#SDInGov

Clara Greo

@claragt.bsky.social

3 months ago

Better Images of AI We are a non-profit creating more realistic and inclusive images of artificial intelligence. Visit our growing repository available for anyone to use for free under CC licences, or just to use as insp...

I've just been reminded of this excellent source of images about AI, created by people: betterimagesofai.org/images

thanks to @elmosmoe.bsky.social via her talk at #sdingov last year

Caroline Jarrett

@cjforms.bsky.social

4 months ago

Service Design in Government

In today's episode of #FixTheForms, a surprising twist on my series of workshops on #ErrorRates and #DataQuality. I thought I wrapped them up at #SDinGOV in Edinburgh, but no! Catch an online version at Virtual SDinGOV in March 26.

virtual.sdingov.net

Caroline Jarrett

@cjforms.bsky.social

4 months ago

Garbage in, garbage out: Workshop at SDinGOV 2025 - Effortmark Caroline reports back on an interactive workshop in which participants shared their experience of measuring error rates and data quality

In today's episode of #FixTheForms, I've finished writing up the workshop on #ErrorRates and #DataQuality that I ran #SDinGOV

Extra thanks to @pixlz.com for help with prep - sadly, she couldn't make it due to a family emergency

www.effortmark.co.uk/garbage-in-g...

Mark Dalgarno

@markdalgarno.bsky.social

5 months ago

Service Design in Government

Didn't make it to this year's #SDinGov?

Sign up for our 1 day virtual SDinGov in March:
virtual.sdingov.net

David O'Brien

@se-davidobrien.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy

5 months ago

SDinGOV 2025 – My highlights Reading Time: 10 minutes This year at SDinGOV, I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity to catch up with so many people in person, more than the talks if I’m honest. I was there the 3 days and got to chat with many current and ex colleagues. Out of all the conferences I attend, this one is where I get to see people in my field of work: designing for government. I’m sharing my highlights in this post. ## Around the talks I work mostly remotely, so even though I had met many of them in person before, there were still quite a few people from the DWP service design community I had never met face to face so that was really nice, and we got to know each other better. Unfortunately, I could not attend my friend Angela’s workshop, as she was presenting at the same time as me, but we had a few good chats over the 3 days. As well as people I already knew I met a few new ones as well. The first evening, **the social event was a ceilidh**. This was great.The food was really good too and it looks like people were enjoying themselves. SDinGOV posted a short video on LinkedIn of it. ### Food Food is not easy for me since I was diagnosed with diabetes last year, but my blood sugar is under control now. The organisers of the event – Software Acumen – and my friend Jen who was the chair this year, have been really helpful, telling me what would be available ahead of the event and making sure there were fruits and other things I could eat at the various meals and breaks. I’ve really appreciate that. Do contact the organisers if you have your own needs as they really try to do what’s best for you. ## Lightning talks I’ve always enjoyed lightning talks, because within an hour, you can hear quite a few talks, very different in style and speakers have to be very really clear about the point they want to put across. But this year it was even better for me, because 2 of my colleagues gave it a go, even though they had not planned to do so when they came to the conference. I suggested it on the morning of the first day and they went on with it. They did great and I was really proud of them: Bahana talked about her experience while working on a part of a live service and what led to her pushing others to define a vision for the whole service with her and not just for her part of it. She explained all this very clearly in 6 minutes, engaging people, with some of them coming at the end to ask her about her work. Bahana Saikia – Photo by the conference photographer: Séan Purser Kola‘s talk was very different: he used a personal experience to tell a story, then used some interaction to engage the audience and eventually made his point about why ethnographic research is important. All this in 5 min and a good sense of humour. Kola Wale – Photo by the conference photographer: Séan Purser I do not know Dr Marion Lean, but she made a really good lightning talk too, using her designer’s experience to improve her tenement stairwell, build trust, encourage collaboration, and improve the shared space with others living there. It was very well delivered and a good illustration of co-design principles in practice. Photo from her LinkedIn post about it ### Tempted by public speaking? This is a great format to make a start. Lightning talks are brief – usually between 5 and 10 min – so you need to make your point clearly and get rid of non-critical information. The audience will be more attentive as a result. Like I told Kola and Bahana: worse case scenario: “people will only be bored for 5 min and will forget everything about it”. At least that’s what I was telling myself the first time I submitted one. ## Care for the public: trauma-informed service design – Rachael Dietkus Rachael was the first keynote speaker announced for the conference. I was really happy to see this as I had heard her talk before, so I knew it would be good and I wasn’t disappointed. You can access the Care for public slides as a PDF (5.4 MB). This was recorded, so I really recommend watching it when it will be available. I will only mention what resonated the most for me in that talk. As stated in the programme, it was “a call to action for designers, policymakers, and public leaders to centre care at every decision-making level. To truly serve the public, we must learn how to care for the public.” She reminded us that the current chaos is not normal, and it felt good to hear this. She used a quote to illustrate what ‘hypernormalisation’ is, and this really resonated with my experience of reading the news these days: > “It’s reading an article about childhood hunger and genocide, only to scroll down to a carefree listicle highlighting the best-dressed celebrities or a whimsical quiz about: ‘What Pop-Tart are you?’” > > Rahaf Harfoush One of Rachael’s slides She invited us to slow down, reflects and gave us 5 simple questions to ask yourself when you’re making a decision: * does this align with my values? * Who benefits? who is harmed? * Could I justify this decision publicly? * are they alternatives that centre care and fairness? * what accountability, visibility and responsibility measure are in place? These are excellent questions for yourself, but it could also help you push back on some decisions made, not by you, but by your team or higher up. You could ask them: “Could you justify this decision publicly”? I’ve been on a few projects where there is no way we could have justify publicly decisions that were made, not by the team but by higher stakeholders. I’m not sure asking them would have changed their mind but at least it would have forced people to really aknowledge for themselves that it was the wrong thing to do. Personally, when I feel there is nothing in my power to change things, I do not want to let people get away with it too easily. Rachael started a Design care newsletter, you can register here. Another slide from Rachael’s talk ## You might be eligible (we think, probably) – designing personalised vaccine services in the NHS – Caroline Finucane and Gabe Fender This talk was excellent: it was very well delivered, engaging, interactive, fun, and getting a few points across really well. If the slides are shared, it will be on the SDinGOV page for the talk ‘You might be eligible‘. Caroline and Gabe used an interactive app on screen to run us through some scenarios depending on what people in the audience were answering. They used a ‘Family Fortune’ game to make us think of reasons why people might not vaccinate their children. They took us through their thoughts process while looking for research participants who were pregnant individuals, with English not being their first language and when a person called “Martin” answered. They had a few doubts and it would have been easy to dismiss that potential participant. The way they explained it was really good because they were taking us with them, keeping us thinking at every step until the interview. It turned out that Martin was a person who was going to translate for the person who was indeed pregnant. It was a very good illustration of one of their key learnings: “to recruit for diversity and inclusivity, we need to be aware of our own biases” If slides are shared, I’ll replace this as it’s not a good photo They shared a link to Digital prevention services design history that you might want to check. At the end of the talk, they had a slide with photos and names of all the people who had contributed to that piece of work and elements of the presentation. It was great to see that acknowledgement. Same, if the slides are shared, I’ll replace ## SOS (save our services): how design can survive and thrive in the era of government efficiency survical for uncertain times – Martha Edwards I hope the slides will eventually be shared on the SDinGOV page for the talk SOS (save our services). It was recorded too and I really recommend this talk. Martha started by showing the **timeline of events in the US and in Canada** where she worked at the time when she submitted the talk. It was covering the US elections as well as Canadians ones. It’s not that long ago, and yet seeing that timeline reminded me of how things were unfolding back then. It was echoeing many feelings from Rachael’s talk early that day. She gave tips to navigate political shifts and uncertainty: 1. Stay calm (panic is contagious) 2. Assess the situation (before you react) We can’t win support from people high up if they feel they are at risk or feel like you are blaming them 3. Have a plan you can follow – “you can’t stay calm if you keep going around trying to find what to do next”: so you need plans, checklists and experience 4. Look around, go beyond what’s in front of you – navigating means learning to understand. It’s important to create more space for relating 5. Build alliances – example, kitchen in the fire station: place where people build trust: “relation can make or break trust” 6. Use what you have at hand 7. Make sure they can find you – if someone wanted to take your work forward, would they know where to look? You need to take the time and have the courage to share your work ## Neurodivergent design thinking, to create inclusive recruitment – David Hopkins and Ollie Sweetman Their talk was really interesting. They presented the work they have been doing as part of a cross-government working group looking at possible improvements for neurodivergent people in the workplace. You can access their slides as a PowerPoint file (15.3 MB). In this deck, slide 8 has an interesting diagram showing what people may struggle with depending on their neurodiversity conditions, but also what their strengths might be. This is always great to see because **neurodivergence is too often framed as a negative, or a ‘disorder’** but actually, there are a lot of strengths too which can make them excellent candidates for the job you are recruiting for if you allow them to showcase their potential and their experience in the right way. They played back research findings showing that quite often both the vacancy holders and neurodivergent colleagues didn’t understood reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process. I’ve recently when through the recruiting process for the civil service and learned a lot in this session. For example, you can ask for reasonnable adujstments, even if you don’t have a diagnosis for your neurodivergent condition(s) . Even right at the start of the process when you are making the application, you could ask for more time to apply for example. But most people do not know about this. One of the slide from the deck they shared They have been prototyping a reasonable adjustment tool in line with universal design principles.The tool matches applicants’ support needs with reasonable adjustments at interview stages. It also informs vacancy holders of their responsibility, ensuring requests are made and implemented at the right time. The talk was recorded so if you’re interested by this topic, you should watch. You can get in touch with David and Ollie if you would like to get involved (contact details in the deck at the end). To learn more about reasonable adjustements, 2 links that David had provided me outside of this talk: * What is reasonable? – by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) * Reasonable adjustments at work, Adjustments for neurodiversity – by ACAS ## Redefining vulnerability through the lens of Consumer Duty – Katherine Snow and Lucy Barrett This was a nice workshop, exploring how vulnerability can be experienced by anyone. They presented their work, and then put us in groups to think of the meaning of vulnerability and looking for alternative language. They showed us new ways of thinking about ‘vulnerability’: * Anyone can be vulnerable at anytime. Support needs to be accessible at all the times and to everyone * Vunerability is an evolving set of needs, not a fixed state and no one’s situation is the same * Terminology is holding back organisations and users * There are universal good outcomes and universal barriers to access and safety Personally, I do not speak about vunerable people, but about **people in vulnerable situations.** If you are curious about this, Helen Fisher has a blog post ‘Defining vulnerability’ about her work with Katherine on this. ## How a service designer can contribute to accessibility This was my talk this year. You can find all the material, including the slides in various formats on this page. I’ll share a link to the recording when it’s available. Photo by the conference photographer: Séan Purser To make sure everyone could access the slides if they wanted to, I’ve put a QR code on the first slide displayed while people wait for the talk to start. A few people told me they appreciated this. First slide with the QR code to the material of the talk My talk was about accessibility, but what many seem to take from it was the part about creating a text description of complex visual mappings and using that alternative version with policy and ops teams. It seems to be more engaging than the visual mapping for them as it’s a more familiar format. I’ve written a blog post about it to expend on this if you’re interested: Helping people to engage with your mappings I did have a few people coming after my talk and saying this made them feel they could make a start and change their practice, which is exactly why I give theses talks. So was really happy about this. Chatting with a person who attended my talk – Photo by Séan Purser ## Not a lot of slides to share this year I usually try to share slides and more in these summaries, but this year, at the time of writing (3 weeks after the conference) I hardly have any to share. The organisers will upload the slides of speakers if they did share them. This is not great. There are many talks I attended where I tried to take photos, but it’s just not the same: my phone’s camera is not that good and the quality and angle of the photos are not great. Some talks like mine were recorded so at some point, I might be able to share that. For now, I can share just a few things: From Share and reuse by design, by Nikola Goger, Rob McCarthy and Martin Ford-Downes, some links if you are interested in Service Patterns: * Developing service patterns – reusable designs for building government services (GOV.UKblog post) * Apply’ service pattern proof of concept * ‘Appointments’ service pattern proof of concept * GOV Reuse library From No more content vomit: how to train like a service designer, by Jo Carter and Katie Driver, the Google slides from their workshop which I didn’t attend but they shared which is great.

My former colleague Stéphanie wrote about her experience at #SDinGov this year.

blog.chezleskrus.com/2025/10/10/sdingov-2025-...

Martha Edwards

@maredwards.bsky.social

5 months ago

woman and dog posing with a sign that says "on strike"

I've been itching to write about #SDinGov and update my #weeknotes but..... I'm on strike and I'm not sure if it counts as 'scabbing' to write about work on my personal blog 😬

So, here are some 'strikenotes' from 2 weeks on the picket lines

Nia Campbell

@niacampbell.bsky.social

5 months ago

Designing for dignity: Ryan Haney on civic design and the burden/power ratio What if, as service and content designers, we measured success not just in outputs shipped, but in dignity preserved?

A little something I wrote about Ryan Haney's #SDinGov talk on designing for dignity:

medium.com/@niacampbell...

Martin Jordan

@martinjordan.com

5 months ago

Was that a #SDinGov souvenir?

I hope you recover quickly!

Caroline Jarrett

@cjforms.bsky.social

5 months ago

Sneaky curtain call photo of the cast of a ballet in a theatre In the foreground, the backs of applauding audience members

Thanks @northernballet.bsky.social for wonderful performance of “Merlin” yesterday evening. Loved the interpretation and energy sustained through final show of the run.

Sorry to miss Leeds friends - chatted out after full-on #SDinGov. Will be back, especially if new-to-me train route works out

Caroline Jarrett

@cjforms.bsky.social

5 months ago

Very sad not to be at #PaperCamp4 today, but made the right decision

Just woke up from 2hr nap due to being wiped out by very enjoyable and very intense #SDinGov

Caroline Jarrett

@cjforms.bsky.social

5 months ago

I would so much have loved to be there but couldn’t manage it so close to #SDinGov

Martin Jordan

@martinjordan.com

5 months ago

A group of 5 people sitting in a circle of chairs during a workshop, a middle-aged man talks holding up a sheet of paper

Various groups of people sitting at a cabinet table setup in a conference room – a group in focus is discussing, people in their 30 to 50s of different ethnicities

9 people sitting at different tables during a workshop, a young-ish woman with light skin and glasses holding a microphone talking, gesticulating with her hand, others looking at her

That worked well!

The room was so packed that some people were turned away.

@karakane-kk.bsky.social & I had a productive yet brief #SDinGov workshop with 60+ people on making end-to-end services finally happen. We collected approaches on how to get there.

Slides here: github.com/martin-jorda...

Caroline Jarrett

@cjforms.bsky.social

5 months ago

A train table with piles of paper category sheets covered in lots of different coloured sticky notes, propped up on a flowery blue handbag

Thanks everyone for another terrific #SDinGOV

Train journey south is an opportunity to get started on the sticky notes from my workshop on #ErrorRates and #DataQuality. A lot to reflect on

Plus, need to update @pixlz.com as she had to miss out due to family emergency.

Katie Driver

@thinkingalliance.bsky.social

5 months ago

A workshop table strewn with resources, sticky notes, pens and suchlike. The hands of some of the participants are in shot, as they discuss things with each other.

Relieved and pleased to have successfully delivered a workshop on Learning Experience design together with @jocarter.bsky.social at today's #SDinGov We had a really lovely engaged, reflective group of folks, just like the Conference as a whole. Great few days - brain now officially full!

Caroline Jarrett

@cjforms.bsky.social

5 months ago

To make a scruffier prototype, two ideas:

1. Low tech

Recreate it on paper then scan it

2. High tech

@edent.tel has a css thing that makes a scruffy page

I’m at #SDinGov and am not finding it right now but maybe he will chime in with a searchable phrase

Caroline Jarrett

@cjforms.bsky.social

5 months ago

This was a great workshop

Thanks @claragt.bsky.social and @imhuyorks.bsky.social for running it #sdingov

Clara Greo

@claragt.bsky.social

5 months ago

Imran and I at the font of a workshop, folks beind us chatting

I had a wonderful time delivering a workshop on Ending gracefully at #sdingov with @imhuyorks.bsky.social this morning.

The room was gentle, reflective and intentional. Thank you to everyone who joined us and to Imran for showing me a different mode to facilitate in.

Clara Greo

@claragt.bsky.social

5 months ago

Photo of Kara presenting a workshop with Martin Jordan. The slide behind them says "HANDS, PLEASE Who of you has successfully transformed a service end-to-end?"

Kara presenting with Omar Idris on Test and learn

Can we all have a round of applause for @karakane-kk.bsky.social and all the amazing work she does 🌟

Kara delivered 3 sessions at #sdingov this year:

Caroline Jarrett

@cjforms.bsky.social

5 months ago

“AI is an aspiration, not a thing”

Steph Wright @elmosmoe.bsky.social at #SDinGov, inspiring us to think about responsibility and people when considering AI

Caroline Jarrett

@cjforms.bsky.social

5 months ago

“AI is an aspiration, not a thing”

Steph Wright at #SDinGov, inspiring us to think about responsibility and people when considering AI

Clara Greo

@claragt.bsky.social

5 months ago

Photo of Rachael speaking. The slide behind her says "the chaos is not normal." With an illustration of a pink elephant.

Brilliant keynote from @rdietkus.bsky.social at #sdingov about public services as care.

She also talked about hypernormalisation. This world were living in and what were witnessing is not normal.

“There's wo truths, what we feel in our bodies and what the world insists we perform”

smcdoyle.bsky.social

@smcdoyle.bsky.social

5 months ago

Better Images of AI We are a non-profit creating more realistic and inclusive images of artificial intelligence. Visit our growing repository available for anyone to use for free under CC licences, or just to use as insp...

And a great shoutout for betterimagesofai.org - a useful resource for more interesting, less misleading visuals #sdingov

Martha Edwards

@maredwards.bsky.social

5 months ago

“AI isn’t taking your job, the people making the decisions are”

“Responsibility must be shared, not outsourced”

“Being able to ignore the doom and gloom is a privileged position”

“Be hopeful AND cynical”

Necessary truth bombs from @elmosmoe.bsky.social at @sdingov.bsky.social #sdingov

smcdoyle.bsky.social

@smcdoyle.bsky.social

5 months ago

Love the focus on choice: we can choose how/if we use AI! Dystopia is not inevitable! @elmosmoe.bsky.social #sdingov

Clara Greo

@claragt.bsky.social

5 months ago

Better Images of AI We are a non-profit creating more realistic and inclusive images of artificial intelligence. Visit our growing repository available for anyone to use for free under CC licences, or just to use as insp...

Fantastic talk from @elmosmoe.bsky.social about AI.

"AI doesn't automatically serve the public good because it's new"

I'm so glad discussions about equity and justice in AI are in a keynote at #sdingov

Also, great link to artist created images of AI: betterimagesofai.org

Samina

@meanius.bsky.social

5 months ago

So many great points being made by Steph Wright on AI in today’s keynote. #sdingov Copilot Agents are here, slowly creeping into our workflows. Local Gov needs more support in how to:

- design for fairness
- mitigate bias
- measure accuracy of agents
- design for human in control

Nikola Goger

@nikolagoger.bsky.social

5 months ago

Thanks everyone who came to listen to our talk about "Share & Reuse by Design" at @sdingov.bsky.social ! It's great to start conversations with people from other departments who are as dedicated to normalising and enabling reuse as we are. <3
@robjmccarthy.bsky.social #sdingov

Lizzy Bell

@lizzybell.bsky.social

5 months ago

Mojo thoroughly back via #SDingov. Great couple of days with inspiration from new voices, old lags and colleagues past and present. Oh, and a magician.

Stamanfar

@stamanfar.bsky.social

5 months ago

Ok still not home from Edinburgh for #SDinGov and oooh I am pooped. My dudes, pooped.

Nic Ward

@nicward.bsky.social

5 months ago

Here’s looking at you #sdingov, another brilliant day of learning, sharing and meeting brilliant new people as always 🫶🏻