Ofsted Reports

Solution

Drupal 6 Support

• Full Drupal support and maintenance service for the Ofsted legacy architecture, and infrastructure
• Remedial security and devops work during supplier transition
• Content management support
• Ad hoc feature development

New Service Design and Drupal 8 Development

The methodology and approach were agreed in consultation with GDS and included:

• User research and testing employing a range of methodologies including remote (online) user testing, face to face interviews with users from each segment/ persona
• UX design collaboration with the in-house Ofsted designer
• Drupal 8 and SlimPHP development to create a new 'micro services' architecture in line with GDS recommendations
• Full API development for serving nearly 0.5m data items with high levels of daily change
• Refined and optimized the data import process to be able to handle several hundred thousand childcare providers rapidly
• Advanced search functionality to allow for localised based searches and simple filtering across a range of attributes
• New cloud infrastructure on AWS for the Beta project that is highly available, auto-scaling, performance optimized, secure
• Security at the heart of the project
• Agile development methodology in line with GDS service design
• Adopting the GOV.UK branding guidelines for Drupal 8 sites, along with ensuring forms meet the standards articulated within the GOV.UK service manual
• Built to last, and to be continually extended over the coming years

 

Technical highlights

• Apache Solr integration to provide advanced geospatial and faceted search functionality
• Completed Alpha and private Beta phases using GDS approved methodology
• The site has received positive feedback from stakeholders and members of the public
• Security certified by an independent specialist security testing organisation
• Successfully passed independent accessibility testing to WCAG2.1 AA level
• Broader reach through mobile responsiveness