1.2. A future vision

Throughout the Alpha stage, you need to explore a bold future vision for the end-to-end service.

1.2.1. Think beyond 20 weeks

To bring a vision together, you need to think beyond the timebox of just twenty weeks, considering how the user needs of your service could be best met when free of constraints.

We recommend starting by asking the following questions:

• what if multiple agencies or tiers of government could work together?
• what changes if information about a user is only stored in one place?
• how can modern technology and design patterns make things easier for users?
• which steps could be automated to reduce duplication?
• where could users update details themselves?

1.2.2. Prototype and test it

Once you have a good idea of the vision, you need to find out if it’s worth doing.

The best way to do this is by prototyping. By quickly building prototypes and testing them with users, you can validate the vision and continue to iterate it.

You can throw away your prototypes afterwards. Not everything you try will work. You will learn as much from the ideas that don’t work as from the ones that do.