“We make assumptions about what citizens want, but we haven’t actually asked them” – IT manager of a fairly large federal state A #userResearch quote via @paulpistorius.bsky.social 👆🏻 Ours is a long journey here …

You gotta listen to your users —to understand their contexts, constraints & mental models. It never stops. Today, I was in 1.5 concept testing rounds w/ #ServiceStandard users, moderated by @paulpistorius.bsky.social, as we’re looking into a new kind of self-check. Valuable discussions afterwards!

What’s public servants’ view on the German #ServiceStandard? @paulpistorius.bsky.social did some research. Among other things, he found: • People don’t know if their thing is a service • People don’t know if they have to comply with it • People don’t find what they expect to find on its website

It was big fun and a big challenge to condense all our learnings about form design at @digitalservice.bund.de into a couple of guidelines. We're now very excited to see how it helps people across different government units to build better forms faster.

Stop focusing on reducing clicks. Start focusing on making content clear. p.s. reducing clicks may be the result of good design, but it’s not the goal in and of itself.

“But that’s a lot of clicks” I hear this from stakeholders (and even UI/UX designers) quite regularly when I share flows with multiple steps. But here’s the truth: Users don’t care about clicks, as long as each click takes them logically towards their goal. The real problem is...

Interesting paper! When you ask people about the most important issue "facing the country," they often say immigration. But when you ask them about issues facing them personally, it doesn't crack the top 10. This indicates that voters are reacting to media narratives, not their own experience.

For the last 20+ years, I’ve built and designed various products and services that are full of forms. And most of them had a lot of UX and accessibility issues. But I realised that every solution I’ve ever come up with to address these issues can be traced back to 3 simple laws...

I often get asked why digitalization takes so long. Acquiring domain knowledge is a big factor. On the @digitalservice.bund.de blog @jonowak.eu and I explain why we have to acquire so much expertise in the first place. digitalservice.bund.de/blog/warum-w...

“For example, up to 90% of all written applications for legal aid are incomplete or filled out incorrectly. The situation is similar for other administrative and judicial forms.” My colleagues @jonowak.eu and @paulpistorius.bsky.social share why they had to become domain experts to digitalise forms

How we professionalise #UserResearch at @digitalservice.bund.de: My colleagues Sonja and Anja blogged about our journey in the past 2 years and on what’s next — digitalservice.bund.de/blog/user-re...

I'm very happy my talk from this years int’l #GovDesign Conference in Amsterdam is now available on YouTube!

It’s because of who is in the room when the forms are designed. And who is not. My @digitalservice.bund.de colleagues @paulpistorius.bsky.social and Julian Rösner discussed this at Code for America’s #FormFest: how the right parties involved form a triangle of success. youtu.be/th9iNKBmGe0?...

Joining the #UserNeedsFirst #GovDesign conference in Amsterdam for the next 3 days and I hope to meet lots of international colleagues! On Thursday afternoon I'll talk about the "Triangle of success" – why it's important to involve the right parties in the form design process.

Thinking about why public services should not be designed in the same way as private-sector ones. I've 5 points so far: (1) CHOICE: with v few exceptions, we get to choose the private-sector digital services we use but most public services need to be universal at the point of access (1/n)

Ich sag’ es mal so: Es gibt Fotos, auf denen der Tatverdächtige von Mannheim gemeinsam mit Abgeordneten der AfD bei rechten Aufmärschen zu sehen ist. Der Weg von rechtem Terror zur AfD ist zufälligerweise nie weit. Aber weil der Täter kein Ausländer war, gibt es leider keine Debatte.

“Should you mark required fields with a red asterisk?” In 2008 I worked on a bunch of e-commerce sites like Boots, Argos and Homebase. We marked required fields with a little red asterisk. It’s clean. It’s conventional. It’s what everyone else did. But we never ran usability tests...

One of the biggest barriers to digital service transformation is budget separation. It’s a cost item on a digital budget. Which later results in savings in the service operation budget. That’s a different team, unit or even organisation. 1/X

It's a bit disappointing to see an app from a political party instead of actionable administration reforms – that would ultimately enable such an app.

Services become ossified and fragile because 'the programme' is the only mental model for change. We need new models that encourage public servants to embrace continuous adaptation aged improvement of public services.

It's generally not outdated technology that stymies simpler, cheaper and more empathetic public services. It's outdated culture, processes and operating models.

A few weeks ago we talked at #FormFest about why it is important to include all stakeholders into the form design process. We call it the triangle of success. Details in thread.