Ethnicity

[govuk-design-system]

What

How and when to ask users about their ethnicity.

Why

Services sometimes need to ask users about their ethnicity, for example as part of a survey to monitor that the service is fair to different groups. This is a sensitive question, we need to be clear about why we’re asking it and what the data will be used for.

Examples of service asking about ethnicity (examples below):

• Nominate UK honours
• Find an Apprenticeship
• Universal Credit
• Cabinet Office staff survey
• UK Parliament survey
• Tower Hamlets council survey
• Guy’s Hospital survey

[frankieroberto]

I've started looking at how people ask for ethnicity as part of our service.

Here's one example from the Nominate UK honours service:

[frankieroberto]

Here’s an example from Find an Apprenticeship:

[frankieroberto]

Universal Credit also has a pattern for this, I believe, but I don't have access to their live service.

[frankieroberto]

Applied is a commercial service, but it’s being used by government organisations for recruitment, and has an emphasis on avoiding bias.

Here's how their equal opportunity form looks. It's presented before the main job application, and has a pretty good explanation of how the data will be used, and an explicit opt-in:

[frankieroberto]

Here's an example from the Cabinet Office staff survey of asking a question around ethnicity:

[vfhwang]

Here's how we asked for ethnicity in a prototype we are working on at Parliament. We had concerns about the grouping of radio buttons in sections, but users did not seem to have problems completing this part of the task. Any questions just ask

[frankieroberto]

@vfhwang thanks for sharing. Do you have any idea how the list of ethnic groups was decided? It doesn't match either the 2001 or 2011 census questions.

Also have you given any consideration to allowing people to specify an ethnicity if they select one of the "other" radio buttons?

[frankieroberto]

Here's another example from a survey from Tower Hamlets council, which uses a long set of radio buttons, including "Prefer not to say" and "Other":

[frankieroberto]

Here's an interesting screenshot from a non-government survey I filled out today:

It uses checkboxes, so you can select more than one ethnicity. For this reason (I guess), there's no Mixed ethnicity options.

[Nadiahuq]

Example from Guy's Hospital

[Nadiahuq]

From Civil Service Learning

[frankieroberto]

Here’s a blog post describing some of my initial research into this pattern: https://designnotes.blog.gov.uk/2019/01/29/researching-how-we-ask-users-about-their-ethnicity/ (which links to this very page!)

[frankieroberto]

This is a pattern that has been tested by the Office for National Statistics for use in a future online version of the Labour Force Survey:

The first screen asks "What is your ethnic group?" and includes 5 radio button for the broad ethnic groups, but also lists the more specific ethnic groups as a sub heading.

The second screen asks "Which one best describes your [name of broad ethnic group] ethnic group or background?" and contains radio buttons for the more specific ethnic groups.

If a user selects any of the "other" ethnic groups, then a text input is revealed allowing users to specify.

[frankieroberto]

Here’s an interesting article on how it feels to tick the "other" box: https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/ethnic-groups-uk

[TheDoubleK]

Here's how the question is asked on NHS dentist form:

[frankieroberto]

Here’s a blog post about the history of collecting ethnicity information in the UK: https://history.blog.gov.uk/2019/03/07/50-years-of-collecting-ethnicity-data/

[jagsparbha]

St Thomas’ Hospital, stuck to the desk at reception in one of the clinics.

[TheDoubleK]

Drop-down on the Civil Service Jobshare site:

[TheDoubleK]

Cabinet Office's HR system ("SOP") has a "Diversity" section with this question:

With these options in the drop-down:

Interestingly, you can save "Please select" as your response, and this will delete whatever you had previously saved. So effectively two options for "Prefer not to say".

[frankieroberto]

Here is the question as asked in an online consultation by the Department of Health and Social Care and Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

[TheDoubleK]

From Civil Service Learning

This seems to have been updated. Civil Service Learning now looks like:

[Nadiahuq]

Ethnic group categories and explanation for use of personal data given by Lewisham council.

[cjforms]

Thanks for collecting all these examples, and also it's especially useful to have the blog post about the user experience of being asked the question and choosing 'other'.

A few of them have drop-downs/select boxes that conceal the options. Is it too late to add additional comments that tell us what the options are?

[cjforms]

Recently had my attention drawn to this blog post about the experience of being flummoxed by a version of the ethnicity question: https://uxdesign.cc/the-frustrating-user-experience-of-defining-your-own-ethnicity-50b0edc87a6e

[frankieroberto]

@cjforms thanks for the link – interesting! In the design pattern for the GOV.UK Design System we're going to propose using radio buttons split across two pages, rather than drop-downs/selects.

[GrilloPress]

Research by the Office for National Statistics found that presenting all of the ethnic group options on a single page led to some users trying to select more than 1 option.

I was wondering a bit more about the context behind this.

Was this a case of "misunderstanding the interaction" or the concept of "choose one" being wrong from a user's point of view?

[cjforms]

I don't know what the specific ONS research found, but I do know that the concept of 'choose one' is wrong for some users - even when options like 'mixed' are available. As the blog post I quoted above points out (paraphrasing): particularly when some ethnicities are defined by skin colour, some by geography, some by language, and some by inheritance. And another thought just struck me: What if you identify yourself 'ethnically' by some completely different community designation such as Deaf or a religious affiliation?

[katyarmstrong]

MHCLG SAP 'equalities' form

[frankieroberto]

Question as asked in the equalities section of a consultation by Islington Council:

[NickColley]

Working group review session

A proposal to add the pattern 'Ask users for ethnic groups' was reviewed by a panel of designers from DWP, Defra, GDS, HMCTS, HMRC and Home Office on the 30 May 2019.

The working group agreed that the contribution can be published in the GOV.UK Design System.

The working group also made the following recommendations:

Guidance

• Clarify the need for a service / context-specific branching step and why that is not incorporated in the pattern.
• Link to external guidance about whether to ask questions and how to process and store your data.
• Clarify how to show users the information is optional.
• Spell out ONS in full at first mention.
• Document the purpose of the help text on the first screen in the guidance.
• Organise a 2i to fix typos and style errors.
• Clarify why the approach varies between regions.
• Clarify what protected characteristics are, that ethnic background is one and so is gender and sex.

Research

• Carry out further research to explore how users interpret the terms “ethnic group” and “race”
• Consider conducting further research with users who might answer in different ways, for example, non-UK national. Design
• Standardise approach on prefer not to say or document it if asked at step 1 but not step 2.
• Consider moving Arab as a category onto the first page so users don’t have to select “Other” twice.

[TheDoubleK]

This is a super-long list for the ethnicity question in a form for joining a south London secondary school. Really hard to be sure if you're picking the right box when trying to follow across.

[ingridmorris10]

Hi, have you covered context ie protected characteristic questions are not intrinsically needed to succeed with a transaction. We've had consistent user research around concerns about the data submitted being visible as part of the transaction submission. (this is for applying for a job). It feels to me that the transaction is fundamentally different ie the submission has a different purpose outside of the core service? We are also experiencing a bit of a bloating around the protected characteristics suite to include a)social economic background b)drill down on disability. It would be good to look at this area holistically. What do you think?

[ingridmorris10]

Ps to illustrate the challenge:

So how do we 1. convey to users the "clear need" and 2. how we process data seperately to their submission?

[frankieroberto]

Here's a really good resource from OF/BY/ALL about asking for demographic information at museums: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a8e0a68f9a61e43fb3eb0e2/t/5d0cf607a5ad8200016a8b06/1561130515568/OFBYFOR_ALL_Respectful_Audience_Surveying_Toolkit.pdf

There's a section about ethnicity which suggests using checkboxes, as well as a self-describe option.

[ingridmorris10]

Hi Frankie, good resource for surveys! Which highlights the "is it a bird or a plane" existential issue. A survey is a different animal to an application. The former is anonymised the latter not. By collecting the former in the same place as the latter we are non anonymising - most importantly this is in the view of the user.

[frankieroberto]

@ingridmorris10 agreed - there's a whole other question about where and when this kind of information is collected as part of a service, and how we make it clear to users what it is and is not being used for...

[ingridmorris10]

@ingridmorris10 agreed - there's a whole other question about where and when this kind of information is collected as part of a service, and how we make it clear to users what it is and is not being used for...

Any ideas on moving this forward? (BTW I'm in CO GSS and there is a heap of internal services that are at the brink of collecting more of this survey data). What we are missing is sufficient clout for want of a better word to constructively challenge - I was hoping that GDS might pick up as a design challenge?

[Nadiahuq]

Hi Ingrid,

I’d be interested to know what the internal surveys will be used for.

One of the arguments I’ve heard for collecting protected characteristics data is that public bodies must adhere to the public sector equality duty https://www.gov.uk/guidance/equality-act-2010-guidance#public-sector-equality-duty. Whilst the duty doesn’t mandate collection of protected characteristics data, there’s an assumption it’s an important first step for departments meeting their legal obligations.

I guess the first step is challenging that assumption. Can they meet their requirements some other way? If they’re already collecting protected characteristics, can they provide clear examples of how the data’s been used in the past?

If they do ‘need’ it then, as you say, you need to find a way to balance GDPR requirements with equality requirements.

Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (who I think you've been in touch with) have been doing some brilliant work looking at how to ask for protected characteristics outside of the main transaction. Long story short – convincing users not to immediately bugger off after having got the thing they want is hard! That impacts on response rates, which impacts on data quality, which makes it a hard sell for teams using the data.

I don’t think anyone knows quite how to get this balance right, but agree that a steer from GDS would be valuable.

Cheers,

Nadia

On Wed, 10 Jul 2019 at 11:24, ingridmorris10 notifications@github.com wrote:

@ingridmorris10 https://github.com/ingridmorris10 agreed - there's a whole other question about where and when this kind of information is collected as part of a service, and how we make it clear to users what it is and is not being used for...

Any ideas on moving this forward? (BTW I'm in CO GSS and there is a heap of internal services that are at the brink of collecting more of this survey data). What we are missing is sufficient clout for want of a better word to constructively challenge - I was hoping that GDS might pick up as a design challenge?

— You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-design-system-backlog/issues/83?email_source=notifications&email_token=AGT3JC4O6SQCYXIRK5GKVNLP6W2HBA5CNFSM4ELYOXH2YY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGODZTA5NQ#issuecomment-510004918, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGT3JC3ANOB3NZGAIFGYKFDP6W2HBANCNFSM4ELYOXHQ .

--

[image: CO.JPG]

[image: image003]

Nadia Huq | Senior Content Designer | Race Disparity Unit

E: nadia.huq@cabinetoffice.gov.uk annie.maciver@cabinetoffice.gov.uk Discover the data at Ethnicity Facts and Figures http://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/

[ingridmorris10]

Thanks Nadia, From all the examples above it's clear that we are testing the usability of the questions. That's important but not if by asking the question we have equal and opposite effect. People don't like being characterised/badged and I had a bit of a sense of that in user research with BAME non CS saying that they wanted to be recruited on merit not on characteristic. I'm sure there is a super smart UX solution but I'm clearly not that super smart!

[Nadiahuq]

Yeah, that chimes with our experience too. We found that users mostly gave their ethnicity when flying through a transactional service, but when we stopped to ask them about it they were often confused or even suspicious.

Sadly we couldn't find a UX solution either... waits hopefully for someone to volunteer one!

On Wed, 10 Jul 2019 at 13:49, ingridmorris10 notifications@github.com wrote:

Thanks Nadia, From all the examples above it's clear that we are testing the usability of the questions. That's important but not if by asking the question we have equal and opposite effect. People don't like being characterised/badged and I had a bit of a sense of that in user research with BAME non CS saying that they wanted to be recruited on merit not on characteristic. I'm sure there is a super smart UX solution but I'm clearly not that super smart!

— You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-design-system-backlog/issues/83?email_source=notifications&email_token=AGT3JC55EU2XRBCC7ODFDHDP6XLGJA5CNFSM4ELYOXH2YY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGODZTLGDI#issuecomment-510046989, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGT3JC6BFGUBHZQ3SKHICX3P6XLGJANCNFSM4ELYOXHQ .

--

[image: CO.JPG]

[image: image003]

Nadia Huq | Senior Content Designer | Race Disparity Unit

E: nadia.huq@cabinetoffice.gov.uk annie.maciver@cabinetoffice.gov.uk Discover the data at Ethnicity Facts and Figures http://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/

[Nadiahuq]

Ethnic group question from NHS Blood and Transplant's form to sign up to give blood.

[vickytnz]

I'd suggest reviewing the changes the US has made in their 2020 census

Compared to their 2010 census

First the disclaimer:

There is one reason neither version is ideal, and it has nothing to do with open-end boxes. It’s because Hispanic or Latino is asked separately from race, so when Hispanic/Latino respondents get to the question about race, many of them will select “other.”

Census researchers know this. They strongly recommended that Hispanic/Latino be integrated into the race question for the 2020 Census. But they ran up against a 1997 law requiring federal agencies to specify five minimum categories for data on race (American Indian or Alaska Native; Asian; Black or African American; Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander; White) and two categories for data on ethnicity (Hispanic or Latino; Not Hispanic or Latino). The recommended changes to this law were ignored by the White House, and unfortunately Congress did not step in to fix it.

There are now interesting nuances:

most respondents are now asked to specify their origins along with their race. The idea is to capture a more nuanced portrait of which countries, tribes, and regions of the world Americans of all races come from.

Source from here: https://verstaresearch.com/newsletters/how-to-ask-race-ethnicity-on-a-survey/#main-article

[sarawilcox]

A couple of bits of feedback we've had using the GDS pattern in an NHS context

1. On the first screen, where it says: "Asian or Asian British Includes any Asian background, for example, Bangladeshi, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani" we've amended the hint text to say: "Includes any Asian background, for example, Bangladeshi, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani or other East or South Asian" because we found that some East Asians who weren't Chinese didn't know that they were expected to tick this radio.

2. I wonder why under Another ethnic group, only "Arab" is listed alongside "Another ethnic background"?

[frankieroberto]

@sarawilcox thanks for leaving this feedback!

Regarding your first point, did your research show that adding "East or South Asian" helped those users to identify a category? And what were those users doing previously, hesitating on the first question, or using the back link to from the second question?

As to your second question: the Arab ethnic group was added in the 2011 England and Wales census (as well as "Gypsy or Irish Traveller"). There is a detailed explanation of how these new categories were chosen in this document: https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/census/2011census/howourcensusworks/howweplannedthe2011census/questionnairedevelopment/finalisingthe2011questionnaire/ethnicgroupprioritisationtool_tcm77-183986.pdf – did any of your users question this in the research?

[calvin-lau-sig7]

Retiring the pattern to 'ask users for ethnic groups'

In March 2021, we published a new pattern to ask users for equality information - based on data standards set by the Government Statistical Service (GSS).

To meet these standards, this new pattern replaced the pattern to ask users for ethnic groups.