Designing the NHS Data Standards Directory
NHS
September 2021 - December 2022
Working as part of a multidisciplinary team, we successfully delivered a service that helped users find standards needed to exchange data and support interoperability in health and social care.
Homepage of the NHS Data Standards Directory
Background
In early 2021, Marvell Consulting conducted a Discovery and Alpha into the barriers of interoperability (joining up IT systems so they can exchange data) in health and social care and came up with a prototype of a new directory service containing data standards that would help standardise and share data for faster, safer care. The initial alpha explored the front-end designs and the second alpha explored contributions and maintenance to the directory.
I joined the team during the Beta phase to build and refine the standards directory while exploring what the contribution and maintenance model would look like.
Service map of the NHS Standards Directory developed during the Discovery and Alpha phases.
Key service iterations in Beta
One of the areas we looked at was the homepage. We held a team sketching session to explore how that could be optimised to help users such as IT suppliers and health and social care providers find the standards they need to build more interoperably. Through research we found the search bar we had in the prototype was helpful if you knew what you were looking for, but if you were a new user, you wouldn't know where to look.
What we designed in the end introduced new routes for all users to navigate through the service:
- for those new to interoperability, we included deep links into care settings, topics and standard types to help filter down into relevant standards to browse from
- for frequent users, we had deep links into the latest standards to assess whether the standards they are using are up to date
Updating the homepage to make it easier for users to search for standards by suggested categories
Another key area we iterated were the filters, aligning our designs to the NHS and GOV.UK standards for best practice. We spoke to other NHS teams designing filters in their services and shared our findings from research with the NHS design community as a way to help others tackling the same problem.
Sharing learnings with other teams and the wider community
Developing a maintenance model for the directory
Maintenance of the directory was important as there was no previous plan for it. The way we approached this was to find out what others have done before and learn from their experience. We conducted exploratory interviews with other government departments, NHS and standard bodies to understand their maintenance models and learn from their approach. We then mapped out the different ways our directory's process could be managed, gathering feedback from teams that would be involved with the directory to sense-check the maintenance processes we developed didn’t overlap with their existing processes.
Mapping out ways of maintaining the directory The outcome
The Data Standards Directory had their Beta assessment in November 2022 and met all 14 points of the NHS Service Standard.
The success came down to working collaboratively as part of a multidisciplinary team, learning from other government departments and organisations and knowledge-sharing with the design community helped shape the service we designed. Through testing with users, we were able to iterate on those designs and get the standards directory successfully built and delivered.
- Links:
- NHS Data Standards Directory
- View the prototype in GitHub
- NHS, government design, agile, multidisciplinary team, data standards, health technology