Double - 17 to 28 August
A double weeknote for a very busy time in the team.
What was good
Friday just gone, we published the latest update to the framework’s content.
This should be the last time we use the current content management system (CMS) to do this as we’re migrating to a new one (Wagtail) in September. Users won’t see much difference at first (hopefully), but it puts the product on a stronger footing, with sustainable development support from the wider organisation.
Having stable product manager, delivery manager, and now even service owner, roles in the team properly has meant very little management of this has come my way (unlike the last CMS migration in 2024 and the cyber website build earlier this year). I am very thankful to my lovely teammates for this, especially on the stakeholder and team coordination side.
My role has been focused on testing both the CMS and rebuilt frontend, specifying how things should work or be improved on. It’s been nice to focus on user experience again, and think about how to set us up for future stuff.
As part of the migration we are also taking the chance to complete some important work from the backlog, including accessibility fixes and changing the site domain to remove ‘ddat’.
We’ve had a little project working out a new domain that can better follow GOV.UK guidance, meet both stakeholder and user needs, and give us space for potential future developments. This was a good chance for the team to swarm on something together, each contributing our expertise to rapidly design options, test with users, align stakeholders and make a decision.
This past Tuesday I got in to the Manchester office and hung out with Dan, one of our information architects. He’s been using the framework CSVs to build an ontology that can be used for demonstrating the uses and benefits of the approach to other teams across government.
The side effect is we now have a well-developed ontology for our product without any direct effort on our own part - thanks Dan! This nicely demonstrates the benefits of treating the framework as a common component, making it’s content easily available to the public as structured information - you never know what people will build if you make it possible.
What was challenging
Time, time, time. Difficult to find it for both migration-related design and testing, and the usual processes to get the latest update to framework content published. Something had to give to maintain this double focus, and so I didn’t manage to get a simple new page, listing ideas for changes to the framework, live this month.
Until February I was lucky to have my fantastic content designer colleague, Olivia, handling the bulk of the cross-government co-design and publishing work. This allowed me to focus on the longer term strategic work + fill in other gaps in the team.
While, as of this month, the gaps are now filled, there is still plenty of strategic design stuff to do (for example, how might we support digital devolution?). I think I might need to be more realistic about what can be delivered in both areas over this autumn.
Other things
The next X-Gov Sheffield is set for Thursday 17 September. Join us for breakfast and coffee from 8.30am at Watt Bar.
I did some ‘working holiday’ with the family in the Lakes (where I work and everyone else is on holiday). This let me test out the commute by train from there to Manchester a couple of times. Much, much smoother than from Sheffield, it turns out. Luckily, the train WiFi is identically useless.
Reading
Accessibility checklist and guidance - NHS Digital
Adopting a user-centred design approach to our internal content landscape - Sian Goodwin
Can a library be a game? Weaving an ARG through a national collection - Russell Dornan
The Right But Early Club - John Cutler
How to make a bestseller: insiders reveal the tricks of the book trade - John Self