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1. Focus on the current and future wellbeing of people in Wales

Service teams should be driven by outcomes that benefit the people of Wales, not by lists of technical requirements. 

You should consider future generations and think about the social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing of Wales. Services should contribute to the 7 wellbeing goals of Wales.

Why this is important

The Well-being of Future Generations Act requires a new way of thinking about how public services are delivered. 

Public bodies must work to improve the wellbeing of the people of Wales and in line with Welsh Government priorities.

How to get started

Use the Well-being of Future Generations Commissioner’s resources to understand the broader impact of your service. 

The Framework for Future Generations gives questions to consider when designing a new service or planning a service change.

2. Design services in Welsh and English

Services in Wales must meet the needs of people who use the Welsh language in their everyday lives. 

You need to design and build services that promote and ease the use of Welsh and treat those who speak it equally with those who speak English. 

Read the Welsh Government guidance on promoting the Welsh language.

Why this is important

The Welsh language, Cymraeg, is integral to our culture, our heritage and our daily lives. It’s part of our identity as a nation. 

We must design services that give Welsh speakers the confidence to use them in Welsh.

How to get started  

Make Welsh language content central to development of your service from the start. Do not start to consider Welsh language aspects of the service after the design process.

Test Welsh language content with users as early as you can. The Welsh you use, and the way users access a Welsh language service, need to form part of your usability test plan. 

Design technical solutions with Welsh language user needs in mind. Consider Welsh language needs when buying software and services from vendors. Design specifications using these guidelines for a good bilingual user experience.  

3. Understand users and their needs

User needs must determine service design, whoever those users are. User needs are more important than the way an organisation is structured or the technology it currently uses.  
Look at the user journey from start to finish, understanding the different ways people use services, whether that’s online, over the phone or in person. 

Public services are for everyone, so you must consider accessibility. 

Why this is important  

Understanding users and their needs leads to better outcomes for a service. 

Doing first hand research with users reduces the risk of wasting time and money building something that does not get used or creates bigger problems for users. 

Learning about the people who use your service shifts the perspective from thinking about solutions to focusing on the real problems that need solving. 

It helps you to make evidence based decisions about the simplest and most cost effective ways to meet user needs. 

How to get started  

Before investing in a new digital product, you should:  

  • work with a user researcher to do qualitative research with users to learn about their experience of the service, their needs and problems they’re facing 
  • use secondary sources to learn about users, including web analytics, call centre data and front-line staff interviews 
  • make sure the service helps users achieve their goal in the simplest way possible so they can succeed first time 
  • continue to test the service with users as it gets developed, ironing out any usability issues at the earliest opportunity 
  • build usability and accessibility requirements into the tender if you’re procuring a digital product or team from a vendor 
  • Read about how to research your users and their needs

4. Provide a joined up experience

Services that are not joined up are difficult for people to use. 

The services you deliver need to work seamlessly whichever way users access them, so they have a consistent experience. 

Organise internal teams to support the service and meet user needs. 

Why this is important  

You have to understand the user journey, and how the user passes between each communication channel and organisation, to design services that make sense and are consistent.   

How to get started  

Map the end-to-end user experience of the service, capturing where the user needs to interact with different digital and offline channels. 

Designers and user researchers should work with operations teams to review and make changes to these other channels as needed. 

Take responsibility for working with other organisations for different parts of the user journey so the service is coherent and meets user needs at each step. 
Use user feedback and data from all channels to refine and improve the service and increase digital use.   

5. Make sure everyone can use the service

There’s usually no alternative to using public services, so they have to work for everyone.

Design services to be inclusive, making sure anyone who needs to use them can do so as easily as possible. Including users who are often excluded from services makes them easier to use for everyone. 

Why this is important

Digital inclusion is making sure that people can use the internet and access services. 

Being digitally capable is important for accessing work, education, healthcare and public safety information. Groups most likely to be digitally excluded include people with lower educational or income levels, senior citizens and people with disabilities. 

The most common reasons people can’t get online are the cost of technology or broadband and a lack of digital skills.  

The Equality Act 2010 says you must not exclude protected groups from accessing public services. The Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 say you must make sure digital services conform to a consistent standard of accessibility. 

How to get started  

You should: 

  • identify points where a service could exclude particular groups of users, and support these groups better 
  • talk to excluded groups and recruit them in user research and testing 
  • make sure services use the same vocabulary as users, to make things easy for anyone to understand 
  • give assisted digital support to users with low digital skills or limited access  
    publish documents as HTML pages by default rather than PDF files, which are not as accessible and consume more data 
  • make your digital services accessible to disabled users 

To comply with the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018, digital services must: