Merge pull request #126 from NHSDigital/MYA

MYA - improving create availability

Author: jolumley-nhs

app/images/manage-your-appointments/2024/11/improving-create-availability/cya.png

@@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
+---
+title: Improving how users create availability for bookings
+date: 2024-11-21
+---
+
+We knew from our [previous research on creating availability](/manage-your-appointments/2024/10/create-availability/), that the concept of availability periods didn’t fit well with our users mental models.  We’d found that users expected to create availability sessions, and publish these straight away. 
+
+## What we did 
+
+We removed availability periods as a concept, and allowed users to create sessions that either: 
+
+- repeated every week 
+- did not repeat 
+
+
+## The design 
+
+We removed the column displaying the ‘published’ vs ‘unpuplished’ status, and just listed the sessions that the user had created to date.
+
+![Screenshot that shows the list of availability sessions that have been created](periods.png)
+
+We added some inset text on the ‘check session details’ page, to inform the user that the availability will be published to the National Booking Service (NBS) when they hit save. 
+
+![Screenshot of a page which lists existing availability periods, with a button to create more](cya.png)
+
+## Findings
+ 
+The majority of users found the new design straightforward and understood that they would be able to create multiple sessions to set their campaign up.  
+
+Users understood that saving the sessions would publish the availability to NBS, and that this would mean people could book vaccination appointments. 
+
+Users expressed a need to create more flexibility, including adding multiple breaks within a session.
+
+Based on these findings, we concluded that creating sessions one by one worked better for our users, but that we needed to consider how we might add more flexibility to the journey.