Nicola Albon

Register for EU bid funding

White woman's hand holding up a selection of Euro notes

I worked closely with an interaction designer, developer and product owner to design and build this digital service on GOV.UK in 4 days. We had a further 2 days to iron out bugs and mistakes in the design and build.

  • I took a huge and confusing spreadsheet that the Cabinet Office had been sending out and reduced it to a much smaller number of screens and questions.
  • I worked with the stakeholder to understand which questions were absolutely necessary and which could be asked when they contacted the organisation after they registered.
  • Using content design best practice, I turned complicated questions into simpler questions with help text.


The service and screens

The service was created to register businesses and organisations so that they could continue to get funding for research and development from the UK government after Brexit.

These screenshots show question flows. The information that the UK Government’s Cabinet Office needed was contained in a spreadsheet.

We made good use of GOV.UK Design System patterns to design and build the screens quickly.

Screenshot of a web service. Asks question: Who should we contact about the grant award? There are fields for full name, job title, email address and telephone number
Screenshot of page in GOV.UK service. Heading says 'organisation type'. There are radio buttons for business, research, research and technology organisation, public sector, charity or non Je-S registered organisation and other.


Bringing questions together on 1 screen

We had to ask for if the organisation was a registered company or charity and get the number if they were. The easiest way to do this was to ask for a number and offer a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ radio button selection. If the user answered ‘yes’, the field to enter the number appeared.

This brought together a number of separate questions about company numbers and charity registration numbers.

Screenshot of GOV.UK service. Heading asks: do you have a company or charity registration number? There are 2 circles, one below the other, with yes and no. The 'yes' circle has a black dot in it. Underneath that circle is a white box with a black line around it. Above the box are the words: Company or charity registration number. If yo have both, enter your company number


The next screen has the same pattern.

I could not add hint text to help the user enter the number in the correct format because there was too much variety in the number formats. The Cabinet Office team had to contact everyone who registered, so numbers could be checked later and rectified.

Screenshot of service screen. Question asks Do you have a grant agreement? This is followed by Yes, No radio buttons. There is a black circle in the button next to Yes. There is a box to enter the grant agreement number.


Deviating from the GOV.UK patterns

When asking for project details, we were told that the people filling in this form may not be the same people who applied for the grant in the first place. They might not have all the answers. It was important for the Cabinet Office to get organisations to register by the deadline. And because they could contact the organisations once they knew who they were, it was more important that organisations did not miss the deadline because they were trying to get all the details.

I added “(if you know it)” rather than “(optional)” because the information being asked for was not optional – it just was not crucial to enter it at this point.

Screenshot of a page asking for project details. The heading says 'Project details' The next line says 'Project name' There is hint text that says 'As the name appears on the grant agreement or bid'. It is followed by an empty rectangle. The next line down says 'Total amount awarded to your organisation in euros (if you know it). Underneath is an empty rectangle. Beneath that is 'Start date (if you know it)' and then empty squares and a rectangle with 'Day, month, year' above them. And beneath that is 'End date (if you know it)'. Below that are empty squares and a rectangle which have 'Day, Month, Year' above them.


What I would have done differently

With more time, I would have pushed back even more on the need for some of the information being asked for — particularly because those registering would be contacted for further information. We would also have tested with users.

Featured image photo by omid armin on Unsplash

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