Product

What Nova Guide shows, and how it is made.

Nova Guide puts five kinds of guidance on the screens staff already use. Authors record it in the application, a named reviewer approves it, and each item is published and withdrawn on its own.

Guides

A guide takes a member of staff through a task one step at a time. Each step highlights the control to use next, explains it in plain words and moves on when the step is done.

A question step. Each answer leads to its own step, and Exit guide stays beside them.

1.1Steps: Five kinds: an explanation, a click, a value of any kind, a set value, and a hover. An explanation has a Next button, and the other kinds move on when the action happens.
1.2Skipping a step: A step can be skipped when its control is absent, for a field that appears only in some situations, or when the next step’s control is already on screen, for somebody who arrives part-way through.
1.3Questions: A step can ask a question with two to six answers, each leading to a step in the same guide. The reviewer sees where each answer leads, and publishing checks that every answer leads to a step the guide has.
1.4Another application: A guide can end by handing over to a guide in another of the organisation’s applications, with a link that opens it there.
1.5Introduction: Up to 500 characters, shown in the launcher and on a card before the first step.
1.6Leaving: Exit guide is on every card, and Escape leaves the guide from the keyboard.
1.7A missing control: When a step cannot find its control, the card says “We could not find this control on the page” and offers Next and Exit guide.
1.8Finishing: The completion card asks whether the guide was helpful, with Yes and No, and can offer the next guide in the chapter.
1.9Progress: Kept for a person the application identifies, so they can resume a guide. On a shared workstation nothing is kept.
1.10Links: A web link opens a named guide in its application.

Tooltips and beacons

Tooltips and beacons stay on the page while it is open, beside the controls they describe.

A tooltip pinned to Save draft, and a beacon beside a new item in the navigation.

2.1Tooltip: A short note pinned to a control, opened from a small marker beside it.
2.2Beacon: A marker that draws the eye to a control, such as a button added in an upgrade. It pulses, and holds still for anyone whose computer is set to reduce motion.
2.3A missing control: A tooltip or beacon whose control is missing, or cannot be told apart from another, is not shown.
2.4Late controls: A control that appears after the page has loaded is waited for, for up to eight seconds.
2.5Placing: An author pins a tooltip or places a beacon by pointing at the control in the studio. The click that points at it is not passed to the application.

Field hints

A field hint is a line of advice under a field while what has been typed fails a rule. The field stays editable, and the form can be submitted with whatever is in it.

Recorded: That the hint was shown.
Not recorded: Anything typed into the field.

An NHS number typed into a field. The hint shows under it while the number fails its check, the clinician corrects a digit and moves on, and the form is submitted. The number shown fails its check digit, so it cannot belong to anybody.

3.1Rules: Three fixed rules: numbers, with an optional length; an NHS number, including its Modulus 11 check digit; and a UK date, written day first.
3.2When it shows: From the first character typed, for as long as the value fails the rule. It goes when the value passes or the field is left. An empty field shows no hint.
3.3The clinician decides: Every key reaches the field, focus stays where the clinician put it, and the form can be submitted with whatever is in it.
3.4The value: Checked in the browser and never sent. The only event recorded is that a hint was shown.
3.5Choosing a rule: Authors choose one of the three tested rules, which keeps the check fast on every keystroke in a clinical field.

Announcements

An announcement tells staff about a changed process, and can start the guide that explains it.

An announcement in the bottom-left corner, with a button that starts the guide it refers to.

4.1Content: A title, up to 500 characters of plain text and up to three buttons, each starting a guide in the same application.
4.2Shown once: Once for each person the application identifies. On a shared workstation, once for each browser session, so every clinician on the shift sees it.
4.3Placement: Bottom left, taking no focus, and closed by its own button or by Escape.
4.4Guides first: Starting a guide clears an announcement, and one never opens over a guide in progress.
4.5Kept: Every announcement for the screen stays listed on the launcher’s Updates tab.
4.6Governed: Written in the studio, then reviewed and published like every other item.

The launcher

The launcher is how staff start guidance: a round button in the bottom-right corner that lists what applies to the screen.

The launcher open on its Guides tab, with a guide in progress first and the screen’s chapters below.

5.1What it lists: The guides for the current screen, grouped into chapters, with a search box. For a person the application identifies, guides in progress come first.
5.2Updates: A second tab lists the screen’s announcements.
5.3Keyboard and screen readers: Announced as Guidance, with the number of guides for the screen. It never takes focus on its own; Tab leaves it, and Escape returns focus to the button.
5.4Honest states: A screen without guidance says “No guidance has been published for this screen yet.” When Nova Guide cannot serve guidance, the launcher is hidden, so the two states always look different.
5.5Appearance: An organisation can change the accent colour and corner radius in the portal. A colour that would leave white text unreadable is refused, with its measured contrast.
5.6Font: Inside a clinical application the launcher and guides use the computer’s own system font, so no font is downloaded into the clinical system.

Authoring in the studio

Guides are created by carrying out the task in the application itself. Each action is captured as a step, and the application responds as normal throughout.

Nova Guide Studio recording a guide. Each click becomes a step, worded from the control’s own label.

6.1Starting: From the portal’s link to the application, or from Record a guide on the browser extension. The guide’s name is asked before recording starts.
6.2Recording: A left click captures a step and passes through to the application. A right click adds an explanation. Recording continues across screens, and each step remembers the screen it was captured on.
6.3Wording: Drafted from the control’s accessible name, such as Click “Confirm prescription”, Fill in “Drug name” or Choose “Route”. Text from table cells, rows, links and headings is never used, and a name containing an NHS number, a date or five digits in a row is refused.
6.4Reading the draft: Drafted wording is marked until the author has opened or edited it, and the checklist before saving counts any that nobody has read.
6.5Target quality: Each target is graded as it is captured, and a fragile one is flagged while the author still has the screen in front of them.
6.6Corrections: Undo removes the last step while recording.
6.7Preview: Plays the guide through the real guidance layer, with analytics off.
6.8Screenshots: Optional, and switched on per application. NHS numbers and UK dates are found and filled with solid blocks before the image is uploaded, and the author can fill further areas.
6.9Other items: Tooltips, beacons, field hints and announcements are created from the same rail.
6.10Footprint: The authoring tools load only when an author opens them, so staff never download them.

Review and publishing

Every item is approved by a named reviewer against its exact content, then published on its own.

A guide approved in the portal. The approval names the reviewer and the fingerprint of the version they read.

7.1Roles: Admin, moderator, contributor and reviewer. Each person’s role in the organisation is also recorded, in its own words.
7.2Risk tiers: Chosen per organisation from a clinical template (navigational, procedural and clinical) or a standard one. Each tier names who may approve, and whether the approver must hold a professional registration or be someone other than the author.
7.3Approval: Binds a named person to the SHA-256 hash of the exact content, checked again at every publish. Any edit is a new version that needs approval again, and so does a change of tier.
7.4Emergency approval: Two approvers and a recorded reason, with a retrospective review due within 48 hours.
7.5Publishing: Each item has its own Publish and Unpublish. Every change rebuilds a bundle signed with ECDSA P-256, which the browser verifies before reading it. Unpublishing keeps the approval, so republishing needs no new review.
7.6Publishing checks: Publishing refuses content that is unapproved or changed since approval, approved in the wrong role or without a required registration, approved under a different tier, branching to a step that does not exist, or carrying an identity different from its record.
7.7Serving windows: Start and end dates for each item, checked in the browser every time it is offered.
7.8Organising: Chapters, comments on each item, and a printable sheet of any guide.
7.9Audit trail: Approvals, withdrawals and comments are recorded with the person and the time. Approval records are kept when a team member leaves.

Withdrawal

Withdrawal stops an item on every open screen within about a minute. It needs no approval.

Nova Guide

Prescribe a medicine

ApprovedLiveWithdrawn

Withdraw from clinicians

Reason (required)

Dose wording is out of date.

Withdraw nowWithdrawing…

Withdrawn at 14:41 by A. Morgan.

Reason: Dose wording is out of date.

Restoring it takes an admin or moderator.

New prescription

Medicine

Dose

Route

Step 2 of 5

Enter the dose

Type the dose as a number, then choose the unit.

Exit guide

This guidance has been withdrawn

Prescribe a medicine was withdrawn while you were following it, so it has stopped. Carry on with the task as you normally would.

A guide withdrawn in the portal, and the same guide stopping on a ward screen where it was in progress. Workstations check every 30 seconds; the wait is shortened here.

8.1Who: Anyone who works on content, from the item’s page in the portal, with a reason recorded. Restoring it takes an admin or moderator.
8.2Scope: One item, one application or the whole organisation.
8.3Reach: Workstations check the withdrawal list every 30 seconds. A guide in progress stops, and its card says it was withdrawn.
8.4Without a connection: A workstation that cannot reach the withdrawal list for 15 minutes stops showing guidance. Staff carry on in the application as normal.
8.5The list: Served apart from the content and never cached, so a withdrawal is seen at the next check.
8.6Record: Each withdrawal is recorded with who, what, when and why.

Audiences

Content can be offered to particular staff groups, wards or sites, using details the workstation or application already holds.

Segment

Nursing and midwifery

staffGroup is Nursing or Midwifery

Segment

All wards except 7B

ward is not 7B

9.1Segments: Defined by an admin as rules over attributes, such as staff group is Nursing or Midwifery, or ward is not 7B. Every rule in a segment must hold.
9.2Where attributes come from: The workstation’s managed policy, which can state its ward and site, or the page script, which can pass the signed-in person’s attributes.
9.3Privacy: Attributes are read in the browser. They are not sent to Nova Guide or recorded in events.
9.4Fails closed: An attribute nobody supplied fails every rule about it, so content reaches only the people its rules describe.
9.5Changes: Changing an audience needs no new approval, and a live item’s bundle is rebuilt at once.

See a guide recorded, approved and published.

A demonstration records a guide, takes it through review and publishing, and shows it as staff see it. It also covers how Nova Guide would be deployed and assured in your organisation.

Book a demonstration Read the specification

RecordingA guide recorded in Nova Guide Studio, click by click.
Review and publishingApproval by a named reviewer, then the guide going live.
On the screenThe guide as staff see it, started from the launcher.
Withdrawal and PULSEWithdrawing a guide, and the analytics behind it.
Your organisationDeployment, data protection and the clinical safety material.