Exporting is GREAT: from a prototype to a national campaign for UKTI
So over the last few days you may have seen the launch of the new Exporting is GREAT campaign from UKTI.
Here at dxw we’ve been working with UKTI to build the new service exportingisgreat.gov.uk allowing users to find and explore the huge range of exporting opportunities out there for British companies.
This project actually started well before the build of the new service. A few months ago we were asked to look at the Discovery phase that the Business Opportunities team had conducted, to see how they could improve the existing long running service.
After having a quick look at the report the UKTI and dxw teams realised that they needed something more concrete to explore the findings of the research. With that we decided together that we would build a quick prototype that we could test with users to identify a direction for the service.
At dxw we think it’s important to prototyping quickly, so our front-end developers settled on using hood.ie, a useful tool that allows you to abstract away a backend for your prototype app and allow you to test a simple front-end with users. This meant that we could produce a fast, functional and good looking app and only spend the bare minimum thinking about how to put the backend architecture in place.
From this we could usability test a simple prototype service. With some real feedback in the bag we had a few recommendations for how to build a business opportunities service that could really provide value for those looking to export.
After this piece of work, UKTI asked us to get involved with building a site and digital service for their upcoming Exporting is GREAT campaign.
The service built upon the findings of our testing, giving British businesses a place online to find opportunities to export. We built the service in a series of development sprints, with the UKTI product owners prioritising the work so we’d start with what users value most. Throughout development, we could refer back to the data from real users we had gathered at the prototyping stage.
As with all of our work, we followed agile principles. We worked closely with UKTI stakeholders, including them in our sprint planning sessions, daily stand-ups and our retrospectives so that everyone, including the UKTI team, could talk through how to improve for the next sprint.
The service has now launched, but we’re only just getting started. We’ll be doing more development sprints to add even more features before Christmas, making it a more useful, robust and rich tool to help businesses grow.