govuk-design-system-backlog
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alphagov
Contact preferences
What
- when and how to contact users
- how to ask users for their preferred contact methods
- how to help users keep their contact details up-to-date
Why
Users of government services will often need contacting, to notify them of a decision or to update them on progress. How and when we do this should be consistent.
Dropbox Paper audit
On 4th March 2019 the Design System team reviewed a Dropbox Paper document discussing the Contact Preferences pattern.
The aim was to reduce the number of places containing guidance and code by:
- migrating relevant, useful content into the Design System itself
- recording important research findings in the community backlog
- removing the original Dropbox Paper page
Below is a record of the outcomes of that review.
If you need to, you can see the original Dropbox Paper content in the internet archive.
Review outcomes
- archive the original Dropbox Paper content
- add the content to this related issue
Contact preferences
Overview
Let your users tell you how, when or why they would like to be contacted by you.
Example
When to use this pattern
Use this pattern whenever you might need to contact a user of your service.
How it works
Give people multiple contact options
Not everyone has an email address or a mobile phone. Some people can read SMS messages but not take voice calls. Give people choices about how you will contact them.
Let people change their contact preferences
People’s situation and therefore preferences change over time. Let your users change their contact preferences with you.
Related patterns
@soupdragon99 - Thanks for this, we made use of it and slightly modified it so users could select multiple contact methods. Its out for testing right now so I'll try and come back later with any relevant feedback.
I'd be interested to know how the "Register to vote" team came to this version for contact preferences:
It would be good to understand the reasoning behind having checkboxes that are pre-selected but also under separate headings rather than a group of checkboxes.
I've noticed when reviewing pdf and other document based forms recently that some ask people to indicate whether the phone number they give is a text phone. Is this something that should be considered for this pattern?
