Weeknotes, Friday 6 September

A few things that have been happening this week, as summer gives way to autumn, with spooky season not far away.

Form-ulate a plan

Have heard from a few other councils about their work to develop new processes for creating forms, including baking in the all important service design ‘do you even need a form’, ‘what the heck is this form for’, ‘why do you need that bit of data’ type questions.

Looking forward to chatting more and forming some kind of local council forms practice hive mind.

Hubba bubba

Looking forward to getting some user research back on a proposed new structure for cost of living content. This will give a few disparate bits of information a permanent home, removing a temporary ‘hub’.

Goodbye and thanks for all the service patterns

We’re saying goodbye to longstanding colleague Nic Ward this week. As lead service designer he’s been a huge part of shaping the service design profession and all things user centred at Essex County Council.

Nic distilled years of working at Essex into a 2 hour workshop to get us thinking about service patterns, drawing on previous work to think about how we go forwards. This led to some really interesting chats around service ownership, the cost of not thinking horizontally, and being strategic vs being opportunistic.

Interesting blogs

Challenging The Myths of Generative AI | TechPolicy.Press

Refreshing the homepage: Experts discuss the pros and cons of the digital government shake-up — PublicTechnology

Beyond programmes: changing how we change in the public sector — Public Digital

Information Architecture First Principles | Jorge Arango (jarango.com)

How we’re evolving and re-shaping delivery management at Greenwich to meet the needs of local government | by Beth Mindham | Royal Greenwich Digital Blog | Aug, 2024 | Medium

Definitions, digital, and distance: on AI and policymaking | Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Distractions

Listening

You’ll have to lose something by Spirit of the Beehive (album)

Cellophane Memories by Chrystabell and David Lynch (album)

Watching

Have been giving BFI Player a go.

Really enjoyed ‘Scala!’, documentary about the infamous Kings Cross Cinema.

Enjoyed is maybe the wrong word but watch David Cronenberg’s ‘Crimes of the Future’ and it was certainly interesting, with all the gross out visual effects you’d expect.