Design Matters Blog Feed

One design system is better than 2

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 16:05:14 GMT

Frankie and Ananda explain why the NHS design system is not just for public-facing services, with an overview of recent changes to meet the needs of staff-facing services. There’s also more change coming, and you can get involved too.

The NHS design system was set up to meet the needs of teams building public services. We are often asked whether there should be a separate NHS design system for digital services used by staff. It’s an understandable question. Staff services can have different needs and might be a lot more complex.

Co-creating the digital front door to the NHS

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 08:15:12 GMT

The NHS App enables millions of people to access essential healthcare services, but some struggle to use it. Tanja Galloway, Lisa Collins and Simon Davis explore the challenges and share practical insights for making user research inclusive and accessible so no one is left behind.

The NHS App enables millions of people to access essential healthcare services. As part of the government’s 10 Year Health Plan, by 2028 the NHS App will become a full digital front door to the NHS. Yet for many, this digital future feels out of reach.

Some risk being left behind due to barriers that prevent them from accessing, or confidently using, the NHS App.

Making the NHS design system fit for the future

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 09:43:21 GMT

Tero Väänänen explains why the NHS design system exists and why it plays an important role in fulfilling the 10-year health plan. He also describes recent changes to the frontend code behind the design system, and why it is important for teams to adopt them now.

The NHS is moving from analogue to digital, and the NHS design system plays a critical role in making sure that shift results in accessible and usable digital products.

It does this by giving teams across the system a shared set of tools and standards, which reduce the effort needed to deliver digital products and services.

Failure isn’t the end – it’s where better services begin

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 12:50:12 GMT

Liz Glidewell explains why failing a GDS service assessment is a normal part of the improvement process – and how she supported the Be Part of Research team through multiple assessments to build a better, more accessible service for their users.

Government and NHS services have a duty to work for everyone, including those with low digital confidence and non-digital users. This is why services need to pass a GDS service assessment.

It’s not unusual for a service to fail its first assessment. But what happens next?

Why we are reinvesting in the NHS prototype kit

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 13:38:08 GMT

Frankie and Mike explain why we revived the NHS prototype kit, the benefits of prototyping in code and how digital teams in the NHS can get started using it.

The NHS prototype kit was first developed in 2019 to make it easier for digital teams to rapidly design and test new digital services. It was inspired by the GOV.UK Prototype Kit and builds on the legacy of open-source public-sector design tools in the UK.

Mitigating the risks of domestic abuse

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Wed, 21 May 2025 09:38:33 GMT

Emma Swift and Zuzanna Lito explain how we've updated the NHS service standard to make sure teams building online services are more aware and responsive to the risks of domestic abuse and coercive control.

The NHS service standard helps teams build and run digital services that meet users’ needs. It's designed to improve patients’ care and experience when engaging with the NHS online.

The service standard has recently undergone some small but significant updates. The new updates are designed to make sure that teams building online services are more aware of and responsive to the risks of domestic abuse and coercive control.

Making sure the NHS App works for everyone

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Wed, 14 May 2025 12:31:18 GMT

Simon Davis explains how the NHS App team puts users at the heart of digital delivery design by considering accessibility needs at every stage of the user research process.

As the lead user researcher for the NHS App, my role is to ensure users remain at the centre of everything we do. I work with a talented team of researchers across different departments, engaging with both the public and frontline NHS staff to understand their experiences with our services.

Behind the scenes publishing the new NHS website homepage

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 08:37:11 GMT

Alice Eastwood and Molly Lee explain how

As healthcare becomes increasingly digital, the role of the NHS website (www.nhs.uk) has never been more crucial. With 50 million visits each month, it’s the UK’s most trusted health platform.

How we scaled up user research in the NHS App at speed

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 14:06:11 GMT

Tanja Galloway talks about the work of the NHS App user research team – and the challenges of supporting a fast-moving, inclusive national service.

The NHS App recently achieved a significant milestone: most adults in England (34 million people) have now registered to use it.

We had to follow the data, not our users

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 13:08:47 GMT

Chiara Garattini and Kate Burn explain how working in our Data and Analytics sub-directorate has challenged the assumptions of our user-centred design team.

A big part of early work on projects typically involves helping our colleagues to focus a bit less on the characteristics of their products and the requirements of their internal processes, and to instead start by involving users to understand their needs.

Therefore, it's been interesting to work on projects that required our team to get deep into the weeds of the process in order to, ultimately, put the focus back on users.

What is inclusive design and why is it important?

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Fri, 16 May 2025 06:32:30 GMT

Samuel Martin and Ellen Doyle have been leading the development of principles to help teams at NHS England design more inclusively.

‘Inclusive design’ and 'accessibility' are often used interchangeably, but they are different things.

How do you put a digital service on paper?

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Fern Williams) — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 13:25:54 GMT

User researcher Fern Williams describes how we created a new paper patient registration form to complement the online ‘Register with a GP surgery’ service, allowing everyone to have a consistent user experience and leaving no one digitally excluded.

One of the guiding principles of the ‘Register with a GP surgery’ service is to be accessible and inclusive to all. Though there is a shift towards digital to make registering with a GP surgery easier and more convenient for both patients and practice staff, we haven’t forgotten the importance of developing a paper registration form for those who prefer not to or can’t use a digital service.

Improving the Data Access Request Service

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Jessamine Marie) — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 13:45:18 GMT

Senior content designer Jessamine Marie explains how her team used user-centred design principles to put people at the heart of redesigning our Data Access Request Service.

Clinicians, researchers and commissioners can apply to access healthcare data through the Data Access Request Service (DARS). The main objective of any DARS service user is to request data quickly and easily.

Why accessible design is good design

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Josh Healey) — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 11:35:03 GMT

Josh Healey, User-Centred Design Lead for the Register with a GP surgery service, explains how redesigning the first page of the service made it more accessible for everyone – and how they created a framework to measure impact.

General practitioners (GPs) play an important role in our communities. GPs treat common medical conditions, refer patients to hospitals and act as the first place many go to for health and wellbeing advice. This is why it is so important that everyone can register with and see a GP when they need to.

Using meningitis pictures and video on 111 online

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Paul Pod) — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 16:00:16 GMT

Paul Pod, Interaction Designer in the NHS 111 online team, explains how they have improved information about meningitis symptoms by adding multimedia content to triage questions.

When people use NHS 111 online, they usually have an urgent medical problem and they want to know what to do and where to go to get it sorted as quickly as possible. As designers, we spend all our time developing our understanding of users and thinking about how to make our service as accessible as possible.

Why we've put sustainability into the NHS digital design principles

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 09:07:59 GMT

Tero Väänänen, Head of Design in NHS England’s Transformation directorate, explains the new NHS digital design principle focused on sustainability.

The NHS has set an ambitious goal of achieving ‘net zero‘ carbon emissions by 2040 for the emissions we control directly. This is not only for environmental reasons. As the Greener NHS programme clearly states, climate change is a health risk as well as an environmental risk.

Using content types to transform the NHS website

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Fri, 16 May 2025 06:28:00 GMT

How do you make sure all content is user-centred, accessible, safe and accurate when your product is one of the largest and most used health websites in the world? Mark Robinson, Senior Content Designer, explains our approach.

Things have changed a lot since the NHS website first launched in 2007. The way we consume content has changed considerably, with new technologies like smartphones, apps and smart assistants.

Helping people think straight about alcohol

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Fri, 16 May 2025 06:27:27 GMT

David Evans, content designer for the Register with a GP surgery service, says it’s difficult to get accurate answers about people’s smoking and alcohol consumption – and explains what the team is doing to improve the way people assess their intake.

The Register with a GP surgery service asks patients a variety of questions about themselves as part of the standard registration process, giving practice staff valuable health information from day 1. To enable better care, users are asked lifestyle questions, including those relating to their alcohol intake and smoking habits.

Don’t reinvent the wheel: What we’ve learnt from 2 years of research operations

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Claire Holt) — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 08:24:05 GMT

How do you enable researchers to do their best work? Claire Holt, founder of the research operations team at NHS Digital, shares her experience of building a successful service that has now broadened its remit to supporting the whole user-centred design team.

When we set up the research operations function in spring 2020, we were given a clear mandate to alleviate pressure from the NHS Digital user research community and enable them to do their best work at a critical time for the health system and the country.

COVID-19 testing: Tackling eligibility

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Caroline Finucane) — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 10:26:35 GMT

Caroline Finucane, Lead Content Manager in the COVID-19 testing programme, explains her team’s challenges when ensuring only eligible users could order a free COVID-19 test.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, free coronavirus tests were only for key workers so they could continue their critical work. But eligibility for tests would soon change as infection rates started to spike.

We were ready for the first surge, which came in October 2020. The government swiftly kickstarted the expansion of testing with rapid lateral flow tests. We wanted everyone to ‘Get a free NHS COVID-19 test’.

Products deliver outputs, services deliver outcomes

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Fri, 16 May 2025 06:38:46 GMT

Tero Väänänen, Head of Design at NHS Digital, explains why we must shift our focus from outputs to outcomes so the public can truly get what it needs from the NHS.

Recently, my wife and I tested positive for COVID-19. My wife, being asthmatic, was concerned whether she had enough of her medication to last for the (then) 10-day isolation, and ordered a new repeat prescription using the NHS App.

Her nominated pharmacy let her know her medication was ready for collection, but when we explained we were self-isolating and unable to pick it up, they could not offer a delivery.

Why creating an online service is more than just digitising a form

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Kerrie Hughes) — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 13:54:44 GMT

Kerrie Hughes, Lead Service Designer for the new ‘Register with a GP Surgery’ service, says registration is more than just paperwork – it’s about giving more people access to healthcare and helping GP practices to provide great care.

Good services don’t happen by accident. They are the result of a deep understanding of the people that will use the service. They are carefully crafted to help those people do what they want to do.

Overcoming barriers to GP registration

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Tamara Farrar) — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 16:18:26 GMT

Everyone should be able to register with a GP surgery. Senior User Researcher Tamara Farrar worked with seldom heard groups to ensure their needs were considered when designing a new registration service.

Anyone in England can register with a GP surgery. It’s free. You do not need proof of address. You do not need to give details of your immigration status and it’s not necessary to have an NHS number to hand.

Running a design sprint to make things easier for screening staff

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Fri, 16 May 2025 06:37:11 GMT

How do you tackle a big design challenge in a short span of time? Samantha Saw, Senior Service Designer, and Simon Davis, Senior User Researcher, explain how their team went from a handful of high-level ideas to a clickable prototype for the breast screening programme in just 10 days.

Each year, millions of screening appointments are attended across England and thousands of lives are estimated to be saved thanks to early detection and treatment.

A new standard for creating health content

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Fri, 16 May 2025 06:37:43 GMT

Sara Wilcox, senior content designer and Joe Freeman, social and digital media lead, both with NHS.UK, introduce the new ‘Standard for creating health content’ and explain work with partners, including YouTube, to put it into practice.

When content is clear, accurate, evidence-based, up to date and easy to use, it helps people self care or know when and where to get the help and care they need. Good content can save lives.

Making booking a vaccine more inclusive

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Laura Hajba) — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 11:10:03 GMT

The team developing the COVID-19 vaccine booking service changed questions about gender to improve the service for transgender and non-binary people, says Senior Content Designer Laura Hajba.

As we developed the COVID-19 national booking service in Autumn 2020, we became aware that a question that asked users for their gender might be a barrier for some people wanting to book a vaccine.

Trying to be less "demanding on the brain"

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Tosin Balogun) — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 11:47:21 GMT

Tosin Balogun, Associate Interaction Designer for the NHS website, looks at how we design and how we try to make a difference.

It is pretty obvious to say that design changes people’s lives. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t spend so much of our time trying to get it right.

But the reality beneath that unoriginal claim struck home for me recently as I worked on a report tool, part of the replacement system for national cervical screening.

It’s not the most dramatic or heart-rending example of our impact – but is perhaps no less meaningful for that. It’s a small piece of work that speaks to the everyday reality we try to grapple with as interaction designers in the NHS.

How a 20-year-old standard is still relevant today

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Fri, 16 May 2025 06:34:59 GMT

It was born 8 years before the iPhone and a year before Google got into the advertising business, but Tero Väänänen says 'BS EN ISO 9241-210' remains a guiding star for human-centred design.

If you’re looking for a best-practice standard on how best solve problems and deliver outcomes to your users, you could do worse than follow the now more than 20-year-old international standard for ‘human-centred design for interactive systems’, BS EN ISO 9241-210:2019.

What is your problem?

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Fri, 16 May 2025 06:34:32 GMT

Tero Väänänen, Head of Design at NHS Digital, considers the Cheshire Cat’s wise words to Alice and explains why it is important to define the problems we are addressing before trying to solve them.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

“–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

-'Alice in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll

How NHS Digital is developing user-centred design maturity

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Fri, 16 May 2025 08:18:50 GMT

Rochelle Gold, Head of User Research at NHS Digital, describes how our user-centred design (UCD) maturity model helps teams to achieve outcomes and manage risk.

Everyone that works in the NHS, whatever their role, is working towards one common goal – to provide the best care to patients and keep people well.

User-centred design enables us to deliver on that intent and our maturity model supports teams to develop their user-centred design capability.

Creating content that saves lives

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Rich Kelly) — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 10:37:26 GMT

Rich Kelly from the NHS website’s multimedia team explains how they provide video that is accessible, relatable and sometimes life-saving for their audiences.

The NHS is available to all so it's really crucial that the content on the NHS website must be available to all.

It is the UK’s biggest health website with more than 50 million visits every month and the NHS videos on the website and You Tube Channel attracted over 28 million views in 2020. This indicates just how vital the video content is to our audience who need to absorb important information quickly and easily.

Building a testing service that works for everyone

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Kate Every) — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 13:52:43 GMT

Kate Every, Service Designer for the NHS Test and Trace programme, looks at how using data and research helped the team meet the challenge of ensuring anyone within the UK population could carry out a lateral flow test for COVID-19.

COVID-19 has impacted every one of us. Our challenge was to build and iterate a nationwide testing service that had to work for people from all walks of life, who were testing for very different reasons.

Making content about skin symptoms more inclusive

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Rhiannon Smith) — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 15:19:46 GMT

Rhiannon Smith, Content Designer for NHS.UK, explains how the NHS website team are making content about skin symptoms more inclusive.

NHS Digital design principles say: “Be inclusive: NHS services are for everyone. Make sure people with different physical, mental health, social, cultural or learning needs can use your design.”

However, on the NHS website, skin symptoms are mostly described in terms of how they appear on white skin. There are very few examples of what skin problems and conditions look like on various skin tones.

COVID-19 testing: 5 things I’ve learnt as content lead

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Caroline Finucane) — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 10:27:27 GMT

Caroline Finucane, who leads the content team for the COVID-19 testing service, shares some principles that will be useful for anyone working on a fast-paced, complex government project.

Over the last 16 months of managing the digital content for the COVID-19 testing programme I have learnt much about how complex, high-priority UK-wide projects are run.

I’m sharing what I’ve taken away as these principles will be helpful for anyone working on a UK-wide government digital service, even if COVID-19 has brought unprecedented challenges.

It takes a village to design a service

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Fri, 16 May 2025 08:15:40 GMT

Tero Väänänen, Head of Design at NHS Digital, talks about how important it is to design your organisation before you start designing services.

The demand for service designers has grown rapidly in recent years, while the understanding of what service design is, has not. For many organisations, service design is simply ‘user experience’ with a new name.

Service design, and user-centred design, are mutually supportive ways of working to approach problems, to achieve the best possible outcomes.

For effective service design, organisations must understand the conditions required and be prepared to make changes.

Do we need to drop the 'user'?

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 11:47:48 GMT

NHS Digital’s Head of User Research, Rochelle Gold, asks the question – is it time to drop the ‘user’ from user research?

As the Head of User Research, I often have conversations with people about what role user research plays in delivering great services. They can have very different levels of understanding of user research. Some really understand it, others have heard of it but don’t know what it is and some people have never heard of it and make incorrect assumptions.

Making it as easy as possible to take a test

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Matthew Lund) — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 07:22:03 GMT

Matthew Lund, who heads up the User Research team that works across the online COVID-19 Testing service, talks about the challenges of ensuring the needs of users remain at the forefront of a vital, fast-moving and high-profile programme.

The COVID-19 testing programme is by far the biggest research project I’ve ever worked on – and probably ever will.

How do users get forgotten?

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Fri, 16 May 2025 08:13:50 GMT

Simon Davis, a senior user researcher who works across our screening programmes, explains how important it is to get stakeholders involved in designing services that truly meet peoples’ needs.

As part of the Digital Transformation of Screening Programme we are currently replacing outdated systems to help ensure breast and cervical screening services run as smoothly as possible.

Meeting user needs in the face of winter

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Brie Whyatt) — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 13:55:54 GMT

Brie Whyatt, Interaction Design Graduate, explains how the NHS App team improved the appointment booking process in the app by creating user stories, using the NHS digital service manual and doing usability tests to help patients and GP surgeries during this exceptionally challenging winter.

Many GP surgeries across the country offer patients the ability to book their appointments in the NHS App. Online appointment booking enables patients to access primary care digitally, which eases pressure on GP surgery staff, who are facing the extreme clinical challenges of the coronavirus pandemic during the already difficult winter months.

Joining forces to champion user-centred design

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Matt Edgar, Victoria Betton and Simon Dixon) — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 12:47:09 GMT

Matt Edgar, from NHS Digital, Victoria Betton, from Mindwave Ventures, and Simon Dixon, from NHSX, introduce a new industry working group set up to bring the NHS and tech sector together to advance the cause of user-centred design in health and care.

Right across the NHS and the tech sector there’s a growing movement of people with a passion for understanding patient and clinicians needs, and involving them in the design of services.

How to place users at the heart of multimedia storytelling

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Adriano Gazza) — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 08:15:11 GMT

Adriano Gazza, Multimedia team lead for the NHS website, explains how the principles of user-centred design can help create engaging video, animation and infographic content for the public that is clinically accurate.

It was only when I came to NHS Digital that I was exposed to the concept of user-centred design.

One of the frequent challenges in my previous creative roles was explaining why we needed to bear in mind specific considerations for the audience that a commissioner had not always recognised.

Often, clients submitted a request for a video without a strategic purpose. We would rely on brand guidelines where they existed, but this still didn’t answer the central question of why we should create things a certain way. This all started to change when I began to learn the principles of user-centred design.

Going remote: How we adapted our accessibility research

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Mitchell Wakefield) — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 08:22:10 GMT

As we enter another national coronavirus lockdown, Mitchell Wakefield, one of our user researchers for NHS login, reflects on what he learned doing remote research with blind and low-vision users during the first lockdown and shares his tips on how to get it right.

Going fully remote since the outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19) has been a challenging transition for many technology-focused research teams, and it certainly has been no exception for the user research community at NHS Digital. But with unforeseen challenges come opportunities to adapt and seek different methods and techniques.

Design is the strategy

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (NHS Digital) — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 16:37:31 GMT

Tero Väänänen, Head of Design at NHS Digital, explains why user-centred design is strategic.

In his book Good strategy/Bad strategy, Professor Richard Rumelt describes good strategy as having “coherence, coordinating actions, policies, and resources so as to accomplish an important end.”

He goes on to describe how many organisations don’t have this, but instead have “multiple goals and initiatives that symbolise progress”.

10 ways the NHS digital service manual can help you

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Adrian Smith) — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 11:56:46 GMT

If you want to build easy-to-use digital health services that put people first, Adrian Smith explains why the NHS digital service manual is a great place to start.

This blog post will take just 5 minutes of your time, but it could well save you hours of unnecessary work (and head-scratching).

NHS App: Conducting user research in lockdown

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Brigit O’Sullivan) — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 13:02:27 GMT

Conducting user research remotely is challenging but can yield unexpected benefits. Brigit O’Sullivan, User Researcher at NHS Digital, describes what she learned working as a user researcher for the NHS App during lockdown.

I joined the NHS App team on 23 March 2020, the day the UK entered full lockdown. This was my fourth and final placement as a user research graduate trainee and I was looking forward to taking on new challenges and gaining independence as a user researcher. I was not, however, expecting to do my entire placement from my bedroom.

In a crisis, double down on user needs

enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk (Matt Edgar) — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 15:13:29 GMT

Matt Edgar, Associate Director of Design and User Research at NHS Digital, explains why user centred design is vital in a pandemic – not a ‘nice to have’ – in the first NHS Digital Design Matters blog post.

Responding to the coronavirus pandemic has been one of the biggest challenges the NHS has had to face since its inception in 1948.

NHS Digital has been at the forefront of the drive to improve services through data and technology and the pandemic has accelerated those changes faster than we ever expected.