Digital Outcomes and Specialists services will be available on the Digital Marketplace this week. We’ve published a collection of guides to help users buy and sell services in a fair and transparent way.
The less you build, the harder your content needs to work
When we started mapping the Digital Outcomes and Specialists buying journey, we considered the complexity of building each step and how much that step would improve the user experience. We decided that, for launch, users would need to complete some steps outside the Digital Marketplace. This meant we needed to write guides to make sure buyers knew how to do the right things at the right time.
User needs first
We talked to users to make sure we understood when people might need guidance to help them.
We found that users needed to know about:
- how suppliers have been evaluated
- early market engagement
- writing requirements
- setting evaluation criteria
- answering supplier questions
- buying Digital Marketplace services fairly
- shortlisting suppliers
- ways they can assess Digital Outcomes and Specialists suppliers
- evaluating suppliers
- scoring suppliers
- keeping audit trails
- awarding a contract
- managing a contract
- how the terms and conditions work
- buying Digital Outcomes and Specialists services
- hiring user research labs
Writing content as a team
To make sure the guides would be useful, the Digital Marketplace content team worked with subject matter experts at the Crown Commercial Service (CCS), the Government Legal Department and a content editor from outside the Digital Marketplace team. We:
- Established the user needs of each guide.
- Decided what content needed to go into each guide.
- ‘Pair wrote’ the guides to make sure they were accurate and clear.
- Gave deadlines for feedback from CCS experts and lawyers.
- Reviewed each guide and incorporated edits.
- Sent each guide for a final content review outside the Digital Marketplace team.
- Built and published all the guides on GOV.UK.
- Created a collection page so all Digital Marketplace guides are in one place.
Tell us what you think
Email enquiries@digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk to let us know if you think anything’s unclear, inaccurate or missing in the guides. We’ll edit them based on your feedback.
If you’re buying or selling services on the Digital Marketplace, let us know if there’s any more information you’d like us to provide.
4 comments
Comment by Angela Prentner-Smith posted on
Hi - I tried to email the address on this page, but it was bounced back!
Comment by Amy McNichol posted on
Hi Angela,
Is this working for you now?
Amy
Comment by John Farrer posted on
I have download the list of suppliers, the Excel spreadsheet but how do I find out details on the services they provide?
Comment by Tariq Rashid posted on
Is there any way that the process described above can be made proportionate to the value of the thing being bought
For example the cost of 20 smartphones is about £135x20 = £2700 ... (pricing from a recent purchase).
But the costs of the process are hugely greater.
Any suggestions?