By Adrián Ortega, content designer at the Centre for Digital Public Services in Wales.

⬅️ Read my previous weeknotes

As things wind down before the Christmas break (starting next Friday for me), here are some thoughts on what I’ve been working on and mulling over the past week:

• The guidance (formerly known as the Service Manual) that I’m the content lead on is now live under the new "Guidance and Standards" section of our website. It's about carrying out research with Welsh-language users. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start. I’m hopeful that we’ll review and build on it in the new year with more collaboration across the organisation and with the communities of practice.
• Caught up with Liam: we discussed the future of the pattern library and the website project - exciting stuff! Over the past two years, I’ve been trying to create opportunities for experimenting with ways of working, taking a co-design approach to involve and support other teams and communities. It’s great to work with him again, and to see that we’re on the same page about our approach and hopes for the squad!
• Started reading The Accountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions - and How the World Lost Its Mind by Dan Davies after seeing it mentioned in a few places. An exploration on why large systems, like governments, so often produce irrational outcomes that nobody specific within the system is after. I’m only at the beginning, but it’s a fascinating and thought-provoking read. I’ve learned about the POSIWID principle in cybernetics (the study of how systems control, communicate, and process information): “the purpose of a system is what it does”. As Anil Dash puts it in Systems: The Purpose of a System is What It Does, the machine is never broken: “(...) start from the assumption that the outputs or impacts of that system are precisely what it was designed to do—whether we find those results to be good, bad, or mixed.” I guess ‘a system is what a system does’? A reminder to look at results over intentions.
• Have also been reading Slow Productivity by Cal Newport. Nothing groundbreaking, though it resonates with me. Its core principles are simple: 1) Do fewer things 2) Work at a natural pace 3) Obsess over quality. A new idea for me is what he calls “overhead tax”: every project comes with an admin cost that’s easy to overlook. Emails, meetings, general admin. So it's about being mindful of this invisible burden when deciding whether to take on new projects.
• Are meetings the best tool for sharing information? Beyond that, shouldn’t they be focused on getting work done together, solving problems, or building rapport—am I missing any other valuable uses? In consensus-driven cultures, the need for broad input can lead to meetings about meetings and days spent discussing rather than progressing. How do we balance involving the right people at the right time - without overloading everyone or excluding people from the decisions that affect them?
• Have been learning about Yanagi Soetsu and the Mingei movement, which celebrates the beauty of everyday objects created for utility, often by anonymous artisans. Soetsu’s book on the beauty of everyday things is on my to-read pile, but I haven't gotten to it yet.
• Have been thinking about Ryle’s concept of 'category mistake'. I mentioned before the importance of understanding the nature of a problem: what is this fundamentally about? Is this a content or a development project? Or is the problem about people, culture and (lack of) process, for example? How many things do we take for granted that rest on that type of category mistake? I can see that clearly when, for example, talking about ‘content design’, the focus often seems to be on ‘content’ instead of ‘design’. Surely when you focus on solving the wrong problem this way, you end up creating unsuccessful solutions - and maybe even more problems?
• Have been reflecting on my experience and skills, and the leadership gaps I may have. It's tough to see oneself objectively, and I don’t often manage to get candid, non-flattering feedback from others. I also suspect my main gaps are more technical or hard leadership skills if that’s even a thing. Any advice on this is appreciated!
• Attended a Pep Talk by Giles Turnbull that we organised at Content Club (check out his slides - recording will be uploaded to the YouTube channel soon!). Lesson: I need to get better at capturing stuff for later use. Some interesting answers from attendees to Giles’ question, ‘How do you explain content design?’ include:
  • Explain how people use the internet, and read content online, and then why this means we have to write out words in a particular way.
  • It's about using evidence to make content (mostly digital content) easy to find, understand and use.
  • Make stuff easier to understand and use - usually with words but not only.
  • Make it easier for the user to do what they need to do on our app and website.
• Wondering if sprint notes (instead of weeknotes) might work better for some teams working on more slow-moving projects? Sometimes I find it can be hard to show tangible, meaningful progress within a week depending on the project. But within a sprint, you have clearer objectives, so it’s easier to frame progress around those milestones, even if it’s every few weeks.
• Sunk cost fallacy and maintenance costs: on the one hand, it’s important to know when to stop what you’re doing, cut your losses and move on instead of continuing to dump time and effort into something that isn’t working just because you’ve already invested so much in it. On the other hand, it’s easy to overlook the maintenance cost of anything you create and own: a fancy house, the latest technology or the product your team built before moving on. We often get too caught up in making new, shiny things, and forget the ongoing work needed to manage and maintain them, and improve what’s already in place.

• Saw CDL’s Director of Practice, Rich Prowse at Museums+Tech 2024. Such a great talk! We were meant to be hanging out together yesterday, but the weather decided against it - gutted!

• A series: Loot (Maya Rudolph is great in it!)

• A song: Alitas de mar by Tu Otra Bonita (my most-listened-to song of 2024 according to Spotify)

⬅️ Read my previous weeknotes