Single Trade Window Declaration Management alpha assessment

Service Standard assessment report Single Trade Window Declaration Management 21/09/2023

From:
Central Digital and Data Office
Published
11 December 2023
Assessment date:
21 September 2023
Result:
Met
Stage:
Alpha

Service Standard assessment report

Single Trade Window Declaration Management

From: Central Digital & Data Office (CDDO)
Assessment date: 21/09/2023
Stage: Alpha
Result: Met
Service provider: HMRC

Service description

A Single Trade Window (STW) provides a gateway between businesses and a country’s border service, allowing users to meet their import export and transit obligations by submitting information once, and in one place.

It saves time and cost, improves the customer experience, and can enhance a country’s position as a trading partner globally.

The first release:

  • will allow users to meet import obligations and enables the collection and reduces the administrative burden
  • provides a free to use UI
  • mitigates pain points, providing a streamlined user journey for non-inventory linked port customers, and
  • lays the foundations for future iterations.

Service users

This service is for frequent and infrequent traders in small-to-medium-size enterprises, carriers and hauliers, freight forwarders, and agents who complete border related administration on behalf of traders.

1. Understand users and their needs

Decision

The service met point 1 of the Standard.

What the team has done well

The panel was impressed that:

  • in an incredibly complex space the team have done a great job of being clear about the core user needs they are seeking to meet, the riskiest assumptions they are seeking to explore, and how this builds on a huge amount of prior discovery research
  • the team has carried out a lot of research and spoken to a good and varied number of their users (across a wide range of industries and modes of transport)
  • they are using their research to maintain and update their personas and user need artefacts as they learn more – and are using these to inform their design work
  • the team have a clear understanding of their main gaps to research further
  • the team are thinking about universal barriers and using that framework

What the team needs to explore

Before the next assessment, the team needs to:

  • understand the needs of users who might need to use the service (or parts of it) while on the go – and therefore are more likely to need to use mobile devices or devices with a small screen size to do so
  • keep trying to find ways to do research with actual users of the service with access needs (especially screenreader users), and those who have less digital skills rather than relying on surrogate users
  • explore further users’ concerns and understanding of what happens if they accidentally enter incorrect information or get something wrong – and how this would impact any decisions around whether to use the service
  • consider doing research with first time traders who are exploring the process of importing something and seeing if they can do it all themselves.  Even if they are not the users the alpha phase is focused on, these users present risky assumptions in the design. Testing with first time traders will help widen the pool of potential research participants and ‘stress’ some of the designs, for example, about how users understand a very complex process

2. Solve a whole problem for users

Decision

The service met point 2 of the Standard.

What the team has done well

The panel was impressed that:

  • the existing team has a good understanding of the journey
  • while the STW programme is taking a phased approach, with focus at first on some of the HMRC elements, the team are working closely with other service areas in HMRC, sharing their work in the open. They are also speaking to other designers within HMRC to explore how similar problems have been solved and sharing the approaches they are exploring to help join up the experience across different service offerings.
  • the team has created service blueprints at different levels which show how the user journeys will work thoroughly. These work both to show how complex the end-to-end service will be but also give the team the flexibility to zoom in on the lower-level detail to understand the user experience at the interaction layer
  • the team has started talking to and working with teams or departments who are working in the same service space – including early engagement with DEFRA, as well as sharing design work with teams in HMRC working in the borders and trade space

What the team needs to explore

Before the next assessment, the team needs to:

  • consider doing research about the guidance stage of the service and how users will discover, understand and make the decision to use the service themselves (rather than use an agent as they may have previously done)
  • continue to do repeat research with the same participants to explore hand-offs between different parts of the journey, and how the whole journey pieces together for users (for example the freight forwarders who are potentially going through all of the STW journey)
  • show how they’re working in the open outside of HMRC’s organisation boundaries, including sharing research and design histories as well as significant technical architecture decisions, so that other teams, departments and suppliers contributing to the end-to-end service have the context they need

3. Provide a joined-up experience across all channels

Decision

The service met point 3 of the Standard.

What the team has done well

The panel was impressed that:

  • the team has started to explore the name of the service
  • Design is considering the full end-to-end journey, including where parts of the journey hand off to different users
  • the team are talking with and working with teams across government who will form part of the future journeys through STW
  • the team is taking an approach to service design that ensures a clear understanding of the service context and how the STW will sit in a user’s transactions with the government
  • the team have developed service blueprints at varying levels of granularity that show the steps involved with the service, and the whole team have a good understanding of how everything fits together

What the team needs to explore

Before the next assessment, the team needs to:

  • complete plans to work closely GOV.UK content teams to audit content and understand more fully the entry and exit points for the service, plus all content that may be impacted
  • choose a name for the service which uses the words that users use, and provide sufficent evidence that the name is appropriate
  • continue to explore the use of guidance within the service, including linking out to related guidance, so that they are confident that users can complete tasks first-time

4. Make the service simple to use

Decision

The service met point 4 of the Standard.

What the team has done well

The panel was impressed that:

  • the service is using GOV.UK Design System patterns and the GOV.UK style guide to design the service
  • the team are working on developing the Tabs component within the service and have adapted designs that the VOA have used
  • the team has had a regular rhythm to research, testing elements of the journey and iterating both the design and content based on their research findings

What the team needs to explore

Before the next assessment, the team needs to:

  • continue to design the service to be responsive and look at how they can do research to understand the needs of users who might need to use the service (or parts of it) while on the go - and therefore more likely to need to use mobile devices to do so
  • continue to explore the name of the service so that users are able to find the service easily, regardless of the task they wish to complete
  • document and share their evidence on the Tabs component in the GOV.UK Design System backlog (https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-design-system-backlog/issues/100)
  • do research and testing with higher fidelity, functional prototypes which will be important in helping to understand the usability of the service and whether the service is truly simple to use

5. Make sure everyone can use the service

Decision

The service met point 5 of the Standard.

What the team has done well

The panel was impressed that:

  • while the team have struggled to recruit users with access needs for research they are thinking about and designing inclusively, for example, using standard components from the GOV.UK Design System, and considering cognitive load and length of pages
  • the team have a plan for how they want to test for accessibility once the service is in a built environment and can enable things likes testing with screenreaders
  • the team are using the Universal Barriers framework
  • the team are exploring user needs for assisted digital users through their current research and also mapping in findings from other similar services

What the team needs to explore

Before the next assessment, the team needs to:

  • carry out regular research and testing on mobile devices to make sure these users can use the service, even if most will be using desktop/laptop
  • consider testing whether guidance linked to throughout the service meets users’ needs and ensure that they are providing the right level of and access to guidance to help users complete their task

  • plan to research the assisted digital support phone line provided by the Department for Business and Trade during beta to ensure that it meets the needs of users

  • evidence how the browsers and browser versions used by their initial user group support their technical decisions around JavaScript
  • perform accessibility testing to understand how user-facing and internal-facing systems will help the service meet accessible needs

6. Have a multidisciplinary team

Decision

The service met point 6 of the Standard.

What the team has done well

The panel was impressed that:

  • the team is engaging with subject matter experts and senior stakeholders to discover and discuss policy constraints
  • the team is making itself aware of policy constraints that may surface in other departments (which could affect later phases of the strategy)
  • the team is using appropriate tools, communication methods and ways of working, whether remote or co-located
  • the team is communicating with colleagues in user support and operations
  • there is a plan for adding more skills to the team at beta stage
  • information is flowing between different roles and sub-teams, using methods like regular show & tells
  • there is a plan for knowledge transfer between suppliers and permanent civil servants

What the team needs to explore

Before the next assessment, the team needs to:

  • continue to ensure that all roles within the team, particularly developers and technical leads, are engaged and involved with the research and design process as the team grows
  • consider how designers and developers will work together to solve technically infeasible design choices or work around technical constraints that may hamper the user experience
  • ensure that user support and operations are key decision-makers in whether the beta phases meet success criteria or not

7. Use agile ways of working

Decision

The service met point 7 of the Standard.

What the team has done well

The panel was impressed that:

  • the team identified a weakness with access to policy professionals, which they fixed with a weekly policy drop-in for mitigating risks and assumptions
  • the team identified the riskiest assumptions they didn’t explore and has plans to validate those during the beta phases
  • the team is working through disagreements or differences of opinion
  • the team is taking an evidence-based approach, such as using A/B testing, to resolve heated disputes
  • when facing problems with ways of working, they adapted their approach and used Kanban to better suit user-centred design methods
  • the service owner has agreed a phased strategy that balances mitigating the riskiest assumptions and meeting the expectations of ministers, providing focus for the team
  • the wider team is engaging with other teams, subject matter experts and stakeholders throughout discovery and alpha

What the team needs to explore

Before the next assessment, the team needs to:

  • build and test functional prototypes – the next step after mock-ups of user interfaces – to understand whether the technical choices for ‘Tell us once’ functionality meet users’ needs

Before going live, the team could:

  • test the service with the Minister

8. Iterate and improve frequently

Decision

The service met point 8 of the Standard.

What the team has done well

The panel was impressed that:

  • the team are working at a good, regular research cadence and the UCD team are clearly empowered, engaged and working well together
  • the team is engaging with the Customs Declaration Service and others in their service community within HMRC to share research, designs and findings

What the team needs to explore

Before the next assessment, the team needs to:

  • build and test functional prototypes – the next step after mock-ups of user interfaces – to understand whether the technical choices for ‘Tell us once’ functionality meet users’ needs
  • test out worst case scenarios, including what might happen when first-time traders can’t access guidance and support is overloaded
  • consider prototyping and testing how the service will meet the needs of other departments collecting information through the STW, such as the Animal and Plant Health Agency

9. Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy

Decision

The service met point 9 of the Standard.

What the team has done well

The panel was impressed that:

  • the data is encrypted while in transit and at rest
  • all internal integrations are encrypted with the use of TLS along with the key management in AWS
  • for external-facing sites, the team is planning to use certificates that are signed by known, trusted CAs
  • the team is updating the DPIA with the relevant experts and will be sharing the same at the next assessment
  • the team is actively engaging with data privacy subject matter experts for the finalisation of the cookie and privacy policies

What the team needs to explore

Before the next assessment, the team needs to:

  • provide evidence of DPIA, cookie policy and privacy policy
  • provide the evidence of the penetration test, security risk and vulnerability assessment, and IT health check

10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data

Decision

The service met point 10 of the Standard.

What the team has done well

The panel was impressed that:

  • the team has considered performance indicators beyond the four mandatory metrics
  • the team has made a clear link between the most important metrics and their users’ highest priority needs
  • the team has a plan for instrumenting the service in order to collect their key performance indicators

What the team needs to explore

Before the next assessment, the team needs to:

  • consider proactively analysing error logs on a regular basis, rather than relying solely on user feedback to identify problems during public beta

11. Choose the right tools and technology

Decision

The service met point 11 of the Standard.

What the team has done well

The panel was impressed that:

  • the data is persisted within Salesforce in its database pre-submission
  • after submission, the team is utilising the AWS native cloud data services, such as DynamoDB and S3 for storing the data
  • the team is using Salesforce Labs’ GOV.UK Frontend component library, managed service capabilities of Salesforce and MuleSoft in the forms of the Hyperforce and CloudHub 2.0
  • the team is using X-Ray for test management, Selenium and Cucumber for automated functional testing, and jMeter for automated non-functional testing
  • the team is using Confluence and BitBucket for Agile project management, and capabilities of Salesforce and Mulesoft for data on auditing and monitoring

What the team needs to explore

Before the next assessment, the team needs to:

  • evidence their approach to progressive enhancement, as pages should not look broken if the user’s browser does not support JavaScript. The team informed that they will be actively looking at this and will be doing a survey, monitoring it and will develop and modify the pages in future as deemed fit to meet the user requirements.
  • the team needs to show evidence of the compatibility of the service with various browsers, as per Service Manual guidance
  • look into any potential challenges it may get with meeting the accessibility requirements through the frontend framework they’re using

12. Make new source code open

Decision

The service met point 12 of the Standard.

What the team has done well

The panel was impressed that:

  • the team is using OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0 for authentication and API authorisation
  • the team informed that they are using the RAML for API specifications, JSON for internal API message structures as well as open data standards for data modelling from World Customs Organisation (WCO) and the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT)

What the team needs to explore

Before the next assessment, the team needs to:

  • provide evidence that code has been shared in open and a rationale with evidence for the code which can not be published in open

13. Use and contribute to open standards, common components and patterns

Decision

The service met point 13 of the Standard.

What the team has done well

The panel was impressed that:

  • for SR1, the team is planning to integrate with the Government Gateway, GOV.UK Notify and also with the HMRC systems such as CDS, S&S GB and GVMS required for this service
  • the team also informed that they are integrating with the Guidance Service and existing CDS services such as Document Upload and Payment

What the team needs to explore

Before the next assessment, the team needs to:

14. Operate a reliable service

Decision

The service met point 14 of the Standard.

What the team has done well

The panel was impressed that:

  • the team informed that they are using BitBucket for Source-Code Management and BitBucket Pipelines for CI/CD automation. The CI/CD pipelines include code quality checks as well as security code scanning. This will help the team for CI/CD pipeline and releasing new features and functionalities without downtime
  • the team informed that they are discussing the development of the SLAs for the 1st release (SR1) and expected them to be in place by Public Beta
  • The current routes will still be available and continue to provide the service as STW is a new service. The team informed that only CDS, S&S GB and GVMS, are in scope for integration for SR1
  • in case of STW service not available, Customs Intermediaries can provide the services to facilitate the movement of goods
  • the team is planning for business continuity planning and disaster recovery plans

What the team needs to explore

Before the next assessment, the team needs to:

  • provide the SLAs
  • provide evidence and plan what will happen in future when this service is live.
  • provide BCP and DR plans

Updates to this page

Published 11 December 2023
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