My colleagues and I had a very educational Friday.
Discussing differences in policy design approaches
Over lunch, Prof Dr Sabine Junginger from Northumbria University in Newcastle joined us for an input and exchange on policy design. She walked user researchers, designers, product managers and engineers – mostly from our Access to Justice team – through various models, frameworks and some recent research and development work. It sparked a discussion about policy design practice in Germany compared to other countries and the makeup of the German civil service.
I am grateful for exchanges and inputs like these. I feel fortunate we have a network that allows us to welcome esteemed guests who debate with us.
Shortly after, in the afternoon, I hosted students from the Estonian Academy of Arts’ digital product design course. My colleagues Bianca and Joshua joined me. Bianca added some valuable questions while Joshua shared some tangible user research work from the justice service context.
Bringing the international crowd together
Earlier, on Friday morning, Viktoria and I hosted the User Needs First Amsterdam post-conference webinar. In parts, it included content that did not fit into the packed agenda in April.
We are running an international #govDesign webinar with @jjstraetemans.bsky.social, @zuydweg.nl and their terrific #UserNeedsFirst community. We have 63 people from various time zones and parts of the world to hear design stories from Thailand 🇹🇭, Germany 🇩🇪, the Netherlands 🇳🇱 & the United Kingdom 🇬🇧
— Martin Jordan (@martinjordan.com) May 23, 2025 at 10:53 AM
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After a presentation from my colleagues Charlotte and Dirk on stakeholder participation and co-design, Jett Pisate Virangkabutra who lectures in various universities in Thailand, gave an insight into his work and its cultural context. He talked about navigating obstacles in justice design.
Working for 3 years in the German justice space, they recommend others not just to do the #serviceDesign work but to invest in these areas: • Build relationships • Build trust • Shape a common vision
— Martin Jordan (@martinjordan.com) May 23, 2025 at 11:08 AM
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Afterwards, colleagues from consultancy PWC shared work on redesigning legacy systems they have done in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
3 inputs for 90 minutes were a bit ambitious, we realised half through the session. Eventually, we ran out of time and couldn’t answer all of the questions that came up at the end of the webinar.
The recordings and summaries have been published on the User Needs First’s community page.
Learning about cyber and domain protection in the UK
On Monday, we had a terrific exchange on domain management with our colleagues from the Government Digital Service in the UK.
A weeks ago, I reached out to Khidr who worked as a technical writer when I left the organisation. Now, he is part of the Cyber and Domains Protection team. He and 2 colleagues joined us on an extended exchange call to give us an overview on the work they do on the GOV.UK subdomains.
A main touchpoint of their offering is the Apply for a .gov.uk domain name: step by step guide. In clear language and specific order, it explains which steps to follow to get such a subdomain.
We learned how they work with a federated system of local registrars for domains, support the smallest government entities – parish councils, and also monitor domain misconfiguration across the UK and other English-speaking countries, too. We were impressed to see the breadth of their work, the size of the team, and the legacy decisions they have to deal with. The exchange was highly educational for us and, once again, I am grateful for the openness and willingness of international colleagues to share their work with us. This saves us valuable time and reduces the number of mistakes we make.
Growing design capability
I continued interviewing 4 more candidates throughout the week. Some of the people I interviewed a couple of weeks ago went through a design deep dive and a collaboration interview now.
We are at 341 applications for our regular-level role now. It’s a new record. The job market in Germany and beyond seems harsh after so many rounds of private sector business layoffs.
— Martin Jordan (@martinjordan.com) May 21, 2025 at 11:22 AM
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It puzzles me how many applications we have received for the open design role: over 340. I believe it’s a new record. One contributing factor is likely the economic situation and the many layoff waves across the private sector. A second factor is likely the broad usage of AI tools in the application process. We must assume that people are faster at putting together applications. LinkedIn’s quick application features are a part of that.
In the meantime, we see the public sector progress, which is indicated by a record number of open roles. This week, I found 4 advertised design roles across the country and government units.
New role added to my little German public sector #designJobs board: @sprind-en.bsky.social is looking for a product designer based in Leipzig, Berlin or remotely to work on lifelong learning and further education offerings. 4 open roles are a new record. 👇🏻 verwaltungsgestaltung.de#positionen
— Martin Jordan (@martinjordan.com) May 23, 2025 at 12:06 AM
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Taking a look at life events
With a reference in the coalition agreement of the new government, I started looking at life events again. Having an anchor point in the most important political documents guiding work for the coming 4 years, I want to make use of that in the best way possible. So I started having conversations with colleagues about how we can use these anchor points to broaden the conversation with ministerial partners and look at the larger life events instead of smaller transactional services.
This is somewhat an uphill exercise as ministerial remits are usually clearly cut while services cross organisational borders. Hence, it is even more critical that we educate more people on the importance of taking a broader view of government services and outcomes for citizens.
What’s next
Next week, I will have a shorter week. With a public holiday in between, I will take a couple of days off.
On Monday, I will co-host a delegation from the Kingdom of Jordan. It will include people from 3 or 4 ministries. The visitors are interested in various topics I care about: service delivery, digital transformation, guidelines, and service quality standards.
I will join Lena for further interviews related to the umbrella brand. We will interview colleagues on its steering committee.