Working in partnership to protect vulnerable and exploited workers

The Gangmaster and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) are a relatively small agency within the Home Office who are gathering greater powers to license and stop abuse happening to those in vulnerable working situations. Workers who may not speak English well or are having pay deducted without their knowledge, imagine a modern day slave.

The BIG picture

The GLAA are currently going through a big change from DEFRA to the Home Office. This move means that the IT systems would need to be moved along with the customer facing platform. Therefore the team decided to tackle both at the same time, especially as the licensing system was outdated and running low on it’s servicing agreement.

Before

Current Userflow

Working closely with the GLAA’s business analyst, we created the current userflow to give us a greater understanding of the application and the potential pitfalls

After

Proposed userflow

After analysing the current flow, we used our expertise to create a new userflow from the understandings of the previous. Using the research to iterate the flow

Discovery Phase

During the discovery phase of this project I conducted various methods of research ranging from interviews to surveys and remote site meetings with workers. As this was running through the GDS I made sure to cover the correct amount of quantitative and qualitative research to gain the greatest vision as I could for the GLAA.

Created a set of questions for recorded interviews with clients at their work places
Created a variety of surveys to capture the greatest knowledge from a wide spectrum of users
Gathered information from site visits and collated them to find trends and popular feelings around the application
Produced a pdf of findings and key pull outs for the team to present to the GDS

Alpha Phase

Working with the Home office and GDS patterns

Taking the information found from the discovery phase we worked on creating the base prototype using the GDS and home office patterns. Along with these online artefacts I personally attended multiple meetings including design crits to keep a constant link between the GLAA and their supporting office

Online communications

As the team was spread nationwide we implemented the use of online communications daily to keep the team updated. The use of Slack for general communications and Share Axure for the prototype. Of course if needed the team came together for face to face meetings in Bath and Nottingham

Iterative building

Throughout the build we concentrated on the end users through research workshops and testing. I kept a log of these elements through a personal trello board, then any prototypes required for tests. Once an outcome had been reached I would then share this with the wider team to allow the product owner to plan future sprints.

Knowledge sharing

The GLAA brought digital experts in to not only assist them in the transformation project but also to share our extensive digital knowledge with them. We held multiple meetings to share our thoughts with the internal teams

Helped define user personas established from discovery research
Interviewed all potentional 3rd party development partners and highlighted the benefits and potential issues for the team
Gave honest opinion and constructive criticism on all queries asked of me