Evaluating success

It is essential to understand whether or not your service is achieving its aims. You should regularly check in with your users to evaluate if your online service delivery is working for them, especially after any updates in the digital tools you are using. Good practice is to see service design and review as an ongoing process.

Top three tips

• Regularly review the analytics
• Be prepared to stop if it isn’t working
• Hear what your users and team are saying

One big advantage of a digital service is that you can get real time data about how the service is being used. This is usually provided as part of the tools that you use, for example the number of people who joined a video call.

Equally important is hearing from your users, and your team, about their experience of using the service. You can collect this through conversation, surveys, user testing and ad hoc feedback.

You should make a plan for what information you are going to collect, how often, and who will review it.

A good approach can be to set time-bound periods, for example two weeks. This lets your team and users try out a new piece of tech or approach and give honest feedback about the experience. You can then make a decision about whether to continue or change direction.

If the feedback is positive you might decide to invest more money or time in developing the service further.

If you are hearing more negative comments, or seeing limited usage you might need to offering more support to staff, be clearer about service remit for your users, or it could mean finding a different tool or approach all together.

SCVO and Third Sector Lab ran a DigiShift call in November 2020 focused on “The how and why of evaluating digital services and tools“. In this clip, Nissa Ramsey, founder of Think Tech Social, discusses core principles to think through.