The DfE National Assessment and Accreditation System (NAAS) was a program designed to ensure that social workers had the necessary skills and knowledge to practice effectively. The program aimed to improve the quality of social work practice by providing a consistent and high standard of training and development for social workers across England.
NAAS was a mandatory program that all newly qualified social workers had to complete within their first year of practice. The program consisted of three stages:
The NAAS program was delivered by a range of training providers and was overseen by the Department for Education. The program was designed to ensure that all social workers were equipped with the knowledge and skills they needed to deliver high-quality services to vulnerable children and adults.
Create a user-friendly portal to enable social workers to manage their learning and accreditations with ease, while minimising time on task. The primary focus was on improving user experience (UX) as it was crucial to the project's success, ensuring that social workers could dedicate more time to their job.
The project was a government-funded initiative, which placed significant design restrictions on us, with GOV.UK standards as the design baseline. However, this constraint allowed us to concentrate on the finer details that could impact the overall project. Our research involved multiple rounds of interviews, surveys, usability testing, and preference testing. The success of the project relied on all areas of the company, and stakeholder management played a crucial role in achieving it. We presented our approach and various rounds of research and designs to government bodies for review. As the lead designer, I presented all the data and designs we gathered.
Below are some of the UX artefacts that were created throughout the process.
User Research - Plan for Beta.pdf
DfE - User Research Report.pdf
