Help users to find the right service for them

[sanjaypoyzer]

What

There are many examples of government services which serve similar (or the same) needs for people with slightly different circumstances. In the case where we can rely on most users navigating to a high-level Start Page, but not to the individual service variants, we can ask users questions about themselves to and then present them with the options available to them.

n.b. This is related to the "Check a service is suitable for you" pattern but different in content. That pattern starts with a user thinking that a service is suitable for them, but possibly being incorrect. This pattern starts with a user needing a problem to be solved but not necessarily having any idea what their options are for solving it.

Why

I'm not sure which services this is currently part of, but I have a hunch that it should be part of more. I've seen some services early in development that are Brexit-related that do things like this, but can't currently put much info about them on here.

One live example is "Find out if you can settle in the UK".

[gazjoy]

I feel this pattern could work to help people understand which benefit they could be eligible for. The existing "check a service is suitable" pattern tends to be at a lower level than what is needed to work out which benefit service to use. At DWP we are currently wrestling with using the check a service is suitable pattern to tell people if they are or aren't eligible for a benefit. Something we currently cant do without human intervention.

Also users often don't understand which benefit to apply for and end up applying for a few to chance it. As government we aren't helping users to do this well at the minute.

[CharlotteDowns]

Do we think there is an opportunity to combine this pattern and the Check a service is suitable pattern?