2017 — My top 12 blog posts
I wanted to look back through what I’ve written this year and pick some highlights. These are my top 12 blog posts for 2017.
Some of these are the most read or shared blog posts I’ve published, others I simply enjoyed writing or think are good.
Thanks for reading and sharing my work this year.
1. Things of the internet
Exploring the increasing expectations people have of services in a digital age. This eventually became a short series as part of a Medium publication: of the internet.
These are ‘digital’ services with different sets of qualities or values. Built from an understanding of the potential that new technologies have to solve real problems for people. They’re what I’ve started describing as services that are ‘of the internet’.
2. Dropping digital
Why I believe ‘digital’ is important. Exploring how digital is a way of responding to the impact of rapidly advancing technology in our lives. This was also part of the short series in the Medium publication: of the internet.
There’s no point being agile if your policy response isn’t agile. And there’s no point being digital if you’re not prepared to respond to technology, while challenging the culture, behaviours and norms of how your organisation operates.
3. Sticks in the ground
Part of a series exploring why I think design matters, this was tied to some talks I gave earlier in the year around the theme of “design is a good idea”. I followed this up with another blog post later in the year: Sticks in the ground for public services.
It’s arrogant to think you can change the world. But it’s also necessary …asking the question of what could exist without worrying too much (at least to start with) about what already exists in the world.
4. The hard line of complexity
This was the first thing I wrote this year, and it’s a subject I’d like to revisit. Very few people read this blog post at the time. You can hopefully see how it shaped my thinking, writing and speaking for the rest of the year. It still resonated as important reading it back.
We complicate things most of the time. All progress depends on finding ways to side step the complexity we create at every opportunity.
5. Service design starts with user needs
Exploring how I approach and understand different types of user needs when designing services. This was my most read blog post this year. It was part of the leading service design material from a workshop I ran with Kate Tarling at UX London (workshop slides). It’s now part of a Medium publication: leading service design.
Understanding emotional needs can help us redefine what functional needs might look like in the future …we can create the space we need to imagine alternatives to how things must work, moving our focus to how things could work.
There’s also a full retrospective from the UX London workshop (long read).
6. Anxiety labels and emotional needs
This became a follow-up to the previous ‘user needs’ blog post. It’s a more personal account of what it means to think about emotional needs and why I instinctively don’t like any type of design or research process that explicitly tries to categorise people.
Labels tell people that they don’t matter as individuals because they stop us treating people as individuals. They force people to adopt and conform to a story that might not be who they are or what they could be.
7. Small moments of joy in design
This was one of the reasons I believe “design is a good idea” covered as part of my talks earlier this year. It’s now part of a Medium publication: design is a good idea.
Design is always an opportunity to bring a little bit of joy to the world when there is none. It’s an opportunity to make someone smile.
8. Work in the open and finding your edge
This was also linked to the theme of “design is a good idea”. Exploring why I think working in the open is so important, and learning to put yourself in situations as a designer where you have something to lose, even if it’s just your reputation.
Also, part of the Medium publication: design is a good idea.
The alternative is not working in the open. We miss out on the opportunities to work with others, share ideas, or we don’t give ourselves the permission to have an opinion that other people might disagree with (which is okay).
9. Vertical lines and loose boundaries
This is my small contribution to some of the wider discussion about how service design and policy need to work more closely together in government.
It’s great to see conversations around OneTeamGov continuing to happen. This is something I’d like to think about and help shape more next year, working in local government.
To be effective, strategy should be a process of marking clear boundaries for teams, understanding the outcomes that everyone is working towards. These are all legitimate and important design constraints.
10. Designing better organisations: Why internal user experience matters to delivering better services
Exploring why better services are the result of transformed organisations. This was one of my first blog posts for FutureGov and seemed to resonate with many people (published on the FutureGov blog).
Bad internal user experience creates a burden that means the people in your organisation won’t always have the motivation, time, or will power to do what it takes to deliver a level of service that is going to work best for your customers.
11. The needs of government
The last couple of highlights I’ve picked are both from when I still working in my role at DWP Digital.
This is another popular blog post which explains my analogy of ‘holding the problem in both hands’ – I often talk about this as part of framing the problem workshops.
Understanding user needs and understanding the needs of government isn’t a choice. You need to do both.
We start with user needs. Services designed to meet the needs of people, that’s the the end-goal. But a service only works to deliver an outcome if it’s efficient and viable when operated at scale.
12. Knowing when you’re at the tea party
This was a fun analogy to make. But it also really resonated in my last few months in the UK Civil Service, giving Paul the inspiration for my leaving present (this was only published on my personal blog).
Something that struck me when I was thinking about leaving is how we slowly adapt to our surrounding. With enough exposure, the ridiculous becomes normal and the normal ridiculous.
We start to accept the madness and things that seem crazy at first becomes normalised.
To keep up to date with any new blog posts I publish next year, follow me on Twitter. See you again in 2018.
