Buy a personalised registration number alpha assessment report
The report for the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency's buy a personalised registration number alpha assessment on the 21st November 2019.
| From: | Central Digital and Data Office |
| Assessment date: | 21/11/2019 |
| Stage: | Alpha |
| Result: | Met |
| Service provider: | Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) |
Service description
This service will allow users to buy Vehicle Registration Numbers (VRN’s) from DVLA. When a customer purchases a VRN they purchase the rights to display the VRN on a vehicle. This allows them to personalise the license plate of the vehicle that they drive.
Service users
Users range from:
- commercial customers who purchase registration numbers to sell third parties
- private individuals who own vehicles and wish to personalise their vehicle by displaying a VRN that is relevant to them
- private individuals who purchase registration numbers to give as gifts to family members and friends for special occasions
- business owners who purchase registration numbers to display on their work vehicles to promote their businesses.
Users are a range of ages with various digital abilities.
1. Understand user needs
Decision
The service met point 1 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has a good understanding of the diversity of users of their service, and their various needs and drivers
- the team has a good awareness of the use of and pain points in the current service, both from qualitative research and quantitative analysis of the current performance. The panel was particularly impressed that the team had analysed the terminology used in support calls to inform content decisions
- the team has a comprehensive understanding of the user needs in the end-to-end journey, including what happens after the purchase has been made
- the team is using insights from user research to change wider business processes strategy, beyond just their service.
2. Do ongoing user research
Decision
The service met point 2 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has carried out research with a wide variety of users and stakeholders, including citizens, commercial users, and operational staff – from interviews to usability testing and contextual research at auctions across the country
- the team has tested the end-to-end service, learning about one-off purchases, as well as accounts, visibility of auctions, and join up with next steps to put a registration number on a vehicle
- the team can explain how user research findings have informed the design of the service and prioritisation of work
- the team has done research with people with access needs, they are investigating the need and use of assistive digital support and alternative channels, and have scheduled their accessibility audit
- the wider team has been involved in the research and has attended sessions.
3. Have a multidisciplinary team
Decision
The service met point 3 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- an empowered multi-disciplinary team is in place, who clearly work well together
- a plan is in place to start the handover from contractor to permanent staff during the Beta phase
- although the team works across other projects, three days a week are dedicated to the service during which time they are co-located.
What the team need to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- continue to ensure they are not over-reliant on contractors by increasing the availability of permanent staff and conducting effective knowledge and skills transfer
- ensure that there are plans in place to allow them to fully support the Beta delivery whilst not working on the project full time and that contingencies are in place should other work need to take priority at any given time. The team are currently dedicating three days a week to working on the service.
4. Use agile methods
Decision
The service met point 4 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team shows a good understanding of agile tools and techniques. They follow agile ceremonies and use online tools to share information
- the importance of user research is understood with all team members attending user research sessions
- governance is well defined with a clear escalation process in place
- the team has defined the scope of their Private Beta and have an evidence-based plan for running it alongside their current service so as to neither advantage or disadvantage Private Beta users competing to purchase registrations.
5. Iterate and improve frequently
Decision
The service met point 5 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team is iterating and testing the design of the search results page
- the team is iterating and testing different approaches to search, using different sort and filter methods, including price, style and relevance
- the team is testing and iterating different approaches to meeting the needs of users. The team improving their approach to meeting the needs of registration number dealers, including the use of accounts where necessary
- the team is testing and iterating different approaches to help users navigate to this new service, online auctions, live auctions, and dealers
- the team is testing and iterating different orders of questions, to reduce the likelihood of dead ends or wasting users’ time
- the team is collaborating with a content designer to iterate the placement of the privacy policy
- the team is using evidence from user research to try and improve the policy
- the team iterated the name of the service based on feedback.
6. Evaluate tools and systems
Decision
The service met point 6 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the architectural patterns and technology choices, frameworks and versions demonstrate a comprehensive modern approach to the development of software. With the use of the AWS cloud platform and investigation of services therein there is a clear understanding and adoption of cloud based (managed) services
- the team acknowledges the Private Beta stage will present a number of technical challenges around co-existence with the existing platform and integration
- the search component is commendable and as a key part of the system it was clearly demonstrated that engineering effort has been put into optimising and exploring outputs in this area
- the team has considered progressive enhancement and incorporated components and patterns from the GOV.UK Design System, engaging with that community
- the team has carried out some technical spikes for integration and presented these to architectural governance groups within the DVLA
- the team understands the limitations of their legacy systems, and collaboratively plan to improve the service.
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- consider data structures that might enable migration away from legacy technology. For example, asking for the name of the person they are buying a registration number, as opposed to splitting First and Last Name, may limit the ability for this to be done in a more automated way going forwards.
7. Understand security and privacy issues
Decision
The service met point 7 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team is starting to look at the risk of fraud when buying a registration number for someone else
- the team is aware of some of the security challenges with the existing service
- the team is aware of GDPR, and have written and iterated a privacy policy
- the team has tooling and processes used to monitor and migrate the top ten OWASP vulnerabilities.
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- understand other risks of fraud or criminal activity, relating to registering number plates under a false name
- understand other security risks with their service.
8. Make all new source code open
Decision
The service met point 8 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has a plan to open source code during Private Beta, after making commercially sensitive code private, and a cyber security review
- the team has established a 12 month plan with cyber security to start coding in the open
- the system makes use of open source technologies
- the team are very positive towards investigating cross-government sharing.
9. Use open standards and common platforms
Decision
The service met point 9 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team would be adopting and integrating GOV.UK Pay in September. It was noted as an addition to the BarclayCard payment solution, providing further resilience.
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- show user experience has been considered when considering multiple payment options, if multiple payment providers are to be used
- adopt common data formats for any data exchange with legacy and 3rd party resellers. This also applies to using standards, such as OpenApi, for any APIs developed
- work with the common notifications team and reassess the role GOV.UK Notify could play in the notifications system.
10. Test the end-to-end service
Decision
The service met point 10 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team is testing the entire end-to-end service, looking at guiding all users, including dealers, to the new service, online auctions, live auctions or dealers, right through to users having clarity on how to use the certificate to get plates made and use them on a vehicle
- the team is working with teams from suppliers of auction services to ensure users will be able to find the new service from other channels.
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- continue with its plans to simplify the process of getting plates made up, looking at sending proof directly to manufacturers, to reduce the need for users to prove eligibility. This would be of great benefit to users, but this would not be necessary to pass future Service Assessments.
11. Make a plan for being offline
Decision
The service met point 11 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team is considering availability and have a plan to use real time monitoring and alerting to identify and reduce the impact of any system outages
- the technical architecture should allow for minimal availability issues
- the team also recognised that there is a telephone support system in place and availability of the application differs to services whereby users have not got alternatives as alternative marketplaces will be available.
12: Make sure users succeed first time
Decision
The service met point 12 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team is seeing all users succeed to use their prototypes, finding registration numbers that meet their needs, and navigating to put the numbers on a vehicle
- the team is collaborating with suppliers to ensure auction users can navigate to the new service without getting lost
- the team knows what their GOV.UK start page should look like
- the team is testing with some users at the lower end of the Digital Inclusion Scale, as well as a user with dyslexia
- the team has booked to test the service with accessibility specialists
- the team is improving consistency of content, questioning terms used by policy, such as “Nominee”
- the team is planning to use well-tested common components, including GOV.UK Pay, and possibly GOV.UK Notify, which will improve users’ ability to succeed first time.
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- test assisted digital transactions with different prototype phone support scripts, working with the support team
- better understand why they are asking for users’ Titles. If it is necessary, titles should be in alphabetical order, with the addition of Mx, to be inclusive of more users
- consider whether users can pay in instalments, using Direct Debit.
13. Make the user experience consistent with GOV.UK
Decision
The service met point 13 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team is making great use of established government design patterns and components, to keep it consistent with GOV.UK
- the team is engaging with the GOV.UK Design System community to discuss how to approach consistency with GOV.UK whilst also operating a commercial service with competitors. This is great to see, and the rest of government will learn from the team working in the open.
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- continue to learn about the advantages and limitations of existing government design patterns and components, sharing learnings about new patterns and components with the GOV.UK Design System community.
14. Encourage everyone to use the digital service
Decision
The service met point 14 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- with the exception of live auctions, which serve a specific purpose, the service is 100% online
- an assisted digital plan is in place.
15. Collect performance data
Decision
The service met point 15 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team had researched how to collect performance data and were planning on using google analytics to do this
- the team plans to ask for feedback on all pages of the service
- there is a plan in place to collect feedback at end of call for users of Assisted Digital
- the team are working with the management intelligence team to ensure that data is collected to inform sales and are considering how data can be used to set pricing.
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- start using a web analytics platform to collect performance data
- create a feedback form for use in the phase banner on all pages
- be able to explain how they will track a user’s journey through the full service, including auctions
- have a plan in place for collecting data effectively from commercial users, particularly at peak times when new registrations are released.
16. Identify performance indicators
Decision
The service met point 16 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team is considering performance of search and how metrics like popular searches would be monitored
- the team has a plan in place to use analytics from the current website as a baseline
- the team has identified additional KPIs beyond the mandatory KPIs.
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- have a plan in place to use analytics from the Private Beta to inform the iteration of the service.
17. Report performance data on the Performance Platform
Decision
The service met point 17 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team is prepared and ready to use the Performance Platform and wanted to offer more information above and beyond standard KPIs
- the team has already engaged with the Performance Platform team in readiness.
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- continue to engage with the Performance platform team to ensure that data is published on the platform.
18. Test with the minister
Point 18 of the Standard does not apply at this stage.