Goodbye @ONSdigital
Today marks my penultimate day working for the Office for National Statistics.
It’s nearly three years since I first walked through the doors here in my crisply ironed shirt, shiny shoes and fresh out of university smile. I’m happy to report that since then a lot has changed. Now I’m not saying that after three years of doing the Dolly Parton shift I’m wise to the world of work. I still have that fresh out of university smile that at some point I’m supposed to lose through skepticism. Yet it’s still there. I like to believe the smile is still firmly in place because now I’m doing the best job around…User Researcher. It’s down to ONS and the people here that I have been introduced to the role that a strong researcher and psychologist can have on a project.
Always one to be on trend I began my time at ONS in a semi User Research role as a questionnaire designer and tester. This involved writing the questions for the surveys ONS administer and cognitively testing them with end users. This was a great starter for me as it allowed me to develop my qualitative research skills. Through this work I was introduced to the GDS movement and discovered the fantastic work being conducted by researchers to inform the way public services should be designed. And I wanted in!
It’s with thanks to @jukesie that I was given the opportunity to try my hand at user research by working with his team on the new website. From there I’ve been lucky to work on a couple of the big projects within the data collection programme such as the electronic questionnaire team and more recently the Discovery to understand what it is like for our respondents to take part in our surveys.
The research I’ve conducted across these projects has been varied and challenging. But more satisfying than the work has been the people that I’ve had the opportunity to work with both within the office and in the wider government community. There are far too many names to mention, but without the support, challenge and range of experiences that I’ve been exposed to I wouldn’t be in such a position to try my hand at a new challenge.
I would however like to pay special thanks to two certain individuals. Over the last year I’ve had the pleasure of having Chris Collis as my delivery manager. Chris’ support came at time when I was still uncertain in my role, and his confidence enabled me to push myself further. In addition, I’ve had the joy of working with Nic Price who has the knack of asking the obvious but difficult questions that we sometimes far too often like to avoid. With these challenges and his approach to service design I’ll never look at a problem the same way again.
The way ONS works has changed a lot since I’ve been here, and they really are pushing the ways they can can engage with and design with users in mind. It’s brilliant to see and I’m sorry that I won’t be part of it. I do look forward to doing my Census in a few years though.
Oh about the things that have changed…well I now wear shirts that aren’t tucked in and I’ve got Vans on my feet. I’ll also be walking through new office doors in a couple of weeks, but more about my new post soon.
Thanks @ONSdigital
