I have been waiting for this.
We have been waiting for Minister Wildberger to sign so that we have something to refer to.
Getting a mandated Service Standard
On Thursday, the ‘Verordnung über Standards für den Onlinezugang zu Verwaltungsleistungen (OZSV)’ – in English: ‘Regulation on standards for online access to administrative services’ – got published. This may be the first-ever DigitalService-driven piece of policy to see the light of day.
It will take effect in the coming quarter, which is expected to be early October. Services launching before 1 January 2028 will remain exempt until 2030. There is an assumption that things take time to be commissioned and built, and that sufficient lead time is required.
Many at Digital Service and across the public sector have made significant contributions over the past three years to support this work – whether by applying it to their projects, referencing it to project partners, or conducting the earliest self-audits and reviews, which we initiated in summer 2022.
I remember my CEO, Christina, asking me about what to do with the Service Standard in my first week here. That was back in May 2022. This demonstrates the importance of steadiness, perseverance, and seizing opportunities when they arise. Things in government take time. But when we are patient, we can reap some great rewards.
Now, we only need to spread that piece of regulation to every corner of the country. How hard can that be?
Having the entire organisation get together – with great design
On Thursday, we had a full-day, all-organisation offsite. It included fancy animations and great graphics designed by our communication designers, Robin and Bianca. They both put their particular specialties together. Robin experimented with 3-D-rendered lenses. Bianca shaped the typography. The posters, lanyards, and agenda sheets for a day on ‘New perspectives’ looked fabulous.
I believe that good visual communication for internal events is evidence of a respectful culture.
With the work done for this event, the demo day at the beginning of the year, and the upcoming 5-year birthday activities, we should consider creating another blog post. It’s been almost 3 years since Daphne and I wrote about the role of communication design in government transformation. I will need to come up with a well-crafted narrative for the update.
There are too few blog posts on effective visual communication in the public sector. Visual communication – as part of overall intra-org communication – plays a vital role in employee engagement, participation and retention. It is about respectful interaction and affects collective understanding.
The design provided a clear backdrop for a day of reflection and engagement. It included speeches from the executive team, an extended Q&A section, and workshops in English and German, with mini-debate circles on topics like AI in government.
Workshopping user experience standards
As part of the organisational offsite, colleagues from other digital units from across the German public sector joined us. They were invited to co-run breakout workshops. I had the joy of co-running one with Andrea from GIZ. There, she leads and coordinates the global work on the GovStack programme. While her work is broader, she agreed to co-host a session on ‘UX Standards in Public Service’.
Andrea offered an introduction to GovStack, its mission, setup and building blocks. I tried to contextualise their efforts in the context of our work, illustrating where the ends meet.
I mentioned some obvious things, such as us often reinventing the wheel for each of the offerings we’ve built over the past 5 years – and why we need to change that. For the many new colleagues in the session, I mentioned that we had already run a joint GovStack workshop back in June 2024. And this week’s session is a great follow-up.
GovStack contains things others have figured out, I argued. GovStack closes important gaps in our patterns landscape, and it gives us blueprints to use.
Together with the dozen participants, we discussed the following question:
How do we scale good UX practices to ensure a consistent, user-centric experience across all government services?”
We collected views in the room. Andrea had the honour to highlight things we then dove deeper into. Big points were communication and collaboration. Among the thoughts and notes from everyone were some excellent and some interesting points, like:
- bring ‘touchpoint providers’ along a service journey together and let them learn about common patterns
- develop a feedback mechanism for users of forms to judge patterns in action
- document edge cases of pattern use
- demonstrate how people can still be playful with patterns – that they enable rather than hinder people, if that is a concern
- do roadshows across the country to inform responsible civil servants about patterns – people don’t know but should know
- develop proof-of-concept services – with examples as diverse as possible
- add standards on the language used in the service
- benchmark how bad things are today – compare afuture state with patterns with the status quo
- tie standards like patterns to budgets
- bring the patterns to school and university programmes to get tested and spread
The workshop was designed to be a self-contained format, without any follow-up activities. But I am tempted not just to leave these statements sit in a photograph on my phone. That would be a waste of potential.
Exchanging with the French chief designer officers
My colleague Marion helped set up a remote exchange with French counterparts.
On Monday afternoon, we joined a call with 14 colleauges from across ministries – including justice, education, interior and forgein affairs. A presidential decree, as we learned, led to hiring of chief design officers in each department. They report to a digital minister.
We were asked to share some things. Based on the points and questions they submitted, we compiled a set of slides and talking points. Marion shared some of her work in the German justice space. I gave an overview of the inception of Digital Service and how our user-centred design discipline has been involved. We discussed how projects are initiated and how we operate across the German public sector – rather than only operating within our shielded bubble.
There was too little time to learn effectively from them, and the format was not suitable for it. We were invited to share our setup, work, and approaches with them. We need a new date and a different setting to hear from them effectively. A meeting room with 14 chief designers on a single camera doesn’t allow for much good back-and-forth exchange. But I am intrigued. I want to learn more from them.
What’s next
On Tuesday, I will be co-running an interactive session on the Service Standard at the Smart Country Convention. I will co-run it with ministerial project partner Ralf.
We also have a new starter, Karo, joining us next week.