Gcdigital

I’ve been in a few cross-governmental discussions lately about design systems and shared component libraries (if you’re part of the GC, join us over in the design-gc-conception.slack.com group!). Some of my favourite conversations have been around the purpose and intended audience of a design system, which have been really interesting…

Weeknotes #30: Dec 14–18, 2020 — I thought about trying to write this post as a poem, “Twas the week before Christmas”-style but realized that would probably be more difficult and time-consuming than just writing a normal post.. Last week was fun! I was very busy note-taking for the two tests we ran with TryMyUI. I…

Weeknotes #29: Dec 7–11, 2020 — This week I was preparing to kick off some unmoderated usability testing with TryMyUI. But before I pushed the button to kick off the tests, I ran a couple small pilot tests with one or two users. These pilot tests were about ‘testing the test’, rather than focusing on the…

Weeknotes #27: Nov 23–27, 2020 — As I mentioned last week, I recently started talking to my manager about an ongoing monitoring and measurement project for Top Tasks. …

Weeknotes #23: Oct 26–30, 2020 If you’ve read some of my other posts, you know I’m a fan of qualitative interviews and discovery, where the interviewee can attempt to uncover ‘why’ someone does something. This is in contrast to looking at behavioural analytics and focusing on the ‘what’, and ‘how often’. In my new role…

Weeknotes #21: Oct 13–16, 2020 Note: I skipped from weeknotes #19 — #21 because I was on vacation last week. So it’s the 20th note, but the 21st week since I joined the Government of Canada as a public servant. This week I spent a lot of my time documenting…

Weeknotes #16: Sept 8–11, 2020 — “It’s easier to hold your principles 100 percent of the time than it is to hold them 98 percent of the time.” ― Clayton M. Christensen This will probably be a short post — I’m feeling pretty foggy-headed with the rainy weather here in Ottawa. …

Weeknotes #15: Aug 31 — Sept 4, 2020 Wow, last week’s post really generated a lot of interest! I’m so appreciative of everyone who took the time to read and respond. In case you missed it: The Government of Canada is not a software company Weeknotes #14: Aug 24–28, 2020medium.com Between several conversations spurred on by my blog post, and reading Cyd Harrell’s new book A Civic Technologist’s Practice Guide, this was…

Weeknotes #14: Aug 24–28, 2020 — That may seem obvious, but the implications ripple through what and how work is done. I first entered the public service as a Code for Canada fellow within Public Services and Procurement Canada before accepting a term position with Transport Canada. Fellows help build digital capacity in government, and demonstrate…