Starting 2016 working on GOV.UK
It was back to work for me this week. But unlike the last 8 years, it’s a New Year that feels very different as I get more and more stuck into my new job working on GOV.UK as a content designer.
Where did that month go?
It’s been a month now since I started my new job at the Government Digital Service (GDS). With Christmas and New Year thrown in, it’s gone by in a flash.
But coming back to work after a short break has been exciting. It feels like 2016 is going to be a really interesting year for GOV.UK — and in turn, my job.
Refreshing the vision
On Wednesday, I took part in one of many workshops taking place to refresh the vision for GOV.UK. It’s to give us the direction for the site to at least 2020.
There are some really interesting ideas about improving the quality of content, making the site better for users, and improving the tools for government publishers.
Neil Williams, Head of GOV.UK, was in the session and explained how a really wide range of people were inputting to the refreshed vision. This includes lots of people from outside of GDS — which is exactly as it should be.
An evening of music
On Thursday evening, I headed over to The Birds Nest in Deptford to watch a musician called Joe Rogers. He’s very influenced by late 50s music, which I just happen to love.
I first saw Joe perform at International Beatleweek in Liverpool in 2012. Although I didn’t actually get to properly meet him then, we became friends on Facebook after I published some photos I’d taken of his band.
It was really nice to see him perform a relaxed set, and actually have a conversation in person. He’s a very talented singer/songwriter, and you should definitely catch one of his gigs if you get the chance.
It’s being able to do things like this that make me really appreciate working in London.
Lizzle moves on from the GOV.UK Content team
Back to work-related things, and the day arrived that the Content team had been dreading: Liz Lutgendorff moved on.
Liz L (Lizzle) has done so much for the team that you can’t even begin to list it.
Before I was at GDS, she was the one person you knew you could go to that knew everything. I have no idea how she stores so much knowledge in her brain. I've lost count of how many times she’s helped me.
Luckily, Liz is still working on GOV.UK. So her talents aren’t being lost. And it’s really nice to know that someone with so much energy and enthusiasm is progressing their career within GDS.
We couldn’t let her go without a speech, a card, presents… and cake! Thanks for everything Liz.
Feeding back on discovery work
Also on Friday, I gave feedback with Paula to the rest of the team on the discovery work we’d been doing on driving test content.
We’ve come up with 8 actions to improve the content for users. These should also make things more efficient for the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency.
We’ll be starting work on those 8 things next week. We’ll be blogging about it when the work is done and we’ve got some results on how things have improved.
