First year of Apply the Service Standard in numbers

We had evidence that service teams were struggling to understand the Government Service Standard and how to apply it in the context of the Department for Education (DfE).

We wrote a design history post which talks about the evidence, the problems and the user needs which we identified in early 2022.

Built with standards owners

The service is built and maintained by the Design Ops team. A user-centred design and delivery team which supports the design professions in DfE with guidance, tools, support, and sets the standards for good design in the department.

We collaborate

We worked closely with people from across the different DDaT professions in DfE to create the guidance in the service. We started with service team user needs identified in discovery, then pair wrote content for each standard. We ran content crits and workshops before running 5 rounds of user research.

We had regular check-ins with Heads of Profession (HoPs) as senior stakeholders and subject-matter experts to meet the standards. HoPs also support their own communities to meet the standards, and as a result of building Apply the Service Standard in DfE, the user research and design communities have now also built their own community space.

We ran a workshop with DfE service assessors to consider how to apply the practical examples against the service standard.

We work in the open

Working in the open, sharing at Show and Tells and speaking with colleagues across government, for example, at NHS Digital and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) helped us to bake trust and confidence into the service from the start.

All the code and guidance for the service is published in the open for anyone to reuse.

We've seen the guidance in the service used in lots of different ways.

It's helped teams with better ways of working, preparing for service assessments and peer reviews, and incorporating the guidance into trello boards for keeping track of how they are meeting the standards throughout their project lifecycles.

We'll continuing to iterate content as new guidance is created which supports the service standard.

The Design Ops team are also working on the development of a service to support the service assessment process. We will be looking at how we integrate the standards guidance into this process to bring guidance and assurance process more joined up.

Help us make it better

While the guidance has been developed to support teams in DfE, it can support other departments working to the Service Standard.

You can contact the Design Ops team with questions or feedback about this service.