We are getting close.
Next week is Demo Day.
Most things are prepared.
Lanyards and most posters are printed. We have screens mounted and have had a dry run. We have 8 stations to showcase our work to the 150+ guests and visitors who have signed up.
As many people will move across floors and from station to station, we want them to remember and take things with them. So, we created collectable cards with a short description of the work whose station they have visited. The cards also include links and a QR code leading to our project pages.
We have mapped out the timings and flows of people. However, as we don’t know how many people will join, the dynamics are hard to predict.
I am happy we managed to add a station on accessibility. In addition to the regular 7 stations, which cover specific services or service areas, such as taxes, parental benefits, or justice services, the accessibility station showcases our efforts. My colleague Marion agreed to lead it. We will introduce our approach and our work with the GOV.UK accessibility personas, the custom tools we have built, and the processes we have established.
One of the last-minute efforts is to create a background screen animation that displays some significant numbers. It includes the number of GitHub deployments in 2024 (16,902), the number of active users of the public services we developed and provided last year (907,416), and the number of users directly involved in the development of our services (537). We can take pride in these numbers, so let’s make them visible.
Workshopping Service Standard’s strategic objectives
We are nearing the completion of the DIN specification development, with the final related consortium meeting in sight. So, we began examining the next goal points. For that, I participated in a strategic goal workshop at the Federal Ministry of the Interior to set Service Standard objectives for 2025.
In an interactive format, we recapped the work done so far, mapped the work ahead, and prioritised it. The session was attended by the head of the unit and the responsible policy officer. We discussed the things we need to avoid to elude repeating the failures of the original 2020 Service Standard release. Back then, the efforts and investments weren’t sustained, and the standard remained largely unknown and unused.
As part of that, we discussed the importance of having a well-visible and easy-to-update website for the Service Standard.
During the week, I also worked on key visuals for the Service Standard and another related blog post.
Seeking national and international exchange
I thrive on outside exchange.
This week, I joined 2 exchanges – one with the UK Department of Education’s Head of User Research, and one with Cologne’s Innovation Office.
In the conversation with Tom from DfE, we had an exchange about setting quality standards for a growing user research discipline, defining service area taxonomies, and planning for an LLM magic layer to experiment with analysing data in a grown research repository.
As we lack more mature user research setups in the German public sector, we are eager to discuss matters with international colleagues. Last summer, we were glad to speak to our counterparts at Springer Nature. We also established our own monthly exchange with people from across a dozen other German public sector organisations, and yet, there remains much more for us to learn from colleagues elsewhere.
With a good interest in open exchange in the user-centred discipline, Marlene, Sonja, and I reserved some time to discuss our future efforts. For that, I attempted to structure our public engagement approach for design and user research, providing some key orientation points.
I see different target audiences and formats. Some are more crucial than others. And anyway, we want to keep some balance. Given our mission of creating a more digital Germany, colleagues in the public sector are more important than the wider public or user-centred design colleagues in other sectors. The same goes for students.
We will work with established platforms wherever possible, as they come with their own built-in audience. Therefore, we will seek a blend of talks, workshops, writing, or speaking formats, such as blogs or podcasts. I sketched a grid with practical examples of each mutation. In the future, I would like us to keep track of engagements so we can ensure some balance, because not engaging with students is also not an option.
Also noteworthy this week: The new administration in the United States came into power. It immediately changed the situation for colleagues there.
What’s next
Next week is all about ensuring that Demo Day runs smoothly. Everything else comes second. I have no fixed responsibilities on the day, so I can roam around and assist with tasks as needed. I’m pretty sure there will be a need to do so.