By Adrián Ortega, content designer at the Centre for Digital Public Services in Wales.
Another while since my last week/monthnotes! Going to keep it short and sweet.
Some things I’ve done since last time:
Co-facilitated a design ops day with the rest of the UCD team. It went really well (I think). Everyone seemed to enjoy, and it sparked some thought-provoking discussions. We talked about the design process, especially how to involve translators. This will help shape the service manual. There was also pizza, a content critique, and a trip to the pub afterward.
Visited the Digital Accessibility Centre with some colleagues. It was fascinating to see people interact with our website using different assistive tools. We got confirmation that bilingual emails and texts that prioritise Welsh first can be a hindrance for screen-reader users. And images that don’t add value should be hidden from screen readers instead of using very detailed alt-descriptions.
Attended the UX Wales meetup on Tuesday. Kathryn Davies, a UX researcher at Cardiff Uni, gave an insightful talk about pausing user research to organise existing knowledge. Instead of continue with business as usual research, they stopped to review their understanding and collaborate with other teams. We often chase the next shiny thing without looking after what we already have. Not only do we fail to make the most of it, but we may be constantly reinventing the wheel.
Played around with some new tools (or "AI" if you will). I’ve tried Google’s NotebookLM and listened to a podcast generated from my own writing – very weird but also cool! I’ve also explored podcasts based on Wikipedia articles and research papers - so useful! I’m curious about what this technology will bring for accessibility, opening up information to more people. The possibility to - as someone told me -, ‘interact with information instead of just consuming it’. For example, someone else mentioned they used Claude.ai to interrogate their own thinking and tighten their definitions before going into design meetings with stakeholders.
I’ll spare you the details of the nightmarish journey of getting a refund from Booking.com, but I’ll only say that ChatGPT has been very useful to reply the neverending stream of silly emails for me. Stay away from Booking.com!
Umberto Eco’s Apocalittici e Integrati (Apocalyptics and Integrated, or apparently Apocalypse postponed in English) has been on my mind. Is there a middle ground between apocalyptic doomers and naive futurists? I think there is, but it’s hard to find. Conversations around this get shut down quickly by people with strong opinions fully formed. Attempts to open [the Overton window](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window#:~:text=The Overton window is the,as the window of discourse.) seem to be completely shut down - and those trying to open it up face personal backlash. The arguments I’ve heard though are full of red herrings, straw men and ego, so I guess we’ll just continue to experiment and play with tools, and explore how they can be useful.
In the words of Ted Lasso (apparently not Walt Whitman), “Be curious, not judgmental.”
I’ve been thinking about the need to be more proactive in engaging and involving others in work. I do this in different ways but worry about stepping on toes. I’ve decided to go back to the idea of ‘radiating intent’ in the lovely piece by Elizabeth Ayer, Don’t ask for forgiveness, radiate intent.
A video: Bilingual approaches to website design and development (thanks to Vicky Teinaki for sharing!) - it’s made me think about biculturalism in design, and not just bilingualism.
A book: John Higgs’ William Blake vs the World.
A song: Venas con humo y palabras by Marea.