Top navigation (Native)

[davidhunter08]

What

Use this issue to discuss the NHS App top navigation (native).

Related

NHS design system community backlog discussion

[davidhunter08]

Research findings from NN Group on icons

To understand how people interpreted icons in isolation, we conducted a large-scale, quantitative survey with 107 participants across diverse age ranges and backgrounds. Each participant was shown 100 icons in isolation and asked to type a brief, open-ended description of what they expected that icon to do or represent when encountered in a digital interface. Participant responses (all 10,700 of them!) were individually coded and assigned a primary meaning to understand if and when common, shared associations existed for individual icons.

The percentages in this summary table represent the strongest associations for each icon. Although not all icons were tested qualitatively, additional insights are provided when available if similar icons appeared in in- context qualitative testing.

Icons are ordered by the strongest associations revealed through the survey, not by their quality.

It's crucial to emphasise that the associations described below were provided without contextual clues. When these icons are encountered within a digital interface— accompanied by labels, familiar design elements, or specific use cases—their meanings might become more apparent and their associations stronger. A low association score in this survey does not necessarily indicate a poor choice of an icon. Still, it highlights the importance of context in icon interpretation.

[mariapinillapease]

From the IA/Nav work on Account:

What did we do:

1. Launched a survey using qualtrics to more than 500+ users using qualtrics to better understanding and familiarity with a few icons. As well to gain an understanding of what people call these areas. In this test the icons where tested in isolation.
2. We then tested these icons in context using User Zoom (unmoderated) and in a few in-person community events.

What did we find out:

1. A proportion of users don't recognise the icons being used. A few users also seem to 'miss' the icons when they scroll up and down the page. Some users have pointed out they don't feel very prominent or obvious in the page
2. We also found that people refer to the Account area in different ways. So we need to consider this if we decide to add a label to these icons. We believe that what we call the area has an impact of what users expect to find under that section.
3. In the unmoderated, when we asked users to navigate to the Help and Support area (using the ? icon) we observed people assumed that the icon was the right place to go rather than going from the Account section. E.g. "I assume it will be the ? icon" . We did observe a few users scroll up and down the homepage before clicking in the icon to see if they find anything relevant in the homepage.

[anna-rigo]

NHS App usability testing

On 13-14th November 2024 we took a HTML prototype to the NHS usability lab in Leeds.

Why?

• Following on the research mentioned above by Maria we wanted to see if users are able to find and use account-related links in the NHS App by identifying the 'Account' icon in the top navigation
• Currently the App doesn't have a log-out screen so we wanted to test the log-out screen after users logged out with the option to log back in to better understand if users feel reassured and safe that their journey of logging out is completed by having the confirmation on the screen

Context

Participants were asked to book a routine GP appointments, and after arriving on the confirmation page we asked them to log out of the NHS App.

Who we spoke to

• 6 participants
• including 2 participants with red-green colour deficiency and 1 neurodivergent participant
• users and non-user of the NHS App

Key findings

• 5/6 participants identified the 'Account' icon 
• 4/6 navigated to the ‘Account’ from the confirmation page, 2/6 used 'Home' and 1/6 tried both 'Home' & 'Services’
• 6/6 participants felt safe and reassured that they logged out of their App
• 2/6 expected to find the clear 'log out' text highlighted on the top or bottom navigation