for more thorough accessibility testing for the beta.
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Some design refinements will be needed, including beta branding (the GDS design pattern library should be useful here). Before launching a public beta, your integration with GOV.UK(start and done pages) will need to be considered and agreed with the GOV.UK team.
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Your planned conversations with the performance platform team will prove useful, especially for clarifying how completion can be measured. You will also need to decide how and where user satisfaction will be captured for a public beta.
Digital by Default Service Standard criteria
| Criteria | Passed | Criteria | Passed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yes | 2 | Yes |
| 3 | Yes | 4 | Yes |
| 5 | Yes | 6 | Yes |
| 7 | Yes | 8 | Yes |
| 9 | Yes | 10 | Yes |
| 11 | Yes | 12 | Yes |
| 13 | Yes | 14 | Yes |
| 15 | Yes | 16 | Yes |
| 17 | Yes | 18 | N/A |
| 19 | Yes | 20 | Yes |
| 21 | Yes | 22 | Yes |
| 23 | Yes | 24 | Yes |
| 25 | N/A | 26 | N/A |
Details of criteria that are not applicable to this service
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Point 18 - assessment panel considered it non-essential to add an analytics package at this stage
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Point 25 - will need to be explored in the Beta
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Point 26 - there is a plan to showcase the service before a Beta launch