Task list

[govuk-design-system]

Use this issue to discuss this pattern in the GOV.UK Design System.

[abbott567]

Thought I'd just weigh in with a tweak we have had to implement for this pattern.

We are currently using it in a case working system and we had an issue where if one agent went in and chose some options that meant the task was not complete, to other agents it looked like no work had been done at all.

So, we needed a way to differentiate between a section that had not been looked at and a section that could not be completed. So we have added a grey 'not complete' badge to say 'yes, i've looked at it, but it's missing some information' vs 'nobody has looked at this section at all'.

[peteblakemore]

Interesting to see you've also removed the numbers from the side of each task, @abbott567 . On the service I'm working on we will also use a task list, but the tasks needn't be completed in order, so this approach would work well for us.

[kubabartwicki]

We just finished a mission in which we worked on a part of Digital Marketplace where users can search for cloud hosting, software and support. We redesigned an existing task list and put it at the start of the service: https://www.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/buyers/direct-award/g-cloud/start

---

Things we knew before

• Users aren't aware of how the service works which results in non compliant behaviour
• Some use the service twice a week, some will only ever use it once
• Tasks in the service include complex interactions, such as searching and filtering
• Tasks need to be completed in order

Things we learned

Put a static version of task list at the start of the service

We had a hypothesis that task list would be a great way to explain how to use our service. To test, we replaced our old start page which had a search bar on it, with a task list.

This performed really well: it made the process transparent and cleared up a few confusions. We previously tried doing this with a start page pattern, but users found it annoying and a barrier to search.

Our static task list has no badges and is treated as static content rather than something users can interact with.

Put guidance alongside tasks

We modelled our task list around the idea that each step has a single task associated with it and some guidance. This is different to the task list in GOV.UK Elements, which assumes that each step consists of a bunch of tasks.

Doing it this way ensures that users can access guidance at all times but they don’t to tell us they read it each time they use it.

Use badges

“Completed” and “Can’t start yet” worked really well. They helped users realise what to do next and a few times made them realise that the page they are looking at is interactive and changes as they walk throughout the process.

It’s not always obvious what the steps are

The hardest part of this work was getting the steps right – we tested 5 different iterations of the task list before we ended up with the 5 steps we have now.

The most interesting one here is step 3, which refers to a lengthy offline process which a lot of our users currently get wrong. Returning users found it annoying to have to confirm "I've done this" each time, so we had to tweak the way the step is explained and acted upon.

We went with “Confirm you have read and understood how to assess services”. This means that the step is about reading our guidance about a process, rather than completing the process, which can take weeks and has very blurry edges as to where it ends and begins.

[PeteWilliams]

Thought I'd log a couple issues we've seen In the Civil Money Claims project. The first of which has had quite serious consequences for the user involved, and led to a complaint.

'Completed' marker misleading A defendant in the live service was responding to a claim saying that they owed some money. They completed the required task in order to defend their claim, then were returned to the task list where that task was marked ‘completed’. The user thought this meant they’d filed their response, so they didn’t continue to the ‘Check and submit your response’ task. As a result they were issued with a CCJ for not responding. This user was partially sighted and using a screen reader, but we think that may be a red herring, as apparently this has come up in testing with sighted users too.

Users not completing all sections Over 20% of users in our live service got the error telling them to complete all tasks before continuing. We've seen a few causes of this in testing:

• Some users skip anything in 'Before you start'
• If a task is phrased as a question, and the user's answer is 'no', some will think they don't need to fill it in
• When the task list is dynamic - ie new tasks appear when you select certain things in other journeys - users often don’t see the new task and just skip it, especially if it was at the end of a section
• Some users simply do not realise that they have to complete all the tasks before they can continue

Any thoughts on how to resolve these issues would be much appreciated. My current thinking is to try adding 'You must complete all tasks before continuing' to the top, which may help both issues if people actually read it.

[kr8n3r]

Has anyone tried/tested by moving the tag to the left, below the task description?

[charge-valtech]

Working on the "Apply for a Blue Badge" service.

We started testing with this in our prototype from last week. Overall, it's tested really well - it helps users realise how far along the application they are, and prepares them for what is coming up. We take users to the task list for the first time after they complete the "Check eligibility" section. 5 out of 5 users understood this on first land, they see the "Completed" tag and understand what the next section is that they need to complete.

One issue we did see though, was once a few tasks had been completed in the list, it becomes more difficult to see the sections that are incomplete. The page becomes more difficult to scan.

We are toying with the idea of a subtle "Not started" tag which is a light blue or something.

All users spotted and understood that they needed to hit "Submit and pay" at the end of the list for the application to be submitted.

[anna-kayPA]

We use the tasklist in the probate service.

User needs

• Know where I am and what is coming up
• Take breaks if required

Differences between ours and the beta tasklist

including why and how we've tackled it

Users can't complete items in any order. They can't for example pay before they've filled in the application.

• we use a start button per section rather than a text link. Users understand green buttons as it provides clear guidance of what to do next. If they return to the service mid task, the button says "continue"
• we use the lozenge "can't start yet" (replicated from the digital marketplace design by @kubabartwicki) so users know that they can't skip ahead - they can't skip ahead because we use information from earlier questions to decide what to ask in later sections.

Our service is in public beta and we have had a tasklist in our service for over a year.

Users will have been screened and created an account before they land on the tasklist.

Ongoing challenges

For some users, there is a step in the process where they need to wait for someone else's response before being able to proceed to the next task. When this happens, we do not show the green button. Instead we include content below that section header informing the user that they can't proceed yet. We believe this causes users confusion until they read the content. We are working on a way to help users easily understand that they need to pause for now.

[kubabartwicki]

@PeteWilliams

That's a really interesting issue – I wonder if it's to do with users recognition of the steps as things they need to do? That's what we struggled with the most on Digital Marketplace (https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-design-system-backlog/issues/72#issuecomment-405944730)... eg maybe if "Submit" was more about "Submit response" and "Respond to claim" about "Prepare response" it could be more effective and clearer to users what the badges mean and refer to? 🤔

[helenadt]

@PeteWilliams it seems like there may have been a number of things at work there. I have not used this pattern so can only add some thoughts.

I wonder if it is worth trying to reintroducing the green button for the final task? I.e. for 'Check and submit a response'. Might make it clearer how you finish. Has anyone tried this?

It also feels like there might be something about the first set of tasks being 'Before you start'. By being at the task list am I not already started?

[sunilkathare]

We are using the task list pattern to design an online version of the C110A application, which is 22 pages long, where local authorities can apply for a care, supervision or emergency protection order.

Local authority solicitor or legal assistant can use this application to start the process to place a child at risk of harm under the care of the local authority.

Why we are using this pattern?

• Users can see the whole form, not just the parts they’ve answered

During user research we found users liked to see all the sections in the application in the form. One question per page pattern, shows just the first few questions. You must answer these before moving to the next section. It can be reassuring to know all the questions. So, you know what to do. It helps to know what information you need to gather if you know that questions.

• Users can answer questions in any order

If you can’t yet answer question 3 – maybe you are still gathering information – you can still answer question 8. One question per page pattern online forms progress linearly – you must answer one question before seeing the next. With the task list pattern you can answer question in any order.

• Save and restart applications

With the task list pattern you can add information as and when you get it. For example, in international cases, you have to wait till you get important information. As it is not linear, you don’t have to enter all information in one go.

• Save time

Users don’t need to go through all the questions in the application form and can skip entire sections like the international section. Users don’t need to waste time saying no to questions that they don’t need to answer and fill only sections they need to. Fewer pages to load and fewer buttons to click means that they end up saving time!

[quis]

We’re trying this variation of the task list pattern on GOV.UK Notify:

There’s some more detail in this pull request: https://github.com/alphagov/notifications-admin/pull/2250

I’ll update this comment once it’s been live for at least a month and we can measure how effective it’s been.

[charge-valtech]

We noticed screen reader users getting a bit frustrated by having to tab through every section each time they came back to the task list.

I've prototyped this solution to see if it helps things. A hidden link similar to the "Skip to main content" that takes the focus to the first incomplete link on the page.

Screen recording of it in action

[timpaul]

Great idea @charge-valtech ! If you try it out in research let us know how it performs.

[joelanman]

@sunilkathare thanks for sharing that! Do you have any findings from user research? Are you finding any of the same problems as some other teams? For example users not realising which sections they have to complete

[sunilkathare]

@joelanman We have tested the task list pattern with 7 users in sprints 1-3

• 12 users in sprints 4-7 and all have completed the form without any problems. We will be doing more testing in private beta. I'll post the user research findings. Here is link to some of the things they are saying, https://realtimeboard.com/app/board/o9J_kzO16Xk=/

It is really working well for us! We have mostly made changes to the content, after user testing. We have had to change the order of questions, add and remove questions based on the user feedback. We are also using check your answers pattern in the end. Think, it really helps to have the check your answers as the last item on the task list. Users can review all there answers before submitting the application.

Cheers, Sunil

On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 4:02 PM Joe Lanman notifications@github.com wrote:

@sunilkathare https://github.com/sunilkathare thanks for sharing that! Do you have any findings from user research? Are you finding any of the same problems as some other teams? For example users not realising which sections they have to complete

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-design-system-backlog/issues/72#issuecomment-422050883, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/Ah0Hk7aGd3ErRz1cyfsW1XE025NiZM7Bks5ub7mYgaJpZM4Rckjo .

[phillipsr]

Hi everyone - just thought that it might be useful to contribute to this chat. We've been working on Register as a Childminder for a while at Ofsted (in private beta) and have gone through multiple iterations of the task list. Our complicating factor is that we can have 6 legitimate statuses of a task (Done, Started, Waiting (to progress the task someone else has to do something), Flagged (a reviewer has flagged a problem they need to correct), To Do, and Do Last). The image below shows how we've created new statuses in a similar vein - although its not actually possible to have all of them shown at once, so take that with a pinch of salt.

In our testing these have all worked really well, and now that we have tweaked the colour scheme for some earlier contrast issues we would pass our accessibility audit (combining the statuses with alternative descriptions). Without being able to use the task list pattern, our application is very long and involves lots of different areas - so this brings them together nicely. We also have the challenge that tasks can be done in any order (except for the last one), and users frequently (want and need to) complete the form over multiple visits and over a long period of time. So having the task list as a check point of where everything is up to is incredibly useful for them.

We'd be really happy to share any of our findings with anyone that is interested, or to hear any other observations. Rich - richphillips_ofsted on slack

[joelanman]

We've heard a lot of research to say that some users don't know they have to complete all tasks. It's also the case that screen reader users can't easily get an idea of their progress, whereas sighted users can get an impression by seeing the 'completed' tags.

So, we'd like to suggest a change and get some research on it:

Once a user has completed at least one task, add a summary line above the task list to say how many tasks have been completed.

"You have completed 2 of 6 tasks"

[PeteWilliams]

One potential problem with that is that, in our case at least, the number of tasks can be dynamic. You might start with 'You have completed 1 of 4 tasks', which then becomes 'You have completed 3 of 7 tasks'. So it could be quite misleading - though that may be better than the alternative.

[marthaboggins]

Have performed two sets of tests with this pattern being part of the flow. The numbering left user's thinking they had to do the tasks in order - which is not the case. Otherwise they had no issues with it.

From my POV I'd like to see how you intended the links to work once the user has Completed a section. Do they simply go back to same pages with the fields pre-filled?

[phillipsr]

@marthaboggins I think that's an interesting question. In our register as a childminder service, we had a summary page at the end of each task. Therefore, if the task was complete, clicking the link would take them to the completed summary page - thus allowing users to select which question they need to revisit. We found this to be better than navigating users to the beginning of the task. Has anyone else tried any other approaches?

[stevenaproctor]

@marthaboggins A couple of services in HMRC removed the numbers when the sections could be completed in any order. The order they appear in the list should be based on user research and what makes sense to users.

@phillipsr When a section is incomplete, the services I mentioned take people back through pre-populated versions of the screens they have seen. This was because partially completed check answers pages confused people and also to remove the task-list-inside-a-task-list feeling.

When a section is complete, when they go back in it is to a complete check answers section that allows them to change their answers. If this leads to a change in journey, they would be taken through the screens in the normal way and given a new check answers page at the end.

From what I understand, this has tested well with users in different services.

[joelanman]

@PeteWilliams hmm good point, though isn't that already implied by the task list itself, even without a summary?

[chrisadesign]

We've heard a lot of research to say that some users don't know they have to complete all tasks. It's also the case that screen reader users can't easily get an idea of their progress, whereas sighted users can get an impression by seeing the 'completed' tags.

So, we'd like to suggest a change and get some research on it:

Once a user has completed at least one task, add a summary line above the task list to say how many tasks have been completed.

"You have completed 2 of 6 tasks"

Hey @joelanman how does this work with sections? What counts as a task here, the numbered items or the sub-items within?

[joelanman]

@chdesign it would be total number of sub items - the rows that eventually get Completed tags

[chrisadesign]

Brill, we're looking at one at the moment, I'll test it out.

[frankieroberto]

Has anyone considered whether COMPLETED should be displayed in block caps or not? Some of the variants above use title case instead.

Our content designers have heard of some research suggesting that block caps present accessibility issues, but I don’t know whether that still applies for single words, as in this context?

The GOV.UK Style guide only suggests not using block caps for large amounts of text.

[stevenaproctor]

@frankieroberto Block capitals create readability issues on some level but most typography manuals mention entire sentences or paragraphs like the GOV.UK style guide says. But all capital letters are harder to read because we are less familiar with them, they have more uniform shapes and are harder to recognise. This is why we use sentence case and only capitalise words that should be capitalised.

I cannot think of a reason for putting the content in a status tag in all caps. If it is to make it stand out, I think the background already does that.

I think using normal sentence case, 19px content would be as if not more readable. I am not sure they need to be bold either.

[andyjones81]

Our service has tested very well with the task list, we haven't had any specific feedback about the tag styling, however, we did set it to sentence case. Our reason for this was that the shape of the letters helps users scan words more easily and capitalised letters doesn't really add anything.

Throughout user testing users intuitively knew what to do and which tasks to complete. While tasks can be done in any order, no one deviated from doing them in order.

A few participants commented they like the tasks x of x completed header and it gave them a quick summary of what was left to do.

No-one had any issues with the pay task having text saying "Once all tasks are complete, you can pay and submit your application" The task becomes active when all tasks are done.

We also had it tested by DAC this last week and there was only one issue and that was that the appropriate orange background wasn't being set on the links when focused. We have added the govuk-link class which has resolved this.

[charge-valtech]

We've been testing the task list pattern in our prototype for a number of months now. All in all it works well. However, we've noticed a few people get a little bit stuck. Particularly, it seems, on mobile. Here's a description of what happens.

• The user arrives at the task list after checking eligibility. Seeing the first section "Check eligibility" and "Completed"
• They understand that the next section they need to complete is "Personal details" under "Prepare application"
• They fill out personal details, check their answers for this section and then hit "Continue"
• They come back to the task list, see "Personal details" with "Completed"
• They then think that they've completed the entire section
• They scroll down to the bottom and try to skip ahead, not realising they haven't actually completed the other sections within "Prepare application"
• They do realise after hesitating, that they need to complete the other sections

Has anybody else noticed this behaviour? Perhaps something like the above, "2 out of 10 tasks completed" may help.

Here's a screenshot of the page at the point where they become stuck. I do have a recording of it too if anybody is interested.

[abbott567]

We've noticed the same thing. A grey not complete has been used in a few DWP services to remedy it. But it would be good for consistency to iron this out at a higher level.

[charge-valtech]

Yeah I did wonder about doing something like that. I can see how the user is getting confused

[quis]

@charge-valtech My instinct is that visually the association is between the boldest parts of the page:

1. Check before you start COMPLETED 2. Prepare application COMPLETED

This is exacerbated by only having one task in the first section.

I’d also suggest trying a ‘not complete’ indicator and seeing how that tests.

[charge-valtech]

Yep that's my thinking too. Cheers @quis 👍

[PeteWilliams]

We've seen similar issues (see my comments above). We have being trying out two changes to the pattern:

• Adding a grey 'Incomplete' marker to tasks not completed
• Changing the final 'check and submit' link into a button, as some people thought 'complete' meant it was actually done and submitted, and so never actually submitted their response.

Seems to have worked well. Since making these changes a couple months ago, we've not seen any repetition of what were previously quite common problems.

[abbott567]

@PeteWilliams we originally had almost exactly the same design as you, but we found with screen-readers 'incomplete' and 'complete' were hard to distinguish. 'not complete' or 'not done' seemed to be more accessible content. But that was just what we found.

[charge-valtech]

I was thinking of trying "To do"

[nicprice]

In ONS - for people with a list of business surveys to complete - we use(d):

• Not started
• In progress
• Completed

On Mon, 18 Feb 2019 at 11:48, Henry Charge (valtech uk) < notifications@github.com> wrote:

I was thinking of trying "To do"

— You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-design-system-backlog/issues/72#issuecomment-464702606, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAzIQK9g-nYaunLrBF9H9uw-VkjekE8Vks5vOpMjgaJpZM4Rckjo .

[StephenHill-NHSBSA]

Just wondering whether anyone had discovered a user need for each section to be given an estimated time taken to complete.

I know at the beginning of the service we tell them how long this is likely to take them - but I think it would be useful (once people are into the service) to let them know what the average time taken to complete each section is:

This links into another user need of ours where people would like to save and continue their application later.

[HarryTrimble]

Hey Stephen - at the same time we tested and iterated the task list page, we did the same for the Check a service is suitable pattern, which include working out estimated time for users by asking them questions - you can see an example of this linked from the pattern page in the Design System

[mrkwrght]

we have modified our status tags on the tasklist to be easy to read by making them lower case and upping the font size to 19px like the rest of the text.

we have also created a 'In Progress' tag because it wasn't clear to our users which tasks had been started when navigating back to the tasklist.

we haven't done a lot of UR around this but the feedback we have got has been positive.

[mrkwrght]

we have seen when testing our tasklist with screen readers that it reads end list twice, we believe this is because of the <ul> within the <ol> because our tasklist is not numbered we wanted to remove the <ol>

After talking to @timsb we came up with this

<section  aria-labelledby="scheme-info">
  <h3 id="scheme-info">scheme information</h3>
  <ul>
    <li>information about your scheme</li>
  </ul>
</section>

thoughts?

[dashouse]

Example from Blue Badge service

[charge-valtech]

Cheers @dashouse - our most notable iterations through research were:

• include the first "Completed" tag for check eligibility, as even though it's not part of the application exactly, it helps understand the functionality of the page
• include "Not started" tags as we had the issue I mentioned earlier with users completing "Personal details" and then thinking they'd done the whole "Prepare application" section
• increased the hit area so that you can click on the whole line item as we found users, particularly on iPad, trying to click there

We're also due to introduce "Save and return" imminently, which will vastly improve the service and goes hand-in-hand with the task list.

I have to say the task list has been one of the most well-received/understood patterns I've ever seen. Well done to everybody involved.

[edwardhorsford]

The patterns team at GDS (inc me) did some exploration of the task list 2 years ago. It wasn't finished, but here's some screen shots which others might find useful.

Some aims / things we were looking at:

• Support for tasks / sections that need to happen in series rather than in parallel
• Making the next section more obvious
• Some notion of started / in progress

[edwardhorsford]

We've added a task list for our latest round of testing.

v1 looked like this:

Notes on implementation:

• After completing a task, we brought the users back to the task list, rather than taking them to the next task. I was worried they'd get annoyed by the length of the service, but they didn't seem bothered.
• At the end of each section, when returning to the task list, we scrolled them to the completed section (this was problematic, see below).
• I gave one task Can’t start yet - partly just to see what people would say.

Findings:

• Sections can be done in any order, but in practice all the users just went through them in turn.
• Some of our sections are optional (group 3, not in screenshot) - but in practice the participants went in to each section regardless. At least part of this might be because they were new to this service so wanted to see what was in each example.
• Users didn't comment on the Can’t start yet badge - mostly as they just went in order - and by the time they got to this section, they could start.
• I felt our users had a generally high confidence with using this, particularly by the end. There's a consistency to it such that when they've got 'completed' badges on all items, they were confident they were done.

Problems:

• One user completely missed one of the tasks. I think there are three main causes for this:

• • As you fill up with tasks 'completed' it becomes harder to see which haven't been completed. This has been reported above by others I see. Fundamentally the current pattern highlights more the ones you'e done than the ones you need to do - I feel like this balance is off.
• • Scrolling to the section you've just done - the user didn't realise this had happened, so knowing they'd done some sections already, when they returned to the task list, they scrolled a bit more to where they thought the next task would be.
• • The draw of the 'completed' badges and doing them in order means that the users mostly just scroll to where they see the completed badges stop, and then do the next task from there. This means if the user misses a task and does one after it, they're less likely to see it's missing as they look to the next item after the bottommost completed one.

• One user got completely stuck at the beginning when first shown the task list - she just didn't make the connection that you needed to go in to the item to do it. When she finally did one and was brought back to the task list, she was surprised and thought her data had been lost.

Things I want to try next:

• Make the tasks to be done clearer / more explicit.
• • I like what digital marketplace does to show tasks that have been prefilled with previous years, are still to answer, haven't been answered yet - may explore something similar.
• Our groupings of 'mandatory' and 'optional' didn't really get seen - so we may try grouping by theme.
• Most sections are optional, but a few are required. I'd like to explore how to make it clear which are required.
• • Most users went through every section - but they were new users so they were exploring. We'll have users in the future using this several times a day - and sometimes will only have data for 3 sections - they should be able to look at the page and know what needs to be done - this isn't the case right now.

[grahamharper]

Has anyone included or experimented with a way to navigate directly to the task list from within a task? This would be as a way to allow a user who has realised they made a mistake in a previous task and want to jump back to correct the mistake.

[phillipsr]

I've been involved in a couple of services now that have used a link below the continue button to allow users to return to the task list. This presents two questions though:

1. What do you call the page that the user is returning to in the link text - we haven't always found that users naturally call that task list page the task list or anything else (we're currently asking users this in some UR at the moment)
2. Do users expect any data that they have entered on the page to be saved? If they do and what they have put in does not comply with validation - should you stop users from navigating to the task list if form validation fails.

[edwardhorsford]

@grahamharper I added this link below the continue button, which takes the user 'up' on level. So where they're just in a wizard it takes them back to the task list. Where they're in a nested thing, it takes them to the next category up.

It's something I feel should be there - but didn't see users use it much - I think we'd have to craft a careful task to see if users saw it.

Edit - actually we did see one user use it when they got stuck on something.

[grahamharper]

Thanks for sharing!

Any rationale about your chosen location for the link? i.e. why at the bottom of the page as opposed to the top?

Thinking out loud about the reading order here, when the user gets to the bottom of the page, is returning to a level up a likely choice they'll make? I guess maybe in a documentation page they're done reading and maybe want to go back to an index page to read something else. If they've just filled in a form, it might be an unlikely choice to make?

[edwardhorsford]

Thanks for sharing!

Any rationale about your chosen location for the link? i.e. why at the bottom of the page as opposed to the top?

Thinking out loud about the reading order here, when the user gets to the bottom of the page, is returning to a level up a likely choice they'll make? I guess maybe in a documentation page they're done reading and maybe want to go back to an index page to read something else. If they've just filled in a form, it might be an unlikely choice to make?

A few reasons:

• Practically, it adds clutter at the top of the page for an uncommon action.
• There's a small chance users might read it as an instruction (more likely if it's the first thing on the page vs the last).
• It's available on the page for users who want to look for it - but we're intentionally not making it especially prominent as its an uncommon action.

Thus for me it's less about 'will they need this action when they're done with the page' and more that it's an uncommon action and I don't want to give it too much priority or confuse the page. With that in mind, it could have gone in the right hand column - but thus far I've avoided putting anything there.

It's essentially similar to a breadcrumb - but as my service already has back links (which are more commonly used) having both breadcrumbs and backlinks didn't seem right. If someone came up with a design that worked well with both breadcrumbs and back links we'd certainly consider it.