Accelerating digital delivery: How user-centric design shaped the success of the ‘Find a Grant’ service
In our Accelerating Digital Delivery series, we explore the key factors that drive transformative digital solutions. A user-centric design approach—prioritising the needs, preferences, and behaviors of end users—is critical for creating services that truly deliver value. This approach was central to our work with the Cabinet Office on the ‘Find a Grant’ service, a platform that simplifies the search and application process for government funding.
If you missed the earlier parts of the series, you can catch up on the first blog here and the second blog here
This article focuses on how a user-centric design approach guided every stage of the project, from user research to development, resulting in a successful and widely adopted national service.
Digital services are increasingly expected to be intuitive and accessible, which is why a user-centric design approach is essential for ensuring that solutions effectively meet user needs. AND Digital recently collaborated with the Cabinet Office to build the ‘Find a Grant’ service, a centralised resource that simplifies the government grant search and application process.
The success of the service was largely due to taking a user-centric design approach, prioritising the needs, preferences, and behaviours of end users by conducting extensive user research prior to the build, and keeping the end user front of mind during the development of the service. This article will address how that was achieved, and why this approach was pivotal to the service’s success.
The Cabinet Office supports the Prime Minister and ensures the effective running of government. One element of their work involves posting government funding opportunities for organisations, charities and individuals to apply for. However, users of this service found it difficult to effectively find and apply for grants from the government, and had to search various sites and engage with multiple departments to understand what funding was available to apply for.
It was clear that a consolidated platform was needed to bring everything together into one place, in order for people to better understand the opportunities and applications available to them for funding.
The first stage of building the service was conducting user research in collaboration with the Cabinet Office. This research was a core part of the user-centric design approach, and a critical piece of the puzzle, as ‘Find a Grant’ would be a national service used by all different types of entities.
Over 60 users were interviewed during an 8 week period, culminating in a comprehensive report, with the results driving the recommended areas to prototype and test, including a demand for having a consistent user interface and the importance of accessibility.
In response to these needs, the GOV.UK design system library was used to prototype the requested user interface, which was then validated by testing before moving into the build phase. Once launched, user feedback surveys indicated a strong increase in user satisfaction, showing the importance of listening to feedback from the end user.
Knowing accessibility was also a critical requirement for users, all front-end delivery was made in line with GDS accessibility standards, ensuring an inclusive and user-friendly experience for all potential grant applicants.
The collaborative partnership between AND Digital and the Cabinet Office built a culture of transparency, fun and honesty, but was ultimately about bringing it back to the needs of the user, to ensure the right recommendations were being made and implemented for the service.
Post-launch, the Find a Grant service has surpassed the expected number of users by over 30,000, and now has over £9.4 billion worth of funding available for those to apply for through grants.
Users can now be notified when relevant grants that match their saved searches become available, and for the admins of the service, their notifications tell them when a grant application has been submitted, a smoother process for all.
An admin rating of 4.2 out of 5 shows how far the service has come in creating a centralised platform that focused on user needs right from the outset, developing an effective and widely-adopted service delivered in an accessible way.
As part of an ongoing commitment to a user-centric design approach, the partnership between AND Digital and the Cabinet Office will continue to improve the service, further enhancing interoperability between different systems and optimising the user experience for both applicants and administrators.
The success of the ‘Find a Grant’ service underscores the critical role of user-centric design in creating effective digital solutions that not only meet user needs but also drive engagement and satisfaction.
