Ongoing user research about social care workforce data for Skills for Care

We were asked by Skills for Care (following our comprehensive Discovery) to be the research partner for the development phase of their new Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set (ASC-WDS), the leading source for adult social care workforce information in England.

We led the user research as part of a multi-disciplinary delivery team. We involved designers, developers and product owners in our research to help ensure that every design iteration was driven by genuine user need, and that the user was represented throughout all decision-making.

During each development sprint, we ran usability testing sessions to gather immediate feedback on prototypes. We also launched a series of longitudinal studies and hosted reflective workshops to capture insight on how the new service was used over time. This user feedback directly influenced the iterations made to the service design.

The scale and diversity of adult social care providers posed a significant research challenge. It was essential for us to gather feedback from all types of provider, including small independent nursing homes, domiciliary care franchises, large charities and local authorities.

We adapted our approach to recruitment to ensure that we were able to accommodate all types of participant, through workplace visits and other research methods. By taking this approach, we were able to engage with ASC-WDS users in every county in England.

We participated in the service’s Alpha and Private Beta service assessments, fulfilling all user research criteria relevant to the GDS Service Standard. The ASC-WDS met both of these GDS assessments and is now at Public Beta phase.

“Lagom worked with us through our Alpha phase and into our Public Beta, attending and supporting us to pass two GDS assessments. Anyone who has been through an assessment knows the value placed on the quality and depth of the user research. Lagom played a key role in delivering this for our project.”

Victoria Garnett, Head of Agile Delivery, Skills for Care