Post by Gareth, Registration Lead, Welsh Revenue Authority
We’ve reached a significant milestone in building the visitor accommodation registration service. We have now completed the end-to-end ‘simple route’ journey. For the first time, a user can move through the service from start to finish. They can enter their details, add their premises, confirm the information and receive a registration number.
Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg
It’s not the final version of the service, but it’s a major step forward and gives us something real, tangible, and testable. We can now start shaping the service into something that truly works for everyone.
What we mean by the ‘simple route’
Our goal from the outset has been to design a service that feels simple, clear, and aligned with how users actually think. The ‘simple route’ is the most straightforward route a user can take to complete their registration. It does not include errors, unusual situations or complicated scenarios.
It certainly isn’t the finished product, but it is proof that the journey works. It shows that the user journey makes sense, the technology holds together, and users can move from beginning to end without getting stuck. Most importantly, it gives us a full journey we can now iterate on based on real feedback.
The different parts of the registration journey
A registration journey has 4 core parts:
- User details
- Visitor accommodation provider details
- Premises and accommodation details
- Declaration and confirmation
Internally, we often think about these as separate components. But during this sprint, we focused on building one slice of each to test the entire journey and learn how all 4 areas interact.
This sprint, we expanded the journey with new screens that help users add premises and accommodation details, and we designed the final registration pages that confirm when a registration is successful. We also created ‘check your details’ pages, allowing users to view and update what they’ve entered. These pages are important milestones in building a service that feels intuitive and gives users control over their information.
What seeing the full journey revealed
Looking at each screen in isolation through mock-ups and prototypes can only take you so far. Once we connected everything together, we began to see things we had not noticed before.
One example is how often we asked users to check their details. In theory, it seemed logical to ask for confirmation after each section and again at the end. In practice, it made the experience feel repetitive. A user enters information, sees it, enters more, sees it again, and so on. That may still be the right approach, but experiencing the full journey showed us it’s something we need to revisit.
We also noticed that although we’ve been thinking of the journey as 4 distinct sections, users don’t experience it that way. For them, providing personal details, provider information, and premises information is all part of a single identity. We need to gather all 4 sets of information, but the user experience needs to feel connected and cohesive.
What’s next?
Moving beyond the ‘simple route’ marks the start of a more complex phase of development. As we begin to incorporate variations, more complex situations, exceptions, and additional requirements, the work becomes more intricate. The coordination across teams will become even more important.
There’s still a lot to do but completing the ‘simple route’ gives us the clarity and confidence to move forward. It provides a working baseline to build from, and with richer user feedback coming in, we can start making meaningful improvements.
This milestone is just the beginning and it’s exciting to see what comes next.
Have your say
We would love to hear your thoughts on what we have shared so far. We are always looking for people to test our designs with. If you would like to share your thoughts or take part in research, contact us at wracommunications@wra.gov.wales.
You can sign up for updates about registration and visitor levy.
Please note: Everything we share is work in progress and may change as we continue developing the service based on your feedback and what we learn through testing.