You can find more information about user research on the dedicated User research in government blog.
To a user, the definition of a service is simple. For those of us who work in government, though, it can be more complex. Before updating the Service Standard, we need to settle on a cross-government definition of an end-to-end service. So we carried out research to do this.
GDS recently moved to a new office, which gave us the opportunity to redesign our user research lab. We use it to carry out research into all the things we deliver, from guidance and standards to common components. Our lab is open to the rest of government so that they can carry out research into their own projects and services.
Alan Rider from the Department for Transport (DfT) talks about developing the DfT Digital Data Index and how the team went about determining its users' needs.
We worked with the Department for Education and its agencies to make it easier for GOV.UK users to find the content they need. The results of this work are now starting to become visible to users.
Defra's new online fishing rod licence service recently moved from private to public beta. Head of Digital at Defra, Sally Meecham, explains why it's so simple, a child can use it.
Data infrastructure is about building the foundations for the way government uses data. This work deals with some very technical, system-level infrastructure. So we did some user research.
A few years ago, when I was organising finance and procurement for the GDS user research lab I was gung-ho and eager to get everyone involved and enthusiastic too. It proved a very good move.
Today we hear from two content experts about testing content (don't worry, the Yoda will make sense if you read on).
Lars Boström is a Team Leader and Web Coordinator at the Swedish Consumer Agency. Here, Lars talks about his experience of job shadowing user researchers at GDS.
Katy Arnold, Head of User Research and Design at Home Office, talks about her experience of joining a GDS service standard assessment panel.
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