{"id":282,"date":"2022-08-14T22:50:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-14T20:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/verwaltungsgestaltung.de\/notizen\/?p=282"},"modified":"2024-04-07T00:57:34","modified_gmt":"2024-04-06T22:57:34","slug":"week-15-at-the-digital-service-notes-for-8-12-august","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/verwaltungsgestaltung.de\/notizen\/2022\/08\/14\/week-15-at-the-digital-service-notes-for-8-12-august\/","title":{"rendered":"Week #15 at the Digital Service: Notes for 8\u201312 August"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For weeks, I kept mentioning our second user-centred design blog post<\/a>. I finished writing it 2 weeks ago, and we finalised editing it last week. We published it on Tuesday instead of the previous Friday to increase the impact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few designers contributed significantly, so my colleagues Carina and Charlotte got a co-author credit. I think growing the teams\u2019 visibility and the efforts of individuals are fundamentally important. So I want the next design blog posts to be written by anyone in the design team but me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At about 1,900 words, this blog post turned out quite long, to be fair. A colleague commented on that, too. In my old UK government blog editor role, I would have sent the authors back to the drawing board. However, given the German government\u2019s state of design and how nonexistent guidance is, I sense we need to start with some longer pieces to lay the groundwork and then get to shorter pieces soon. That should also lower the bar for people who feel less routined with writing and publicly sharing their thoughts and work. We might also want to start translating a few posts, including this one, now that the English version of our website<\/a> is live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far, we have lacked pictures and photographic documentation of our user research activities. Now, I could take some decent shots for the blog post \u2013 both from the pop-up testing we did a couple of weeks ago and the usability testing this week. Over time, I want us to replace all stock images in internal and stakeholder-facing presentations and move to an open photo library like GDS<\/a> is operating it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As mentioned a few weeks ago, we ideated dozens of blog post topics and have a few more in the making. So I will further step into the editor role and ensure we keep them coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spending time with users<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As this second blog post<\/a> is all about learning from users about their needs, contexts and current pain points, the last couple of weeks were helpful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday, one of our teams had 6 participants come to the office for on-site usability tests. They tested a new flow, and things mostly went well. The team was able to iterate on the spot and make changes between the two sessions. The whole team was involved and lived through some tension while watching a person go through some crucial parts of the new flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The tension in the observer room was palpable earlier this afternoon. The team watching went quiet for a moment when a participant took a crucial step in a new flow\u2014and broke out in a big cheer after.

Glad we\u2019re able to run in-person #UsabilityTests<\/a> at @DigitalServBund<\/a> again! pic.twitter.com\/aUNZr5pybL<\/a><\/p>— Martin Jordan \ud83d\udeb2 \ud83c\udf31 \ud83c\udf24\ufe0f \u2014 \ud83e\udd8b martinjordan.com (@Martin_Jordan) August 11, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote>