Our interaction designer Rebecca Cottrell talked about designing search for the Digital Marketplace, in a 5-minute talk at an all-staff event in June.
Here are a few main points Rebecca talked about:
Starting with requirements
One of our big design challenges is helping buyers easily find services that match their requirements. A tricky aspect is conveying the differences between web search and procurement search.
Unlike searching on a web search engine like Google, where the top results are the most relevant, all results returned by the Digital Marketplace search are technically relevant… as they should all match the requirements the buyer has entered.
The next step for the buyer is to go through the list of matching services, and to determine whether each is suitable. It’s a time-consuming process of elimination. Design patterns like “add to favourites” or “add to wishlist”, widely popular on e-commerce sites, aren’t suitable as the process is inverted.
We’re working on the search design to make this process as simple, clear and as straightforward as possible. Take a look at the new Digital Marketplace and send us your feedback to digitalmarketplace@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk