This was one of the calmest weeks in a while. I had some actual gaps in my calendar this week instead of being entirely booked out. That left me with time to think and tinker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With a quarterly check-in with senior stakeholders scheduled for next week, Tito and I started sketching out a vastly improved experience across service touchpoints utilising the elements of the umbrella brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a workshop in late January 2024, which is over 18 months ago, ministerial director B\u00fcrger described the problem: a poorly fragmented experience that users have while using almost any transactional service in Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From what I can see, little has happened since then. No public sector entity involved in some of the shown service journeys has made any substantial changes. When basic components like digital identity, payment, submission and status tracking are involved, things are just where they were 1.5 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Members of our umbrella brand team<\/a> and I have been approaching various government entities public sector organisations. The response has been muted, though. So, as pictures are more powerful than words, we started sketching out what an improved, consistent cross-touchpoint linked to a transactional service could, or instead, should look like. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not about a specific service. It is about comparing the current fragmentation to what a unified experience would look and could feel like. The pictures \u2013 or interface journeys \u2013 we are drawing is what all senior leaders should have in their briefcase all the time to reference in conversation. Instead, often things are about technology and technology choices. But if senior folks don\u2019t have seen a north star, they cannot use their political capital and influence to move towards it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Building on the KERN Design System<\/a>, we focused on 6 key screens to bring our alternative reality across:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I do not know if others have sketched similar screen sequences. Somehow, I hope so. I find that all too often, designers in other parts of the public sector don\u2019t think they have the remit to interfere with other people\u2019s work. I have a different view. I believe in the power of provocotypes to start a discussion and engage with others in dialogue, including people on the working level as much as senior stakeholders across departments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For colleagues in the UK, this approach is only worth a shrug. It\u2019s straightforward and obvious. But in most countries, having a consistent service experience is the exception, not the norm. In the US, for example, there is a powerful .gov domain, and government websites have a slim identifying header. But the visual consistency of US government websites is somewhat limited. Styles and components are rarely shared. The US Web Design System is loosely followed. Other countries are doing far worse, Germany included. I want us to do better. That is why we sketch: to start conversations and engage with stakeholders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So far, the KERN Design System mainly covers styles and components. Flows and page patterns are almost entirely missing. That\u2019s why I wanted to have designers working on KERN join our service patterns workshop last summer<\/a>. That didn\u2019t work out. In the coming weeks and months, I want us to go deeper into service patterns. I spoke with designers Felix, Marlene and Tom about it this week. They are currently working on how to bring the unified design system to their justice service platform. That work will stretch over the next few months. It will take us a while to swap all styles and components. The larger page and service patterns we have developed are robust, and I want us to feed them back into the ongoing KERN work stream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On another note, I am warming up to the font choice of the cross-government design system. Last autumn, when it emerged that \u2018Fira Sans<\/a>\u2019 would be the typeface used as the primary font, I wasn\u2019t excited. As we design more with it, we are getting to know it better. Looking further into the font\u2019s origins, there is a link to German government communication that is bringing things full circle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I am a sucker for a good narrative for a design choice. Remembering that \u2018Fira\u2019 is based on \u2018FF Meta<\/a>\u2019, which is based on \u2018PT 55\u2019, which was developed for the German Federal Post Office in the mid-1980s. The brief led the way to a font that was \u201cneutral, not fashionable, trendy or nostalgic\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not the greatest fan of \u2018Fira Sans\u2019 as a #typeface.\n\nBut as it is used now as font for Germany\u2019s cross-government #designSystem, it brings things full circle.\n\n\u2018Fira\u2019 is based on \u2018FF Meta\u2019, commissioned initially for the German Federal Post Office in 1984 as a \u201cneutral, space-saving typeface\u201d.\n
[image or embed]<\/a><\/p>— Martin Jordan (@martinjordan.com<\/a>) August 9, 2025 at 2:50 PM<\/a><\/blockquote>