{"id":2502,"date":"2023-12-10T11:08:19","date_gmt":"2023-12-10T10:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/verwaltungsgestaltung.de\/notizen\/?p=2502"},"modified":"2023-12-10T14:46:21","modified_gmt":"2023-12-10T13:46:21","slug":"week-84-at-the-digital-service-notes-for-4-8-december-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/verwaltungsgestaltung.de\/notizen\/2023\/12\/10\/week-84-at-the-digital-service-notes-for-4-8-december-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Week #84 at the Digital Service: Notes for 4\u20138 December 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This was yet another dense and also fun week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday afternoon, the design and user-research team at DigitalService met for our annual end-of-year gathering. About 2\/3 of us could make it. Getting closer to the evening, we had a gingerbread house crafting competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Eva, Jo and Sami, we had a wonderfully articulate, eloquent, and critical jury who looked at the design and execution of 3 gingerbread houses. Ultimately, they awarded 3 prizes to 1 team each \u2013 honouring solid build quality, the most creative concept and the most user-centred design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recognising what a demanding year 2023 has been, we decided to have a portion of reflection during the discipline\u2019s Christmas gathering and finish with something purely fun and silly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sonja started us with an M&M-powered conversational icebreaker<\/a> that made us tell things from our childhood, things we are excited about or things we\u2019d like to try. I led through a Zombie-themed retrospective<\/a>, asking: \u201cWhat keeps us as a discipline from researching and designing well and making good user-centred public services happen?\u201d. As a third segment, Charlotte prepared a \u2018Struggles and Learnings 2023\u2019 canvas for us to work through in small teams. And, like last year, we collected anonymous personal appreciations from team members and shared them. Everyone in the room got a folded note with the name of another designer or user researcher. Once the person\u2019s slide came up, they had to read out the appreciations this person had received. Charlotte coined the format \u2018warm shower\u2019, and it got a lot of claps and smiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Time and formats like these are vital for the discipline. This year, it grew by 29%, introducing user research as a dedicated role. The following 13% of growth is already given as 3 more future team members have their contracts for 2024 signed. By the end of 2024, the user-centred design team could reach 30 people. More people means more human connections, lowering the chance for more profound, meaningful exchanges between everyone. I have seen that at GDS and Nokia, and only a few focused efforts to mitigate that. I like to do better and try harder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To recap the year, I made a slide show summarising what we did in the discipline \u2013 apart from everyone\u2019s work in the teams. We did plenty of things, from crafting design principles to running training, unpacking strategy, launching new community events and formats, and having offsite and various public talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talking and getting other people to talk to each other<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It was the last week of public events, and Thursday was especially packed. Maria and I hosted the second regular NExT community event on user-centred design<\/a>. We had some 30 people join us to look at and discuss \u2018clear language, comprehensible government\u2019 (the German title \u2018Klare Sprache, verst\u00e4ndliche Verwaltung\u2019 is better). Participants came from all parts of government, including cities, municipalities, state-level and federal government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had 2 presentations this time. First, Elke Wildraut, an easy-read specialist in the IT unit of the City of Munich, gave an introduction to easy-read, what its specific rules are and how she works on service guidance and other information, including election guidance. English Wikipedia has a good explanation of German \u2018Leichte Sprache\u2019<\/a>. Afterwards, my colleague Paul talked about clear language in the context of the \u2018Get support with court fees\u2019 he and his team are working on. His slides from the talk are on GitHub<\/a>. Both speakers got plenty of questions, and attendees shared appreciation for their work. And despite a lower \u2018return on invested time\u2019 score of 4.1 out of 5 this time, we can finish our public sector-community work on a high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without a break, I moved on to a webinar that started 1 minute later: \u2018Digitaler Staat Online\u2019 invited Caro and me to talk about the Service Standard and its practical application in justice services. We promised to address 3 questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n