Greg Annandale

Good to see the Arts Council have released their annual 'Basic Dataset for Libraries' of library locations: https://lnkd.in/edMRf9MU It's very useful, but the dataset is also an illustration of how we need one data source, which is permanently maintained, and used in applications. An annual survey is always out of date. One particular typo has Porlock library written as TA24 7HD, which should be TA24 8NP. An easy mistake, as the next library in the list (Priorswood) is TA2 7HD - so they've been mixed up. The problem is, I corrected that typo in 2016, and have reported it wrong, along with other corrections, in all the iterations since then. But when there's no mechanism to correct or change the data, the previous year gets sent to library services to validate or correct. Which is then an arduous task.

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Just a regular Monday afternoon talking about why a UX Audit might make sense for your digital product. An insightful chat with a product leader recently, where we busted some major myths about UX audits, moved past the misconception that audits are just about nit-picking flaws and really dove into how they can drive meaningful product success. Sounds interesting? let's chat about how we can take your product to the next level! My UX Score Meenakshi Kharade Siddharth Kabra Shashikant Narwade Geetesh Nandanwar Rahul Patil Aditya Kulkarni

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This one's for all you fans of my 'I rustled up this blog post at lunchtime' genre of blog posts - making school term dates easier for users, and ultimately easier for ourselves - https://lnkd.in/eRn9EQ4q #UCD #UserCentredDesign #ContentDesign #UserExperience #Schools #LocalGovDigital #LocalGov

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https://lnkd.in/ej_BxgCU I’m running a short intro to screen readers workshop at the end of the month for Front End SheffieldIt will cover the basics of how they work and how to spot and fix some common issues 

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A timely 'stick rather than carrot' reminder from Andrew Hick at Government Digital Service that it's been a full year since the WCAG 2.2 regulations were released. This means the clock is ticking if you're subject to the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations and your digital learning content isn't accessible to the 55 WCAG 2.2 Level A and AA standards. Of course, it's also a great opportunity to re-introduce eLaHub's Designing Accessible Learning Content self-access programme - our unique online accredited training course which takes learning practitioners through every one of the 86 WCAG 2.2 standards. Find out more at: https://lnkd.in/eCvuQGKP ...and also a great opportunity to introduce the second edition of the Designing Accessible Learning Content handbook published by Kogan Page Publishing on the 3rd of January 2025 and fully updated with all the latest WCAG 2.2 standards. Find out more at: https://lnkd.in/eF-bCjia #eLearning #accessibility #KoganPageHRInsights

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In Government they like to spend thousands of pounds understanding how to meet user needs to build systems that usually end up in the citizen being out of pocket. It seems madness to scour through hundreds of sessions teasing out needs such as "I want it to be easy to use" and "I want it to be quick to complete" when the underlying need is... "I CANNOT AFFORD TO PAY ANY MORE F**KING TAX" That need will always be ignored. So essentially the systems are just being built to make the wealth transfer exercise from citizen to government as simple as possible. So my question is, what's the point?

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Keen to learn how to use Service Design to create lasting social impact? Applications for The Innovation Unit Design Academy are now open! We're excited to welcome a new cohort of learners in September. The Design Academy empowers individuals to drive lasting change in sectors such as mental health, healthcare, justice, and more. Our aim is to provide high-level design skills, confidence, and experience for professionals working in social innovation and public service transformation. Over the past three years, the team have taught 32 students – mostly mid-career professionals from a range of backgrounds: researchers, strategists, managers in charities, healthcare and local government, social entrepreneurs, academics, and teachers. The curriculum has been created by designers, for designers working on complex social change. Next year, the course will focus on two learning modules: 👉 Module 1: Applying service design methods to complex social challenges (September - January) 👉 Module 2: Design leadership for systems change (January - June). Past students have used the course as a stepping stone into a service design career, while others have used it to grow leadership skills, get promoted, or take on more complex and ambitious projects. Organisations committed to growing the change expertise of their staff have also sent a cohort of staff on this course to grow the design and innovation capabilities of their team. Get a glimpse into the programme and apply here:

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I love the advice here to reach out to five users a week and ask if you can talk for fifteen minutes about your product/service. Likewise, looking for recurring themes is important.  https://lnkd.in/ePM97V32

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Sometimes people question GOV.UK's 3 text inputs for dates, but the pattern means you don't have to know how to format dates, it tests well. Here's an issue from US design system that shows the problem of one field https://lnkd.in/eiRyenb3

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I'm in a UR, UX bubble, so I have a question about life outside... Do other specialisms in technology, for example Business Analysts or Solution Architects to name but two, debate the merits or otherwise of using AI in their work as much as the UR and UX folk? If they do, can someone point me to some points of view from outside my bubble. (if only I could be bothered to make an AI image of me in a bubble to illustrate this post.)

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Since the start of the year I've been collating and publishing browser analytics data from GOV.UK online. It can be an interesting insight into how browser and OS usage changes over the seasons, such as how use of Windows tends to drop during the summer holidays. Over the last two months, sessions from Internet Explorer and Windows Phone devices have slumped from tens of thousands to single digits, potentially indicating that a major organisation has stopped using them. 🤔 https://lnkd.in/eFpqkHmx #browserstats #browsers #webdev

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I'm looking forward to presenting at STM 's webinar focusing on the European Accessibility Act on Monday, 10 June at 12 noon UK / 1pm CET / 7am Eastern alongside Cristina Mussinelli. I'll be talking about the main requirements of the EAA for publishers and how Elsevier are approaching it. Please join us using hte link below. The European Accessibility Act (EAA) - what do STM publishers need to know and prepare for? - STM members only webinar - STM (stm-assoc.org) #EAA #publishingforeveryone #accessibility

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Hey design peeps! Here's a new blog post from me, musing on how we might morph discovery research into something more useful. #design #hcd #research #discovery #servicedesign

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About a year ago I wrote a post about design/experience principles (see the link in comments) which had a fantastic set of responses on how to use them. If you're working on design principles or thinking of doing so, I'd encourage you to have a read. They've recently come up again with clients – from a scaling and embedding across an org perspective. Some of my thoughts: 1. People support what they help create 👏 Number one rule of embedding anything – without buy-in it won't go very far. So if you're building design or experience principles, include key teams and stakeholders in their creation, ideally based on data and evidence. 2. Align with measurable outcomes the org cares about 📊 Any principle you develop should ultimately connect with the strategic goals of the organisation. That means you should identify success measures for each principle and develop a plan for tracing outcomes back to decisions you made in the design process. Sounds obvious, but it takes perseverance to do well. 3. Determine ownership and accountability across teams 📋 Develop an operating model that embeds your principles into everyday practices across different teams (not just design). When are they going to be created, updated or reviewed? How are principles going to be used to shape scope and make decisions across marketing, technology, product or risk? Make it your job to figure this out. 4. Scale and build evidence from small successes 🌱 Embedding principles everywhere at once, at scale is hard. Small examples of successful change based on your principles is a good strategy if you're starting from zero. In the past we've seen success around small things like web copy changes that can easily be measured and involve multiple stakeholders from the outset. 5. Find your champions 🎉 It's good to identify people in the organisation from diverse areas that believe in, and are passionate about making your principles work. See No.1 on this list! 6. Integrate with other frameworks 🧩 Principles never sit on their own. They work alongside other governance frameworks and practices. Part of an embedding strategy for experience principles should involve defining how they ladder up to other standards in the organisation. What do you think? What have you seen working when it comes to the adoption and strategic value of experience/design principles? Or is there a better way to drive quality and integrity in customer experiences? #strategy #innovation #transformation Nile

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In Mustard's latest blog, Anthony Shephard-Williams explores how much the team has fully embraced observational UX research. Read here: https://lnkd.in/e2-YjZmf #mrx #UX #mustard #newblog

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If you're looking to up your accessibility game, your search is over. Join my colleague and accessibility guru Grant for some insights and guidance next Wednesday!

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Hi folks, A last-minute reminder that we are hosting our final FREE webinar on Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPATs) and Accessibility Conformance Reports (ACRs) in our Accessibility Masterclass series this afternoon at 2pm BST. The session will be presented by my colleagues  Snigdha Ramkumar and Kieran Rooney. Sign up via the link below: https://lnkd.in/eVc_-hkC #AccessibilityCompliance #VPAT #ACR #Accessibility #InclusiveDesign

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Curious about accessibility overlays? Kaye Moors does a great job highlighting the effectiveness of these tools. At my previous job as the LMS Administrator we installed one thinking that was a good idea. Turned out it wasn’t, as we later found out, and therefore it was removed. Learn more below.

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