Users above the debt line identified as being beneficiaries of the product.
Users below the debt line identified as not benefiting from the product.
Debt line
Help-to-Save was initially an NS&I (National Savings & Investments) initiative that HMRC ultimately delivered. When I joined the project, NS&I had already engaged with a third party supplier to design and build the digital service. However, the supplier had failed to adhere to the GDS (Government Digital Services) development framework, resulting in a product that was not fully designed to the needs of users and would ultimately fail the GDS Discovery and Alpha assessment check points.
Leading a team of researchers, my role was to realign the project and stakeholders with the needs of users and to validate the designs through user testing to ensure that the project was able to proceed through to the Beta stage of the GDS process.
Leading a team of researchers, my role was to realign the project and stakeholders with the needs of users and to validate the designs through user testing to ensure that the project was able to proceed through to the Beta stage of the GDS process.
Lead User Researcher
Championed by the former prime minister David Cameron,
Help-to-Save
was launched in 2018 to help low-income earners claiming universal credit or working tax credits to save. The scheme operated by paying a 50% bonus on the amount saved, up to a maximum bonus of £1,200 over four years.
The challenge
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Contextual one-to-one research sessions with users across five UK cities undertaken to explore and better understand the financial behaviours and their capacity to save. To assist in the exploration, a mapping exercise was undertaken to visualise how money moves in and out of a household over a typical month. Barriers to adoption to the Help-to-Save scheme were also explored.
While the personas helped inform the product design process, they also clarified those user types most likely to benefit from the product which would later inform the copy and marketing strategy on release.
From the research a set of personas were defined and presented back to key stakeholders outlining user behaviour, needs, challenges, and barriers to adoption. The personas helped frame the design thinking and inform product functionality and copy.
Aligning stakeholders
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Working closely with HMRC visual designers and third party suppliers, user journeys were defined and prototypes designed in Heroku using the GDS pattern library.
User journeys, interactions, and copy were assessed through a series of one-to-one usability tests across multiple UK cities with key stakeholders observing the sessions remotely. Following each round, the insights from the tests were reported to the wider team and a mini workshop undertaken to evolve the designs in preparation for the next round of testing.
Due to the robust nature of the research and the iterative design process, the Help-to-Save product succeeded in passing the GDS Alpha assessment and deployed to a test audience as part of the Beta assessment. The product eventually launched in 2018 and has around 163,000 savers who have deposited more than £53 million.
Prototyping
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Test & Iterate
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Stakeholder management
gov.uk/get-help-savings-low-income
Usability testing
Requirements capture
Persona development
User journeys
Stakeholder workshops
Contextual research
Objectives
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Develop deep understanding of existing financial behaviours and identify user needs and barriers to adoption through one-to-one contextual research.
Realign stakeholders and third party suppliers with the target user base to inform product design and functionality.
Evaluate and iterate designs with users to ensure the project passed the GDS Alpha assessment stage.
Realign stakeholders and third party suppliers with the target user base to inform product design and functionality.
Evaluate and iterate designs with users to ensure the project passed the GDS Alpha assessment stage.
In order to realign the stakeholders with their user base, user research was undertaken to form a solid foundation and launch pad from which the designs could be developed.
Approach
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User research
Contextual research across 5 UK cities to identify user needs and potential barriers to adoption.
Design
Stakeholders and third party suppliers aligned through personas to inform design decisions.
Test & Iterate
Prototype evaluated and iterated through user testing.
Outcomes
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DLUX |+44 (0) 7968 074014 | damien.livingston@gmail.com
UX Designer
User Researcher
Business analyst
Technical Architect
Delivery Lead