Blog

  • Making user research count, a workshop to learn and share

    Learning how to plan effective user research Last week, I sat in on dxw’s very first “Making User Research Count” workshop to learn more about user-research and to get an insight into how other organisations want to improve it. Workshop Aims The aim of the workshop was to allow participants to identify the common mistakes…

  • Introducing Bob Walker

    Hi, I’m bob walker and I recently joined dxw from GDS. At GDS I was head of the Web Operations community where my main role was the pastoral care of the 20 or so civil servants within the community at GDS. As I would say to people “I don’t care when they take holiday, I…

  • Building a blogging platform for Essex County Council in 8 days

    Last month one of our delivery teams worked with the service design team at Essex County Council to build them a new blogging platform. In just one two-week sprint. Their first blog went live this week, so this seems like the perfect time for a celebration and a short story about the project. “We’re not…

  • Back to school for better Service Design

    The use of gameplay in user research and service design was a major theme I noticed emerging at the Service Design in Government Conference in Edinburgh last week: We told stories with Duplo in the #playinginthefaceofdeath game run by DWP. We learned how they have used this technique to explore do user research around the…

  • Service Design in Government memos

    So the Service Design in Government conference came to an end. Sitting on a train back from Edinburgh, I have stopped to think about what to write for this post, whilst periodically peeking through the window admiring fantastic moving landscapes. Of course, the conference was great and Edinburgh is such a beautiful place (it was…

  • Introducing Ellie

    Hey, I’m Ellie, and I’ve just joined dxw as a Product Manager. I’ve cut a winding path to get here. My first office job was typing up survey responses from hundreds of GP patients for a Primary Care Trust. I managed to get it done with enough time left to help run some conference events,…