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User research in a crisis: Things we’d do differently

A picture of our user researcher Narelle Ong

User research in a crisis: Things we’d do differently

Narelle Ong talks candidly about the insights and reflections the user research team gained, if they had there time again working in a crisis.

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Co-publishing the Local Digital Declaration

Posted by: Jason Kitcat, Posted on: 4 July 2018 - Categories: How we work, Our projects, Service Standards

In our view collaboration, reuse and sharing are all key to local government making real progress, at pace, on the change we need to better serve our citizens in the Internet age.

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Show and tell notes: 4 July

Posted by: Helen West, Posted on: 4 July 2018 - Categories: Our projects, Show and tells

This week’s show and tell was about the alpha Essex work, the project to consolidate Essex County Council’s disparate web estate into one single, user-focussed site. We were in the ‘innovation space’, across the way from our usual home in …

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Day 5, Futures Academy: Telling the story

Posted by: Nicholas Ward, Posted on: 29 June 2018 - Categories: How we work, Our projects

We made it to day five! After our final stand up the team shared their experiences from yesterday of prototyping with Essex residents and thought about what they’d want to do next to further test their ideas. We spent the …

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Day 4, Futures Academy: Ideas to prototypes

Posted by: Nicholas Ward, Posted on: 28 June 2018 - Categories: How we work, Our projects
Prototyping in the library

We had our biggest turn out at this morning’s stand up. There is a growing interest in what we’re doing and conversations are already starting about how this would work for other teams, which is really exciting. After the stand …

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Day 3, Futures Academy: Using research to inspire ideas

Posted by: Nicholas Ward, Posted on: 27 June 2018 - Categories: How we work, Our projects
Sketching ideas

Great to see new faces at this morning’s stand up. The team are looking forward to seeing more members of Corporate Development and the wider organisation at tomorrow’s stand up and Friday’s show and tell. Our first activity was to …

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Day 2, Futures Academy: Understanding the user need

Posted by: Nicholas Ward, Posted on: 26 June 2018 - Categories: How we work, Our projects
Documenting the user research findings

Today was all about user research. We started the morning with a ‘stand up’ with the team and senior managers from corporate development. This 15 minute conversation is one of the daily tools of agile working, the idea being that …

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Day 1, Futures Academy: Understanding the problem

Posted by: Nicholas Ward, Posted on: 25 June 2018 - Categories: How we work, Our projects
Day 1 of the design sprint

Today we started the one-week design sprint. We learnt about framing problems, mapping services from a user perspective and identifying pain points and opportunities. It's been a great first day. We also shared the brief that the team are going …

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Introducing the Futures Academy

Posted by: Nicholas Ward, Posted on: 22 June 2018 - Categories: How we work, Our projects
Futures Academy sprint - June 2018

If we want to create public services fit for the 21st century, we have to give our staff the tools to make it happen. That’s why we’re trialling an initiative called the Futures Academy, a learning experience that gives staff …

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Show and tell notes: 20 June

Posted by: Nicholas Ward, Posted on: 20 June 2018 - Categories: How we work, Show and tells
Show and tell June 20 2018

This week’s show and tell focussed on things we’re doing to better understand our users. Nic Ward and Helen West presented the User testing lab workshops they, and other members of ECC, have been doing and James Pallister & Sheila …

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Understanding the ‘why’: testing in the lab

Posted by: Helen West, Posted on: 11 June 2018 - Categories: How we work, Our projects, User research
User testing in progress

This week, we're in the user testing lab, in an effort to better understand why our users act the way they do. This involves watching how people actually behave when using our websites

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