Title:  Agile, design led approach to online service development

Authors: Howroyd C, Baraitser P, Courtenay M, Parry G, Holdsworth G.

Background
Sexual health services lead innovative thinking in the NHS with integrated service provision, online access and testing in non-traditional venues. Agile design-led thinking creates services that are intuitive, easy to use and valued by users (both staff and patients).   It offers an alternative to pre-specifying a whole system (waterfall approach) frequently associated with unpredicted problems, identified late and requiring costly fixes. 

Methods
SH:24 uses an agile, design-led approach to service development delivering value by:
•	Focusing on user need (understanding and empathising rather than assuming)
•	Reducing cost (failing quickly, cheaply) 
•	Reducing risk (avoiding unnecessary, costly development)
•	Creating tangible, visual, measurable outputs early (promoting understanding, collaboration and buy-in). 
•	Our agile, design-led approach included extensive user involvement; building the minimum from cycles of build, test, learn; responding to feedback, continuously improving and optimising.
Results
This presentation/poster will provide three examples describing the contribution of agile to development of:
1)	Self-sampling kit instructions which delivered 76-84% return rate
2)	User friendly information pages on contraception – receive 2000 hits daily
3)	Online chlamydia treatment – 95% of chlamydia positive users choose to treat through the online service.
We will demonstrate the added value of design and agile for these examples.
Discussion
An agile design led approach is championed by Government Digital Services - it involves re-framing issues as opportunities and rapidly iterating thinking by building and testing user centred prototypes - this approach minimises cost and risk whilst improving user experience - an approach that could add value in NHS services.

Agile, design-led approach to online service development

The Joint Annual Conference of the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV & the Society for the Study of Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Ireland