{"id":78,"date":"2022-05-22T21:24:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-22T19:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/verwaltungsgestaltung.de\/notizen\/?p=78"},"modified":"2025-08-05T19:30:28","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T17:30:28","slug":"week-3-16-20-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/verwaltungsgestaltung.de\/notizen\/2022\/05\/22\/week-3-16-20-may\/","title":{"rendered":"Week #3 at the Digital Service: Notes for 16\u201320 May"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After 2.5 weeks, I made it out of the building. I visited the Federal Press and Information Office, which, among other things, looks after the brand of the Federal government and its ministries in Germany and the related style guide<\/a>. They have a rather impressive office in the central government district. While they don\u2019t have an entire design team in-house, some have been working as designers in senior positions in consultancies before, so they are more than just brand managers. They have a deep understanding of the material they are dealing with. We discussed how the various brands are documented and managed in a dynamic digital landscape. The team is also responsible for some web components as part of their work. We discussed how our work on additional components could feed into theirs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learning about work and language\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This week, I continued with my designer 1:1 sessions. Even though I\u2019m not line-managing everyone \u2013 the senior designers are the people managers of the mid-level designers \u2013 I like to have these sessions with a reasonable frequency. That is not something I have seen happening in the organisations I have worked at before, but it\u2019s vital to stay closely in touch with all the work and the people doing it. I hope to establish an understanding that my door (aka calendar, Slack message, etc.) is always open.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also had the opportunity to learn about 2 larger projects in more detail, going through journeys and flows to get an idea of the work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every Monday, designers and occasionally a few developers from different projects share their progress on components while contributing to an internal component library. This week, they looked at error messages, their styles and behaviours. In another cross-government call, I learned about another component library developed by the Federal Information Technology Centre (ITZBund). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while speaking to a user-centred minded person at state government level, I got a better understanding of how the German service standard<\/a> plays a minor role in developing digital services mandated by the \u2018online access law\u2019. As the standard had been written by a Federal ministry with little to no upfront consultation of state and local government, where most services are developed and delivered, it\u2019s not something that\u2019s being considered in the creation process. As they weren\u2019t asked before, it\u2019s nothing for them now either. That\u2019s a missed opportunity because the service standard is good and can be a helpful building block to increase quality of services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After listening to colleagues for a couple of weeks, I recognised some linguistic quirks. For example, certain verbs have prefixes that I had not heard before. So I took it to Twitter and got some curious responses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For the German speakers:
What\u2019s the deal with all the prefixes you add to verbs in German gov\u2019t contexts? Why does it need them? What\u2019s the difference?
\u2022 ver-testen (?-test)
\u2022 ver-proben (trial?)
\u2022 nach-nutzen (re-use)

It\u2019s seriously irritating me?\u200d?#TwitterVerwaltung<\/a> #OZG<\/a><\/p>— Martin Jordan (he\/him) ? ? (@Martin_Jordan) May 16, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote>