Version 3
User research - why metrics are needed
A key theme in user research and stakeholder engagement is that WGLL needs to have ‘teeth’ - it should explicitly link to things that NHS organisations need to do in order to deliver on local and national priorities and policies. These are measured in a variety of ways - for example, digital maturity assessments, DSPT toolkits for cyber and so on.
To ensure WGLL remains relevant and up-to-date, the team needed to make sure each success measure is actually measured. And, to make it easier for users, they needed to provide a direct link to the ways this is done - potentially up to 3 different ways.
The challenge for content design
The breakdown of content into modules in the first sprint identified that metrics might repeat across success measures. So the team created:
- a custom ACF taxonomy with custom ACF field group for metrics
- a plugin that automatically creates an NHS-styled table for metrics, called by a shortcode block:
[nhs_metrics_table]
The team then created:
The working practice covers the process for adding metrics and blueprint references to WGLL success measure pages - the sub-pages beneath each of the seven pillars - within the WordPress admin interface.
Benefits of this approach
Using a taxonomy and field group with a custom plugin has three key benefits:
- metrics can be reused, meaning they are easier to maintain than reviewing pages separately
- it keeps WGLL v3 platform-agnostic, meaning the relationships are ‘live’ and can be exported
- it saves time taken to create separate tables on each success measure page (and should improve consistency)
This significantly reduced repetitive tasks like styling tables, reducing the need for checks and improving consistency.