Our design principles

Our content design principles can help you meet best practice for service design and create a good user experiences for our users.

Start with user needs

If you don’t know what the user needs are, you won’t build the right thing.

Do research, analyse data, talk to users. Don’t make assumptions. Have empathy for users, and remember that what they ask for isn’t always what they need.

Service design starts with identifying user needs.

Do less

We should only do what only we can do. If we’ve found a way of doing something that works, we should make it reusable and shareable instead of reinventing the wheel every time.

Design with data

In most cases, we can learn from real world behaviour by looking at how existing services are used. Let data drive decision-making, not hunches or guesswork. Keep doing that after taking your service live, prototyping and testing with users then iterating in response.

Analytics is an essential tool.

Do the hard work to make it simple

Making something look simple is easy. Making something simple to use is much harder, especially when the underlying systems are complex.

But that’s what we should be doing. Don’t take “It’s always been that way” for an answer.

It’s usually more and harder work to make things simple, but it’s the right thing to do.

Iterate, then iterate again

To "iterate" means to repeat a process or action, typically with the goal of improving or refining it with each cycle. The best way to build good services is to start small and iterate wildly.

Release minimum viable content early. Test it with actual users. Move from adding features, deleting things that don’t work and making refinements based on feedback. If a prototype isn’t working, don’t be afraid to scrap it and start again.

Iteration reduces risk, makes big failures unlikely and turns small failures into lessons.

Make it for everyone

Everything we build should be as inclusive, legible and readable as possible. If we have to sacrifice elegance - so be it. We’re building for needs, not audiences.

We’re designing for the whole county, not just the ones who already know how to use the web. People who most need our services are often the people who find them hardest to use. Think about those people from the start.

Accessible design is good design.

Understand context

We’re not designing for a screen, we’re designing for people. Think hard about the context in which they’re using our services. Are they in a library? Are they on a phone? Are they only really familiar with Facebook? Have they never used the web before?

Understand people and their context.

Build digital services, not webpages

A service is something that helps people to do something. Our job is to uncover our users' needs, and build the service that meets those needs.

Of course much of that will be pages on the web, but we’re not here to build websites. The digital world has to connect to the real world.

Think about all aspects of the service, and make sure they add up to something that meets user needs.

Be consistent, not uniform

We should use the same language and the same design patterns wherever possible. This helps people get familiar with our services. When this isn’t possible we should make sure our approach is consistent.

But that shouldn’t stop us from improving or changing in the future when we find better ways of doing things or the needs of our users change.

Be consistent wherever possible.

Design and deliver a joined-up experience

You should start by understanding how users need to access your service. This will allow you provide a consistent experience across offline and online channels.

Put the same value on every interaction people will have with your service. Then it is less likely to fail. This is important for building trust with users.

Always design and deliver a joined-up experience.

Keep looking at the big picture

When you create new content, look at your service's information architecture as a whole and how everything fits together. This helps you understand how users are finding and navigating to your content.

Do not look at pages in isolation. Think about any point of contact or interaction, or touchpoint, between an individual and the service.

How many touchpoints could a user make to get to your content?