Some formats have developed a life of their own. And that is fantastic. It’s been just over 2 since we started running pizza-powered accessibility checks. I helped Nadine develop the format, which lets teams invite colleagues over pizza to test their offering with the GOV.UK accessibility personas.
There were about 10 tests for public-facing services, tools for court clerks, and our own website. They build accessibility awareness across the organisation and let teams find and address accessibility issues sooner.
Usually, I am no longer involved in these. The teams, with the support of the Accessibility Ambassadors, are organising them. This week, the Digitalcheck team invited colleagues to look at the latest digital touchpoint for lawmakers and policy drafters. It launched as a silent beta recently and has already received an external audit by the charity Sozialheld*innen.
If you want to give the ‘Simulating accessibility personas’ Chrome extension a test drive, you can find it on GitHub: github.com/digitalservi… It’s still beta and a bit incomplete. And it is not yet in the Chrome Web Store.
— Martin Jordan (@martinjordan.com) Aug 28, 2024 at 17:24
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The format is well documented internally now. There is a well-iterated how-to page on our Confluence, and support is available. As previously reported, Joshua’s ‘Simulating accessibility personas’ tool is maturing as a Chrome extension. But with a few features missing, it’s not yet in the Chrome web store. But it’s at a stage where more people should review it and give feedback. That includes people outside of Digital Service. So, I also pinged Richard at the Central Digital & Data Office about it. He responded immediately. In the coming weeks, I’d love us to gather and incorporate input to make the extension available to a broader user base.
Pushing for more opening-up
Opening up has been a thread this week.
I felt sad after we published our latest international blog post on the UK ‘Design in government’ blog on Friday. When scrolling down, I realised that every 4th or 5th post on the blog is co-authored by me – while I left the UK government over 2 years ago. At the same time, there are more designers in government than ever before. But the blogging culture seems to have come to a stall.
In 2023, the number of posts has been lower than any year since the blog launched in November 2013. So I asked what has happened in UK government, especially in the past 2 years. That led to the most vivid exchange I have seen on Bluesky until now, with about a dozen people chipping in and sharing their hypotheses.
Where’s the blogging mojo of UK #GovDesign? After much early-pandemic activity, I see far fewer posts on blog.gov.uk platforms. Why? There are more UCD people in gov’t than ever before, but a lot of work has become invisible. That’s not good. For sharing, learning, and accountability.
— Martin Jordan (@martinjordan.com) Aug 26, 2024 at 11:19
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Martha, who is currently working in the Canadian provincial government, offered the most substantial list of factors and prerequisites for maintaining a blogging culture:
- Permission from leaders
- Endorsement from manager/team
- Confidence that what they are saying is valid/useful
- Writing experience or access to someone with it to edit/write
- Time
These are central prerequisites for enabling blogging and a #WorkingInTheOpen culture in the public sector. I feel blessed being able to find all of them at @digitalservice.bund.de
— Martin Jordan (@martinjordan.com) Aug 27, 2024 at 11:07
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Our setup at Digital Service addresses all of these requirements, and I am genuinely grateful for that.
While we work on an updated version of the German Service Standard, I am trying to revive the German equivalent of the Service Manual to open it up. It’s been live on servicehandbuch.de from 2021 to 2023. It did not receive further funding and was taken offline about a year ago. In spring this year, it was brought back as a PDF file. While that is better than not having it at all, HTML remains superior.
With a few days of idle time between projects, I asked my colleague Marco to see if he could bring the Servicehandbuch back. He quickly started using GitBook – just like the GovStack folks do for their service patterns. Marco has been making good progress by the end of the week and might soon be able to point to it again, reference individual guidance, and search inside it. More importantly, it will allow us to take the first humble steps in iterating its content with the cross-public sector community.
I have contacted a few people already and mentioned it in our monthly user research exchange session this week. Participants seem eager to review and enrich existing guidance.
During a Thursday lunch and learn session on OpenCoDE, I asked if I could host it there. Colleagues from ZenDIS, the German government’s Centre for Digital Sovereignty, told us more about the open-source platform they are developing. So, I was curious to learn that GitBook and OpenCoDE can go well together.
In today’s lunch & learn session, we heard from our colleagues from the Centre for Digital Sovereignty (ZenDIS) about their work on OpenCoDE.de. They explained how they enable the German public sector to share code openly, collaborate and improve continuously. #OpenSource #WorkingInTheOpen
— Martin Jordan (@martinjordan.com) Aug 29, 2024 at 14:42
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In the coming days, we should make some good progress with opening up the manual content. Then, we can start advancing the current content and adding examples from across government, too. At the same time, we also intend to bring the iterated version of the Service Standard to the platform. I hope people will be less shying away from commenting as we saw years ago with the UK Service Standard. Hopefully, public servants are a bit more tech-savvy, and the tech has also lowered previous barriers to participation.
Besides, I also want to create a better place to store NExT community content. I have created a repository already, but I still have to fill it.
Dealing with the political environment
With elections in 3 federal states with worrying outcomes around the corner, I joined an educational exchange session organised by the NExt network. Director of civic democracy platform Arne Semsrott gave an input asking, “What if the far-rights get to power and govern in Germany?”. Over 125 public servants joined on Thursday morning. Arne, who just published the book on the far-right’s rise to power, warned that passivity in ministries and government agencies is no option. Active dissent and resistance are necessary, he argued.
What if the far-right gets to power and governs in Germany? What if the AfD takes over your ministry? This morning, @nextnetz.bsky.social is hosting a perspectives event with @fragdenstaat.de’s @arnesemsrott.bsky.social. It’s a packed session with 125 public servants.
— Martin Jordan (@martinjordan.com) Aug 29, 2024 at 10:14
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The colleagues at NExT summarised Arne’s main talking points and recommendations on what public servants can do when the far-right starts to govern. These points include:
- Be prepared – as the takeover will happen in many small steps, mental preparation is vital
- Form bonds – building networks of allies as early as possible to prevent or minimise personal disadvantages if one gets caught in the crossfire
- Use existing mechanisms – using slow bureaucratic mills purposefully to disable unconstitutional orders where possible
- Remonstrate: following the civil service oath to uphold the Basic Law can be a helpful reference point
- Involve staff councils and unions – as they already have the procedures for dealing with
On Friday evening, various public servants I know and respect also published a statement asking, ‘What if the administration were defensive?’. It describes the importance of militant democracy and the active contribution of public servants. I am glad about these reflections and discussions of democratic-minded public servants who want to play an active role in defending our democratic systems in times of continuous far-right attacks.
On a much more positive and productive note, I had an encounter with a Member of Parliament on Monday afternoon. They are working on a benefit area and deeply care about improving related experiences for eligible citizens. They had an operational government administration role in the past and have a remarkable understanding of the lived experience of people.
Had an inspiring exchange with a Member of Parliament today. It was moving how deeply they care about a certain issue, want to understand the possibilities of digital and build consensus across the aisle to create a good law. More members of the public should have such a trust-building experience.
— Martin Jordan (@martinjordan.com) Aug 26, 2024 at 19:19
Having spoken with various people about how to change fundamental underlying structures – from a governance and technology perspective, they wanted to know more about it from us and what we think is possible. It’s challenging but deeply meaningful transformation work. It’s the stuff one wants to work on because it’s so important. It’s one of those areas where many eligible people aren’t applying for benefits because it’s complicated and socially stigmatised. I hope we can somehow make a positive contribution.
What’s next
On Monday, I will welcome our second content designer, Linn. She has one of the quickest starts – less than 2 weeks between signing contracts and joining the organisation. She will join the parental benefits service team, which has been waiting for content design support.
We are having our next quarterly cross-government community gathering on Tuesday next week. The topic will be ‘designing good forms’. We will have 2 inputs on the subject. My colleague Paul will share some thoughts and observations on who needs to be involved in making a good form. That includes users, caseworkers, and legal specialists – in precisely that order. We will also hear from our colleagues in the City of Cologne, who run a form lab from their innovation office. They already presented that work in last year’s 24-hour remote conference, and it was superb.
Next week, we’ll discuss “Designing good form” in the German public sector user-centred design community of practice. Join us on Tuesday between 1 and 3 pm — if you work in the public sector in any role.
— Martin Jordan (@martinjordan.com) Aug 28, 2024 at 12:00
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Maria, my co-organiser, and I plan to rerun the maturity survey we already did in the summer of 2023 – to see how things or the perception of things related to user-centred design have changed.
After receiving the final version of my Touchpoint article, the issue is supposed to be published next week. While it’s a very niche topic, I’m a little excited about it. It’s been 6 years since I last wrote for Touchpoint and 12 years since I started. It’s been really a little while in service design now. And yet, there is much still untouched and not done.