DfE Connect - Making school guidance easier to find

Interaction Design
Public Sector
SaaS
GDS Design System
Naming

I worked as Interaction Designer on the Department for Education’s School Account project from August 2023 to June 2024. The project aimed to simplify how school business professionals access guidance, data, and digital tools. The service included a public-facing SaaS platform (later named DfE Connect) and an internal admin application used by civil servants to manage and publish task content.

My role

I was part of a multi-disciplinary agile team working across both the public-facing interface and the internal Task and Service Index (TSI). My work included leading on the UI design and prototyping, information architecture, and documenting decisions in the team’s Design History. I also contributed to naming, design critique, and usability testing sessions with both internal and external users.

Approach

Prototype design for soft launch

Our first priority was adapting Alpha-stage designs for use within the MYESF platform for a limited soft launch. Working closely with a content designer, I created a revised prototype in Figma and helped shape the language and approach used to contact pilot participants. This early release provided essential feedback from real users within technical constraints.

TSI task list showing metadata for each task. — Early interface designs for the Task and Service Index — including task list, detail views, and the initial task creation workflow. I created these in Figma.

Task detail screen with service and task metadata. — Early interface designs for the Task and Service Index — including task list, detail views, and the initial task creation workflow. I created these in Figma.

Shaping the service identity

The service had no clear name, and previous naming workshops using the standard GDS methodology hadn’t been successful. I facilitated alternative workshops focused on word association and service traits, which led to five naming candidates being tested with users. One clear favourite emerged — DfE Connect — a name I had proposed. This gave the service a more recognisable identity and exposed issues in the underlying content model, which we began to address in the design.

Miro board from the first naming workshop where we reviewed what had been done so far and explored service traits. — Miro boards from the naming workshops. Members of the team used pre-prepared exercises to explore word association, synonyms, analogies, and metaphors, and to suggest names.

Miro board from the second naming workshop. — Miro boards from the naming workshops. Members of the team used pre-prepared exercises to explore word association, synonyms, analogies, and metaphors, and to suggest names.

Designing admin workflows for the internal tool

The internal Task and Service Index was a deceptively complex admin tool used to manage and publish structured data. I designed:

Flexible filtering and faceted search for task listings
A task creation flow with role-based permissions, audit trails, and approval steps
Interaction patterns for grouping, editing, and publishing task content

All components were aligned with the GOV.UK Design System and adapted to support editorial governance workflows.

Improving public-facing content and layouts

I helped redesign the task list and guidance experience for the schools-facing side of the service — simplifying layouts, clarifying labels, and introducing task groupings to support findability. I also documented these changes in the Design History to support continuity across the team.

A mission patch for beta launch

Mission patches are a beloved tradition on many government digital projects — a small creative flourish to mark key milestones. Before I left the team, I was asked to design one for our beta release.

Animals often feature in these patches, and I had a few options in mind. But after a chat with my Content Design colleague, we knew there was only one contender: Connie, the Connect chipmunk!

The final design featured Connie in a rocket, blasting off in celebration of our public beta. It added to the team's sense of shared achievement — and was a nice sticker for everyone's laptops.

Outcome

Successful public beta: DfE Connect launched in April 2024 with an improved user interface and more structured internal publishing workflows.
Improved clarity: Task grouping, simplified labelling, and a clearer IA helped users navigate more confidently.
Reusable design work: Patterns and governance models developed during the project — including audit trail design and naming workshops — were referenced by other DfE teams.
The current iteration of DfE Connect has been rolled out successfully to a much higher number of schools and is receiving great feedback.

What stayed with me

We weren’t just redesigning screens — we were helping a multi-layered service become understandable, manageable, and scalable. The process reminded me how useful lateral thinking can be when standard frameworks (like GDS naming) don’t quite fit the service context. I also saw first-hand how small IA decisions ripple through governance, naming, and user understanding.