By Adrián Ortega, content designer at the Centre for Digital Public Services in Wales.
⬅️ Read my previous weeknotes
Some thoughts on what I’ve been working on and thinking about over the past week - probably couple of weeks:
- Spent the week deep in content review for the AI guidance for the Welsh public sector. It’s based on A guide to using artificial intelligence in the public sector (GOV.UK) and will hopefully live in the Service Manual. I’m working with Welsh Government and a cross-sector steering group to shape it before opening it up to the wider community. No pressure - but I hear it’s already had a mention at the Senedd!
- Been prepping a presentation for the heads of revenue and benefits from all 22 local authorities in Wales - don’t ask me how I ended up there! But also no pressure. I’ll be talking about ‘designing accessible services together’, highlighting the work we did last year around cost of living services, and making the point that an available service is not the same as an accessible one. I hope to show how a user-centred approach and collaboration can reduce duplication, save time, and cut unnecessary costs - like producing fairly similar content 22 times. I’ll also encourage them to work with us in building a service and content pattern library.
- Had a great time at GovCamp Cymru last Friday - caught up with familiar faces and met some new ones. A first for me: experiencing it all with a completely blocked ear. I had to work out how to position myself simply to hear and participate in conversations. It left me a bit disoriented and made following conversations tricky - I hope I didn’t come across as rude by accident! Great conversations and some spicy topics that made me a bit excited and hopeful again about the potential for real change brewing in Wales.
- Can a large, complex system as the public sector ever become truly responsive, or is it inherently reactive by its very own nature?****
- What if we shifted the language around accessibility to talk about accessibility barriers or challenges instead of needs or requirements? Wouldn’t that put the focus and the responsibility on the product or service, and its owners by default, rather than the user?
- We often focus too much on accessibility as tech, forgetting that it’s not the tech itself we need access to but the desired outcome. The tech and the product are just intermediaries, a digitalisation (I guess, it was materialisation before?) of a process that leads to that outcome. A desired outcome isn’t accessible, no matter how accessible the tech is, if the service - the process to get there, and the information that takes you through it - built on it isn’t.
- If we can’t trust what we don’t understand, how can new thinking and ways of working rise through organisations to drive change? If we trust what we know, how can recruitment and promoting practices avoid exclusively integrating, propagating and perpetuating what’s already familiar, aligned and comfortable?They say, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results,” but do systems and networks not self-select to smooth out friction and challenges, naturally gravitating toward stasis?
- Breaching the Trust Thermocline Is the Biggest Hidden Risk in Business: "Trust thermoclines are so dangerous for businesses to cross because there are few ways back once a breach has been made, even if the issue is recognized."
- 3 ideas to shape the government digital vision.
- Looking forward to the UX Wales Christmas party, Merry UXmas 2024
⬅️ Read my previous weeknotes