Car tax, Statutory Off Road Notification and Vehicle Enquiry - Beta Assessment
The report from the beta assessment for DVLA's Car tax, Statutory Off Road Notification (SORN) and Vehicle Enquiry service on 14 January 2014.
Department / Agency:
DfT / DVLA
Date of Assessment:
15/1/2014
Moving to:
Public Beta
Result:
Pass
Lead Assessor:
H. Garrett
Service Manager:
N. Walters
Digital Leader:
B. Etheridge
Outcome of service assessment
The Car tax, SORN & Vehicle Enquiry service was seeking permission to continue development and move to Public Beta.
After reviewing the service GDS have concluded the Car tax, SORN & Vehicle Enquiry service has shown sufficient progress and evidence of meeting the pre-April 2014 criteria and should proceed to Public Beta.
GDS were very impressed by the pace at which the new service has been delivered and the capacity to iterate quickly.
About the service
Users will be able to apply for a new tax disc, take their vehicle off the road by declaring Statutory Off Road Notification, or use the vehicle enquiry service to check what information DVLA holds on its database about a vehicle.
Reasons
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The new service is a significant improvement on the legacy service and has focused on meeting user needs, acting on customer feedback and usability issues associated with the legacy service.
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The service can be iteratively improved at pace and the existing team will continue to develop the service, with plans to iterate based on analysis of data following beta launch.
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The service has the appropriate security and privacy protections in place.
Recommendations
To be addressed as soon as possible after the service has passed to public beta and a condition of making the beta the default option on the GOV.UK service start pages.
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Design and content snag list feedback to be actioned to ensure departures from the style guide are addressed.
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The team should establish a regular series of face-to-face user research, integrated into sprint cycles.
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The team should carry out testing of the beta service with people with a range of disabilities and consult the GDS accessibility team for recommendations.
Other Recommendations
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Design resource should be brought within team to ensure someone owns the design and design changes (as a result of feedback/data analysis) can be delivered quickly.
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Implement plan to separate secret code separate from platform and publish non-sensitive code as open source on GitHub or a similar public repository.
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It is not currently possible to bookmark or link to the results page (state maintained via secret code passed back and forth in page/form). This should be addressed to enable a change in state to show a new URL.
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Fix the style 404 page.
Next Steps
This service has been given approval to launch as a Public Beta service.
Summary
In summary, GDS are very pleased to report that this service is on track to meet the service standard. GDS are very pleased to be adding a digital service to GOV.UK that is on track to demonstrate it is so good users will prefer to use it.