I noticed a comment in a chat today at work, along the lines of: > We used an LLM to categorise the sticky notes from a workshop. It did a really good job, and even colour-coded the notes and aligned them. To which I shrugged, thought “good on you” and went on with my day. Later, another colleague tagged me and asked if it was something we could learn from. I replied, rather gnomically: > The point of the doing is the doing, not what gets done. It was a somewhat throwaway comment at the time, but I’ve been thinking about it all day. So I’m trying to round my thoughts up here. ## Why do we do workshops and ideation sessions? The people we recruit to take part in Service Design workshops must, for the most part, find them incredibly tedious. But we do them because they get thoughts, ideas and experiences out of people’s heads and onto paper or digital facsimiles so that everyone else can see them. The people who are actual experts in this specialism. We do that so we can: * Challenge each others’ point of view * Bring everyone’s lived experience to the table * Understand where we agree, and disagree Most importantly, we do this to _make people talk about these things._ I can’t emphasise this enough. The entire point of these sessions is to get people talking to each other. People who have never talked to each other before. Who have never understood, or even been aware of, others’ point of view. ## The doing is the work Sure, you can ask copilot or whatever to sort your ideas. Colour code them. Manoeuvre them into neat columns. But here’s what you’re missing out on: * The nuance you get from those “Oh, I wrote that one …” conversations * The “Is this related to these, or more like this cluster over here?” discussions that drive you deep into the subtleties of what those 5 or 6 words mean * An appreciation of the human frustrations, pains and needs behind every sticky note * The experience of _actually having done this exercise_ And it’s the last point that’s key. Outsourcing this to an LLM (or anything else, for that matter) is a bit like sending them on your holiday instead of going yourself. Sure, you’ll get a nice report, not terrifically well written, maybe even some entirely fabricated photos. But you will not have had the experience. You will not have felt that warm sunshine, tasted that chilled rosé, felt that gentle breeze. When we finish these exercises, we typically create some kind of report or slide deck with key findings. Maybe also some photographic record of the finished board. We play it back, file it away, and in all likelihood no-one – except perhaps an assessor – will ever look at it again. But that’s OK. Because the point in doing the exercise is to do the exercise, not to produce a report. The exercise is the work. The report is a byproduct. It’s just a record that the exercise was done. The real learning is embedded in you, and everyone else collectively who took part. The point of the doing is the doing, not what gets done. David O'Brien Website | + postsBio I'm a service designer in Scottish Enterprise's unsurprisingly-named service design team. I've been a content designer, editor, UX designer and giant haystacks developer on the web for (gulp) over 25 years. * David O'Brien __The point of the doing is the doing, not what gets done * David O'Brien __Should coders design? * David O'Brien __Ain’t no I in AI * David O'Brien __No more cookies for you * David O'Brien __I cycled to work * David O'Brien __The disability myth * David O'Brien __Prototyping in the browser * David O'Brien __Running this website * David O'Brien __Who are we willing to exclude? * David O'Brien __Service Design must die * David O'Brien __What do service designers do? * David O'Brien __Prototyping in html * David O'Brien __Good Services Scale: an interactive assessment * David O'Brien __Aphantasia rocks * David O'Brien __In search of broken combs * David O'Brien __Making our account managers appy * David O'Brien __Applying WCAG principles to service design more generally * David O'Brien __Show your stripes * David O'Brien __Making prototypes in the browser * David O'Brien __Telling a story ## Possibly related * It's good to talk * A new life in the unknown * The places and people we remember * A user manual for Lindsay * How we used the Good Services Scale to evaluate the… * Design content first ... who would have thought of that?

I noticed a comment in a chat today at work, along the lines of: > We used an LLM to categorise the sticky notes from a workshop. It did a really good job, and even colour-coded the notes and aligned them. To which I shrugged, thought “good on you” and went on with my day. Later, another colleague tagged me and asked if it was something we could learn from. I replied, rather gnomically: > The point of the doing is the doing, not what gets done. It was a somewhat throwaway comment at the time, but I’ve been thinking about it all day. So I’m trying to round my thoughts up here. ## Why do we do workshops and ideation sessions? The people we recruit to take part in Service Design workshops must, for the most part, find them incredibly tedious. But we do them because they get thoughts, ideas and experiences out of people’s heads and onto paper or digital facsimiles so that everyone else can see them. The people who are actual experts in this specialism. We do that so we can: * Challenge each others’ point of view * Bring everyone’s lived experience to the table * Understand where we agree, and disagree Most importantly, we do this to _make people talk about these things._ I can’t emphasise this enough. The entire point of these sessions is to get people talking to each other. People who have never talked to each other before. Who have never understood, or even been aware of, others’ point of view. ## The doing is the work Sure, you can ask copilot or whatever to sort your ideas. Colour code them. Manoeuvre them into neat columns. But here’s what you’re missing out on: * The nuance you get from those “Oh, I wrote that one …” conversations * The “Is this related to these, or more like this cluster over here?” discussions that drive you deep into the subtleties of what those 5 or 6 words mean * An appreciation of the human frustrations, pains and needs behind every sticky note * The experience of _actually having done this exercise_ And it’s the last point that’s key. Outsourcing this to an LLM (or anything else, for that matter) is a bit like sending them on your holiday instead of going yourself. Sure, you’ll get a nice report, not terrifically well written, maybe even some entirely fabricated photos. But you will not have had the experience. You will not have felt that warm sunshine, tasted that chilled rosé, felt that gentle breeze. When we finish these exercises, we typically create some kind of report or slide deck with key findings. Maybe also some photographic record of the finished board. We play it back, file it away, and in all likelihood no-one – except perhaps an assessor – will ever look at it again. But that’s OK. Because the point in doing the exercise is to do the exercise, not to produce a report. The exercise is the work. The report is a byproduct. It’s just a record that the exercise was done. The real learning is embedded in you, and everyone else collectively who took part. The point of the doing is the doing, not what gets done. David O'Brien Website | + postsBio I'm a service designer in Scottish Enterprise's unsurprisingly-named service design team. I've been a content designer, editor, UX designer and giant haystacks developer on the web for (gulp) over 25 years. * David O'Brien __The point of the doing is the doing, not what gets done * David O'Brien __Should coders design? * David O'Brien __Ain’t no I in AI * David O'Brien __No more cookies for you * David O'Brien __I cycled to work * David O'Brien __The disability myth * David O'Brien __Prototyping in the browser * David O'Brien __Running this website * David O'Brien __Who are we willing to exclude? * David O'Brien __Service Design must die * David O'Brien __What do service designers do? * David O'Brien __Prototyping in html * David O'Brien __Good Services Scale: an interactive assessment * David O'Brien __Aphantasia rocks * David O'Brien __In search of broken combs * David O'Brien __Making our account managers appy * David O'Brien __Applying WCAG principles to service design more generally * David O'Brien __Show your stripes * David O'Brien __Making prototypes in the browser * David O'Brien __Telling a story ## Possibly related * It's good to talk * A new life in the unknown * The places and people we remember * A user manual for Lindsay * How we used the Good Services Scale to evaluate the… * Design content first ... who would have thought of that?

Transforming public services to businesses in Scotland

Transforming public services to businesses in Scotland

I noticed a comment in a chat today at work, along the lines of: > We used an LLM to categorise the sticky notes from a workshop. It did a really good job, and even colour-coded the notes and aligned them. To which I shrugged, thought “good on you” and went on with my day. Later, another colleague tagged me and asked if it was something we could learn from. I replied, rather gnomically: > The point of the doing is the doing, not what gets done. It was a somewhat throwaway comment at the time, but I’ve been thinking about it all day. So I’m trying to round my thoughts up here. ## Why do we do workshops and ideation sessions? The people we recruit to take part in Service Design workshops must, for the most part, find them incredibly tedious. But we do them because they get thoughts, ideas and experiences out of people’s heads and onto paper or digital facsimiles so that everyone else can see them. The people who are actual experts in this specialism. We do that so we can: * Challenge each others’ point of view * Bring everyone’s lived experience to the table * Understand where we agree, and disagree Most importantly, we do this to _make people talk about these things._ I can’t emphasise this enough. The entire point of these sessions is to get people talking to each other. People who have never talked to each other before. Who have never understood, or even been aware of, others’ point of view. ## The doing is the work Sure, you can ask copilot or whatever to sort your ideas. Colour code them. Manoeuvre them into neat columns. But here’s what you’re missing out on: * The nuance you get from those “Oh, I wrote that one …” conversations * The “Is this related to these, or more like this cluster over here?” discussions that drive you deep into the subtleties of what those 5 or 6 words mean * An appreciation of the human frustrations, pains and needs behind every sticky note * The experience of _actually having done this exercise_ And it’s the last point that’s key. Outsourcing this to an LLM (or anything else, for that matter) is a bit like sending them on your holiday instead of going yourself. Sure, you’ll get a nice report, not terrifically well written, maybe even some entirely fabricated photos. But you will not have had the experience. You will not have felt that warm sunshine, tasted that chilled rosé, felt that gentle breeze. When we finish these exercises, we typically create some kind of report or slide deck with key findings. Maybe also some photographic record of the finished board. We play it back, file it away, and in all likelihood no-one – except perhaps an assessor – will ever look at it again. But that’s OK. Because the point in doing the exercise is to do the exercise, not to produce a report. The exercise is the work. The report is a byproduct. It’s just a record that the exercise was done. The real learning is embedded in you, and everyone else collectively who took part. The point of the doing is the doing, not what gets done. David O'Brien Website | + postsBio I'm a service designer in Scottish Enterprise's unsurprisingly-named service design team. I've been a content designer, editor, UX designer and giant haystacks developer on the web for (gulp) over 25 years. * David O'Brien __The point of the doing is the doing, not what gets done * David O'Brien __Should coders design? * David O'Brien __Ain’t no I in AI * David O'Brien __No more cookies for you * David O'Brien __I cycled to work * David O'Brien __The disability myth * David O'Brien __Prototyping in the browser * David O'Brien __Running this website * David O'Brien __Who are we willing to exclude? * David O'Brien __Service Design must die * David O'Brien __What do service designers do? * David O'Brien __Prototyping in html * David O'Brien __Good Services Scale: an interactive assessment * David O'Brien __Aphantasia rocks * David O'Brien __In search of broken combs * David O'Brien __Making our account managers appy * David O'Brien __Applying WCAG principles to service design more generally * David O'Brien __Show your stripes * David O'Brien __Making prototypes in the browser * David O'Brien __Telling a story ## Possibly related * It's good to talk * A new life in the unknown * The places and people we remember * A user manual for Lindsay * How we used the Good Services Scale to evaluate the… * Design content first ... who would have thought of that?

Writing alternate text for non-text can be hard. This widget can help you decide which approach to take. Alt text decide-o-matic This application requires javascript. Please make sure javascript is enabled in your browser’s settings. About this This decision tree will help you understand how best to include text alternatives for image-based content. It is based on the W3C’s alt text decision tree. All errors are mine. Give feedback, tell me what’s broken, by leaving a comment here, or via Mastodon. Start now Does the image contain text? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next Is the text also present as real text nearby? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next Is the text only shown for visual effects? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next Does the text have a specific function, for example as an icon? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next Is the text in the image not present otherwise? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next Is the image used in a link or a button, and would it be hard or impossible to understand what the link or the button does, if the image wasn’t there? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next Does the image contribute meaning to the current page or context? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next Is the image a simple graphic or photograph? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next Is the image a a graph or complex piece of information? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next Does the image show content that is redundant to real text nearby? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next Is the image purely decorative or not intended for the user? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next ## Use alt=”” Use an empty alt attribute. See Decorative Images. Start over ## Communicate the function Use the alt attribute to communicate the function of the image. See Functional Images. Start over ## Include the text Use the alt attribute to include the text of the image. See Images of Text. Start over ## Communicate the destination of the link Use the alt attribute to communicate the destination of the link or action taken. See Functional Images. Start over ## Briefly describe the image Use a brief description of the image in a way that conveys that meaning in the alt attribute. See Informative Images. Start over ## Include the information elsewhere Include the information contained in the image elsewhere on the page. See Complex Images. Start over ## Use alt=”” Use an empty alt attribute. See (redundant) Functional Images. Start over David O'Brien Website | + postsBio I'm a service designer in Scottish Enterprise's unsurprisingly-named service design team. I've been a content designer, editor, UX designer and giant haystacks developer on the web for (gulp) over 25 years. * David O'Brien __Should coders design? * David O'Brien __Ain’t no I in AI * David O'Brien __No more cookies for you * David O'Brien __I cycled to work ## Possibly related * Providing text alternatives for non-text content * How to create accessible Word documents * Showing your users' journeys as a Tube map * How many people does it take to design and build a service? * 10 things that businesses consistently tell us * Writing for people, not businesses

Writing alternate text for non-text can be hard. This widget can help you decide which approach to take. Alt text decide-o-matic This application requires javascript. Please make sure javascript is enabled in your browser’s settings. About this This decision tree will help you understand how best to include text alternatives for image-based content. It is based on the W3C’s alt text decision tree. All errors are mine. Give feedback, tell me what’s broken, by leaving a comment here, or via Mastodon. Start now Does the image contain text? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next Is the text also present as real text nearby? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next Is the text only shown for visual effects? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next Does the text have a specific function, for example as an icon? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next Is the text in the image not present otherwise? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next Is the image used in a link or a button, and would it be hard or impossible to understand what the link or the button does, if the image wasn’t there? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next Does the image contribute meaning to the current page or context? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next Is the image a simple graphic or photograph? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next Is the image a a graph or complex piece of information? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next Does the image show content that is redundant to real text nearby? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next Is the image purely decorative or not intended for the user? Yes No Next Please select either Yes or No, then click Next ## Use alt=”” Use an empty alt attribute. See Decorative Images. Start over ## Communicate the function Use the alt attribute to communicate the function of the image. See Functional Images. Start over ## Include the text Use the alt attribute to include the text of the image. See Images of Text. Start over ## Communicate the destination of the link Use the alt attribute to communicate the destination of the link or action taken. See Functional Images. Start over ## Briefly describe the image Use a brief description of the image in a way that conveys that meaning in the alt attribute. See Informative Images. Start over ## Include the information elsewhere Include the information contained in the image elsewhere on the page. See Complex Images. Start over ## Use alt=”” Use an empty alt attribute. See (redundant) Functional Images. Start over David O'Brien Website | + postsBio I'm a service designer in Scottish Enterprise's unsurprisingly-named service design team. I've been a content designer, editor, UX designer and giant haystacks developer on the web for (gulp) over 25 years. * David O'Brien __Should coders design? * David O'Brien __Ain’t no I in AI * David O'Brien __No more cookies for you * David O'Brien __I cycled to work ## Possibly related * Providing text alternatives for non-text content * How to create accessible Word documents * Showing your users' journeys as a Tube map * How many people does it take to design and build a service? * 10 things that businesses consistently tell us * Writing for people, not businesses

Making sure everyone who needs your service can use it as easily as possible.

The untold history of web development: 1990: HTML invented. 1994: CSS invented to fix HTML. 1995: JS invented to fix HTML/CSS. 2006: jQuery invented to fix JS. 2010: AngularJS invented to fix jQuery. 2013: React invented to fix AngularJS. 2014: Vue invented to fix React & Angular. 2016: Angular 2 invented to fix AngularJS & React. 2019: Svelte 3 invented to fix React, Angular, Vue. 2019: React hooks invented to fix React. 2020: Vue 3 invented to fix React hooks. 2020: Solid invented to fix React, Angular, Svelte, Vue. 2020: HTMX 1.0 invented to fix React, Angular, Svelte, Vue, Solid. 2021: React suspense invented to fix React, again. 2023: Svelte Runes invented to fix Svelte. 2024: jQuery still used on 75% of websites. (By https://twitter.com/fireship_dev) #Web #Development #HTML #CSS #JavaScript #React #ReactJS #JQuery #Svelte #Angular #AngularJS

In the run-up to January 2023 we migrated our first site – SDI.co.uk – to our new Design System. SDI website Just under 3 years of research, design, build and, finally, the migration of content from the old site to the new site. This is a huge milestone in the development and success of our future websites for Scottish Enterprise. ## What’s the value? We created a new Design System to help deliver a better user experience for our internal and external users, as well as providing for more efficient digital change. Some of the benefits of the new Design System: * Improve how our content team use our system and add content to our sites * Improve the UI inconsistencies for users * Add flexibility to a library of components * Provide a library of templates for ease of use * Improve accessibility, core web vitals and reduce digital carbon emissions * Our new design system isn’t just a component library it’s a full CMS web building platform * The use of Figma tokens from design to code to allow us greater scalability across different brand sites * An upgraded content management system (moving from Umbraco 7 to 11) that is more robust and secure, providing improved layers of security, particularly around our publishing process ## New features include: ### Modifiers In addition to the above, we reduced the number of components we created as our audit highlighted that some components in our old library weren’t being used (for various reasons). One of the main findings of the audit was that our components weren’t flexible enough. The new modifiers in Umbraco 11 give us extra flexibility that we didn’t have before. Content designers can change colours, padding, margin and control display across all breakpoints (desktop/tablet/mobile etc) on most components. A selection of modifiers within Umbraco In addition to modifiers, buttons, links and headlines can also be added to most components. During our co-design workshops, the content team highlighted that this lack of flexibility with the old system caused issues when creating pages. ## Templates To help the content team work more efficiently we built a library of templates. These can be added to containers to build up a page. This reduces the amount of time spent creating pages and helps to maintain consistency across the site which, ultimately, improves the user experience. Templates within Umbraco ## Cookie modal To give our users control over how we use their data, we updated our cookie journey and how they interact: * Strictly necessary – you can’t opt out of these cookies. * Users have the option to opt into Performance, functional and marketing cookies with a clear and deliberate action to give consent. * The option to edit cookie settings is available to the user from the footer of the site. * We user tested the interaction and journey; users preferred the use of toggles and a pop up rather than a banner on the site. ## Migration The migration project brought together a cross-functional team and included colleagues from: * UX & Service Design * Content Marketing * Marketing Analytics & SEO * Development * SDI trade and investment experts Ahead of the migration starting, we carried out a full content audit of the existing site. The audit involved reviewing all site content, helping to identify what we needed to keep, reduce, redo or remove. Based on the audit, we developed a refreshed information architecture. User testing was carried out to validate the changes we were making. All of this helped to deliver an improved site structure and navigation that better reflects the needs of our users Following the content audit, we worked at pace over a 6-month period to migrate over 300 pages of content. We worked closely with SDI colleagues to review and update content, whilst also identifying sections or pages that required more substantial content changes post-migration. ## Time to reflect We ran some retros to review all the work we have done from a development and migration perspective, lots of good stuff, some interesting areas to improve and some key actions to take forward. ### What went well? * Communication, working closely with other teams and having regular short catch up meetings * Project planning * Support, positivity and creativity from colleagues * The Design System itself ### What could be improved * Having information in multiple places (multiple Teams channels and conversations) * Training * The content team creating the site while development was ongoing caused a lot of rework * Template naming conventions ### Actions * Further training for the content team * Guidelines website * Templates review * Clarify roles and responsibilities from get-go for next migration * Realistic timescales * Greater transparency on development activity and bug fixes * Make releases more visible to all teams ### Next steps for the Design System We have further enhanced features to build to support our next site migration: * Cards with attributes (event listings, success stories, guides and publications) * Enhanced Filtering * Content review within Umbraco Ongoing work to improve our accessibility, core web vital scores and to reduce digital carbon emissions from our sites. We have just finished our analysis on reducing carbon emissions on SDI, more about that in a future blog. Louise Spence UX Designer at Scottish Enterprise | + postsBio Louise is a UX Designer with Scottish Enterprise * Louise Spence __Reducing carbon emissions from our websites * Louise Spence __Migrating our first site to the Scottish Enterprise Design System * Louise Spence __Skills Development Scotland (SDS) sharing session – Design systems * Louise Spence __Let’s green the web ## Possibly related * How our UX team is building a new design system * How to create accessible Word documents * 10 things that businesses consistently tell us * How we are improving the application process for… * A user manual for Lindsay * Let’s green the web

In the run-up to January 2023 we migrated our first site – SDI.co.uk – to our new Design System. SDI website Just under 3 years of research, design, build and, finally, the migration of content from the old site to the new site. This is a huge milestone in the development and success of our future websites for Scottish Enterprise. ## What’s the value? We created a new Design System to help deliver a better user experience for our internal and external users, as well as providing for more efficient digital change. Some of the benefits of the new Design System: * Improve how our content team use our system and add content to our sites * Improve the UI inconsistencies for users * Add flexibility to a library of components * Provide a library of templates for ease of use * Improve accessibility, core web vitals and reduce digital carbon emissions * Our new design system isn’t just a component library it’s a full CMS web building platform * The use of Figma tokens from design to code to allow us greater scalability across different brand sites * An upgraded content management system (moving from Umbraco 7 to 11) that is more robust and secure, providing improved layers of security, particularly around our publishing process ## New features include: ### Modifiers In addition to the above, we reduced the number of components we created as our audit highlighted that some components in our old library weren’t being used (for various reasons). One of the main findings of the audit was that our components weren’t flexible enough. The new modifiers in Umbraco 11 give us extra flexibility that we didn’t have before. Content designers can change colours, padding, margin and control display across all breakpoints (desktop/tablet/mobile etc) on most components. A selection of modifiers within Umbraco In addition to modifiers, buttons, links and headlines can also be added to most components. During our co-design workshops, the content team highlighted that this lack of flexibility with the old system caused issues when creating pages. ## Templates To help the content team work more efficiently we built a library of templates. These can be added to containers to build up a page. This reduces the amount of time spent creating pages and helps to maintain consistency across the site which, ultimately, improves the user experience. Templates within Umbraco ## Cookie modal To give our users control over how we use their data, we updated our cookie journey and how they interact: * Strictly necessary – you can’t opt out of these cookies. * Users have the option to opt into Performance, functional and marketing cookies with a clear and deliberate action to give consent. * The option to edit cookie settings is available to the user from the footer of the site. * We user tested the interaction and journey; users preferred the use of toggles and a pop up rather than a banner on the site. ## Migration The migration project brought together a cross-functional team and included colleagues from: * UX & Service Design * Content Marketing * Marketing Analytics & SEO * Development * SDI trade and investment experts Ahead of the migration starting, we carried out a full content audit of the existing site. The audit involved reviewing all site content, helping to identify what we needed to keep, reduce, redo or remove. Based on the audit, we developed a refreshed information architecture. User testing was carried out to validate the changes we were making. All of this helped to deliver an improved site structure and navigation that better reflects the needs of our users Following the content audit, we worked at pace over a 6-month period to migrate over 300 pages of content. We worked closely with SDI colleagues to review and update content, whilst also identifying sections or pages that required more substantial content changes post-migration. ## Time to reflect We ran some retros to review all the work we have done from a development and migration perspective, lots of good stuff, some interesting areas to improve and some key actions to take forward. ### What went well? * Communication, working closely with other teams and having regular short catch up meetings * Project planning * Support, positivity and creativity from colleagues * The Design System itself ### What could be improved * Having information in multiple places (multiple Teams channels and conversations) * Training * The content team creating the site while development was ongoing caused a lot of rework * Template naming conventions ### Actions * Further training for the content team * Guidelines website * Templates review * Clarify roles and responsibilities from get-go for next migration * Realistic timescales * Greater transparency on development activity and bug fixes * Make releases more visible to all teams ### Next steps for the Design System We have further enhanced features to build to support our next site migration: * Cards with attributes (event listings, success stories, guides and publications) * Enhanced Filtering * Content review within Umbraco Ongoing work to improve our accessibility, core web vital scores and to reduce digital carbon emissions from our sites. We have just finished our analysis on reducing carbon emissions on SDI, more about that in a future blog. Louise Spence UX Designer at Scottish Enterprise | + postsBio Louise is a UX Designer with Scottish Enterprise * Louise Spence __Reducing carbon emissions from our websites * Louise Spence __Migrating our first site to the Scottish Enterprise Design System * Louise Spence __Skills Development Scotland (SDS) sharing session – Design systems * Louise Spence __Let’s green the web ## Possibly related * How our UX team is building a new design system * How to create accessible Word documents * 10 things that businesses consistently tell us * How we are improving the application process for… * A user manual for Lindsay * Let’s green the web

Polish your elevator pitch because it is more needed today than ever before. How often do you talk to peers who just can’t tell you what their project exists to do. They can only tell you what they do on the project. A friend of mine took on a new role at a finance company. When he started there were 40,000 defects in Jira. When he left 2 years later….there were 40,000 defects in Jira.. He couldn’t tell what his project actually did. ## So what was their team actually meant to do? If you don’t know the Pitch then why is your company funding your project? A good pitch is a way of telling your story that rolls together: * Problem statements * Solution Statements * A Hypothesis * Future state/vision It does this in a No-Nonsense, Plain English manner. ## So how do I create this magical Pitch you speak of There are lots of ways to create a Pitch, but one that has never failed me in workshops is the Pixar Pitch. This is the structure that ALL Pixar movies use and to date they have raked in over 15 BILLION DOLLARS. So obviously not a bad approach to story telling. The key elements are: * Once upon a time (This is the context) * Every Day (This is the problem) * One Day (This is the solution) * Because of that (This is the outcome) * Until Finally (This is the future state) I use a fun Pitch Canvas that looks like this: Pitch Canvas ## Is that not a bit childish? Yes & No, but that is it’s strength It avoids a lot of “group think style jargonistic language” and makes people think in more simplistic ways. Your inner child also has a massive bullshit filter. It makes you “Say what it does on the tin” (Please don’t sue me Ronseal) ## So here is your homework 🙂 * Fill in the canvas for one of your projects. * Then read out the words to someone else (but only the words inside the box) * Reflect ## If you don’t believe me then here is one I prepared earlier Filled out example of a Pitch Canvas Step1: Read out the Prompts as well as the writing as if talking to a 3 year old. Step 2: Now read out just the text, as if you were telling someone in a lift about your project. * **Companies wasted lots of time, searching dozens of government websites, to find help to grow their business** * **They would not be doing normal business activities, because of all the time spent searching for help. instead of growing, some companies were shrinking.** * **The government listed all business support on a single website:** * **Companies could find help in minutes and without having to ignore day to day tasks.** * **Companies started to grow again and the country’s economy was good** With a couple of minor tweaks, mostly around tense, this is a pretty solid Pitch for our FindBusinessSupport website. You are now a Pitch Ninja. ## Possibly related * Invisible Disabilities * The places and people we remember * A new life in the unknown * We are all one big team, right? * "Getting Connected" with our Customers * Accessibility - Sharing knowledge between organisations