Weeknotes – series 07 episode 12

Moving into the prototype phase

At the start of the week, I shared our refined requirements with the wider team (including software developers and quality assurance testers) and our business sponsor.

We agreed the requirements were more or less correct. We also agreed the rough order we wanted to do them in.

I was then able to pick up my rough design sketches/mock-ups from earlier and start moving them into the prototype.

Because the prototype was up to date, and the requirements were well understood, the process of creating the new prototype pages has been surprisingly quick.

This is thanks in part to how amazing the GOV.UK Prototype Kit is. Especially when used together with the GOV.UK Design System.

I shared my progress with the team on Thursday and even though we got stuck on a few points and had some circular conversations, I left feeling that what I had done so far was heading in the right direction.

I'm also using a command line tool to take regular screenshots of the prototype. This will help us to document our design histories later. This process was inspired by X-GOVUK's design history tool.

Met Office app beach forecast improvements

I noticed that the Met Office app team, that I used to work with, have released more improvements to their beach safety forecast.

It's great to see some ideas that we were talking about back then being added, including…

  • daily, location specific safety warnings (e.g. big waves today, watch out!)
  • improved wind forecast icons to help users understand the direction of the wind in relation to the shoreline (really important for safety)
  • Improved content about where the tide times data is collected

It reminded me how much I loved working with the Met Office app team and my teammates from Made Tech, and what a great culture of continuous improvement they have there.

The app is available on iOS and Android.

Digital inclusion

Cadi from Cwmpas gave a great presentation about digital inclusion in Wales. It was a really inspiring talk about how to design people-centred services.

I liked this slide in particular…

  • go to where people are
  • work with the people who know [users] best
  • co-design: from initial discovery phase to live service and beyond
  • build solutions that fit into people's everyday lives

Cadi ended with this comment that really resonated with me…

"People don't like complicated things"

I think this phrase needs to be made into a poster or a sticker (if it isn't already).

Here are some of the great resources that Cadi shared…

Katy Beale & Natasha Bhambhra: co-design during a crisis

Cadi's talk reminded me of Katy and Natasha's co-design talk from Service Design in Government. Worth a watch if you'd like an intro to co-design.

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