On a hot 31-degree day, we recorded short Service Standard statements for social media.
Creating Service Standard content
In the recording, ministerial project partner Ralf and I introduce the standard to an uninitiated audience and provide some tips on how to get started.
The video was supposed to be recorded at Digital Service, but then we moved to the ministry and filmed it in the newly erected and logo-walled atrium. My comms colleagues Chiara, Robin, and Steffi did a terrific job capturing it, and I saw the first bits of the cut.
Using a teleprompter for videos works well for me. Others tell me I can deliver sentences well without making them sound unnatural or read out. When there is little time to learn lines, my brain has one thing less to handle.
Next, we have another podcast coming up for late August. Ralf and I will do it remotely with the host, who will be in a third location. It’s scheduled, and notes are drafted. The podcast series has a broader audience for German government digitalisation than the Why Service Design podcast I recently did.
Other recorded content in review is a German Sign Language version of the Service Standard’s 12 criteria and a navigational overview of the website. Tobias of CityLAB Berlin agreed to review them. He is the closest person I know who speaks German Sign Language and knows the Service Standard. So, I was grateful when he gave his thumbs up, even though he caviatted that he is a CODA, a “child of deaf adults.” He suggested we ask deaf people to review the video, too, as long as the providing agency allows changes to the produced material free of charge. That is what we did.
While a first basic version of the new Service Standard page exists on servicestandard.gov.de, the team is only now preparing the first proper release. It comes with the first slate of guidance pieces for the handbook and the first peer review report.
Throughout the week, the team ran usability tests with members of service teams and digital commissioners across the country. None of them was particularly familiar with the Service Standard, which was the recruitment and screening criteria. After feedback was initially slow, we eventually had more potential participants than we needed for this testing round. Eventually, we tested with 6 people. I joined a session on Thursday morning as a notetaker.
Doing bits of my “two hours every six weeks”* — in a remote user research session and usability test with a service team member from the City State of Hamburg who is seeing and using the new #ServiceStandard page for the first time. Great observations! Excellently led by @joseernestorodriguez.com
— Martin Jordan (@martinjordan.com) August 14, 2025 at 9:58 AM
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The person commented on the length of the guidance after a single scroll. I was reminded of how usability testing must focus on what works, not what’s popular. I learned my lessons in other stations of my career.
We will conclude and summarise the findings from the usability test shortly. For early September, we are planning an in-house pizza-powered accessibility check, before we let our colleagues from the BFIT, the Federal Monitoring Agency for Accessibility of Information Technology, take another look as part of a formal short audit.
On a cool note: my former GDS colleague Ross Ferguson added the routemap of our Service Standard website to his growing collection of international examples on publicbackroads.xyz.
Prototyping around the umbrella brand
On Wednesday, we checked in with the deputy director responsible for our work on the cross-government umbrella brand. This was our first gathering of this kind on the topic, so it had to be on point, and it was.
I started sketching a dedicated landing page on a whiteboard on Monday morning. Over lunch, I transferred the sketch to Miro. In the afternoon, designer Tito, user researcher and service designer Lena, and I met to discuss what needs to be prototyped for half an hour.
The HTML prototype was deployed the following morning at 8:30 am and was ready to be shown to senior officials. That is the magic of having your code prototype tools prepared and at hand. Then, with another 28 hours to the meeting, the team could tweak the prototype ahead of it. It incorporates features and functionalities that people informed through earlier interviews. It also takes clues from what our US colleagues delivered on get.gov.
As part of the senior-level quarterly, we gave an overview of our research and findings, and demoed the prototype that included a landing page and first guidance page together in a sequence with a request form. We also shared a best-of video of our research and expert exchanges. It was all well-received, and our prototype hopefully finds its way to the minister.
Committing to writing
Like last week, this week was not too busy. I kept myself well occupied, though. I also wrote an overview of blog posts I want to write and publish by autumn.
For public accountability—so I deliver them—here are the blog posts I plan to finish by autumn: 1. Update on our int’l community work, w/ @karakane-kk.bsky.social 2. How we work on larger services, w/ @feuerherd.bsky.social 3. Why cross-disciplinary leadership matters, w/ @nfelger.bsky.social*
— Martin Jordan (@martinjordan.com) August 11, 2025 at 8:02 PM
On my list are the following topics:
- An update on our international community work, including the Amsterdam conference, podcast, and design for policy workshop — with Kara and Victoria
- A think piece on how we work or larger services while developing products at Digital Service — with Sabrina
- A post on why integrated cross-discipline leadership matters and what it looks like in our organisation — with my fellow heads of delivery 
- A blog post about we learnt in 4 years of building design libraries and why we no longer invest in our own — with Charlotte, Christin and Tine
- An article on what we need to roll out the updated German Service Standard across the country — with Katrin and Simone
- An article on how we do content design and make content more accessible — with Linn, Sue and Torsten
I don’t have to be necessarily mentioned as a co-author in some of these pieces. It’s more important that they happen, and I have thoughts on what should be included. 
What’s next
Already last Sunday, I went into a little rabbit hole on typography. I started looking into ‘Fira Sans’, the typeface chosen for the cross-government umbrella brand and included in the design system. Now, I’m preparing a short input of its 40-year history for our next internal design weekly next week.
I gathered some online and offline material. I also realised that there are various cross-overs with stations in my career. My former boss, Thomas Manss, was involved in the original branding work for the German Federal Post Office at Sedley Place in the mid-80s, for which the font’s predecessor, ‘PT55’, was developed. The abbreviation stands for ‘Post Type’.
Later, my employer, HERE Technologies, after Nokia sold the subsidiary, switched from ‘Nokia Sans’ to ‘Fira Sans’ and commissioned a vastly extended set of glyphs for the global market they were and are operating in. That extension is called ‘Fira GO’, developed for the ‘HERE WeGo’ navigation app that I also used to work on for various years.
This is the first version of a short design talk, which I can extend to other formats in the future.