I assembled and led a multi-disciplinary team, comprising Research, Service, Interaction and Content Design practitioners. The team designed and facilitated a comprehensive review of existing processes, analysing anecdotal customer feedback of the ‘buying’ experience. Of particular focus was the need to improve content, simplify the language used and improve the search experience.

Throughout the design process, the team engaged with a number of stakeholder groups including: Customer Support, Business Development, Commercial, Procurement Operations and eSourcing. This enabled the team to build out a comprehensive current-state service blueprint, visualising the interdependencies between front and back stage actors, clearly narrating the end-to-end service process.

Our vision was to develop and test a new service proposition that would offer a ‘slice’ of all key digital components and touch points at a high level, providing users with the appropriate functionality and view of all components within the end-to-end service. This approach provided users with the necessary context of the service and how it worked in its entirety.

Rapid prototyping and iterative user testing enabled us to test multiple versions of the new service. The prototype further evolved following inputs gathered from different internal stakeholder teams, who helped the team understand all the complexities of the procurement process whilst we built a backlog of development activities, ready for MVP and GDS assessment.

Consequently, we iterated the service, leveraging design components and patterns from other CCS platforms that offered similar functionalities. The team also audited the CCS design system to make sure the service was fully aligned with GDS, and compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2 Level AAA.

Further collaboration with a range SMEs, GDS designers, and the CCS Head of Content enabled us to develop new content for the service, using best-practice plain English throughout; active front-loaded sentences, simple and descriptive calls to action, and clear hint texts. Accessibility needs were also considered across the journey, including actionable screens, and meaningful sequencing of pages and information.

The new digital service delivered a more accessible, consistent and customer-friendly experience for both CCS buyers and suppliers, supporting their procurement journey, to deliver;

• A single, user-friendly commercial agreement and buying process

• More upfront information and easier language, especially for more
  buyers with less experience of the service

• An improved ‘search’ function surfacing fewer and more relevant, accurate results.

The redesigned service also aimed to reduce the cost of sale for suppliers, lowering the total price of service delivery to:  

• Provide suppliers with a standard method of creating commercial offers for buyers

• Reducing the number of touch points and avoiding duplication of efforts.

The UCD team were also instrumental in preparing for mandatory Government Digital Service assessments - a compulsory appraisal every government digital service needs to pass in order to be released to users. The new service passed with ‘flying colours’.