The Challenge

Case management screens need to replace an existing back office system for the planning inspectorate. The new web based system will allow case workers and Inspectors to manage their work from anywhere.  The pilot launched with Barnet Council in September 2024.

My core responsibilities:
I was responsible for designing concepts for the case management screens, mapping journeys, observing user testing and building HTML prototypes.

The Approach: 

Collaboration: Working with the service designers, user researchers and SMEs to make the solution as simple as possible. The core of the work is based around the main case details screen.

The initial case management screen is the details screen which contains all the case information and allows an Inspector to work their way through the case. From the initial review to issuing decisions. It contains the applicants details, the appellants details, the local planning authority and the status of the case. These are grouped into relevant sections and organised into a logical order. In this instance the order determined by user research, and interviewing participants who already use the existing system.

With all government projects the design must adhere to the Gov.uk design system. This ensures it is consistant and accessible to all.

In this example the page uses an accordion component to show and hide sections of the related content on a page. This ensures the content is scanned quickly which allows inspectors to see what parts are complete, incomplete or missing.

After that, the next stage was to identify and map journeys that an inspector takes to complete a case. Below outlines the journeys for reviewing documentation, local planning authority questionnaires and statements, comments from interested parties, an appellants final comments and planning obligations (s106).

Mapping these journeys made it easier to identify similarities where screens are consistant. This is helpful for developers because they can re-use page elements, layouts and logic to build the system faster.

Each of these journeys are in the prototype. Link to Prototype