Reset for 2019/20: continuing content and design standards for health
Are you like me, looking forward to a new financial year and the challenges ahead? If so maybe now’s the time to review the last year in order prepare for the year ahead.
I’m off work at the moment on paternity leave, and when I go back it will be a new financial year. In all sectors of work the new financial year is in some respect a ‘reset’ which involves making a case for funding — whether that be new, continued or increased — and usually that involves deciding on priorities. This might not be very Agile (I’m sure lots of people have written about how annual budget setting processes can upset the Agile sprint cycle and product roadmap), but you can make it work.
As part of ‘reset’ I think it’s useful to look back, in part to realise what you’ve achieved, and in part to curate for the future so those memories don’t become fragmented and lost as blogs are pushed down the webpage, as people move on, and as teams disband and reform in some other guise.
So this is my review of the last financial year through public blog and social media posts of the two teams I’m the Lead Product Manager for, one working on Standards and the NHS Digital Service Manual, the other on the redesign of the biggest health website in Europe, NHS.UK (responsibility picked up from June onwards).
April 2018 — the Standards team start to shape the backlog
The Standards team start to form, finding its feet and working out what our version of Standards might be. As Olivia (@livsharples) puts it — ”Defining our goal — Early in the sprint we agreed on our goal for the overall project: “Help teams efficiently produce high-quality, consistent NHS services that meet people’s needs”.”
August 2018 — redesign of NHS.UK (and the removal of ‘Choices’) for Expo
The NHS.UK website (what used to be called Choices) is the biggest health website in Europe with more than 50 million sessions each month. It’s a legacy site with thousands of pages of content. Elsewhere you can read about our content migration project but for Expo 2018 the team’s focus was on a redesign that made the site more responsive to mobile visitors (70%+ of traffic) and more accessible to all.
As Leigh (@mortimer_leigh) puts it — “ A new, more accessible design for NHS.UK, better signposting, clearer actions, making things more usable and accessible. People call this website the NHS website. So we will too.”
October 2018 — the story behind our design principles
In parallel to the redesign project we drafted some design principles to guide our work, and to help others. As Dean (@DeanVipond) put it — “Our principles focus on either people or process. People, so that we are always reminded of who we are designing for (people using NHS services, carers, healthcare professionals, etc). Process, so everyone is working and making services in a similar way.”
Which is why we created a Design Governance Board to receive new designs and arbitrate where necessary.
February 2019 — we’re proud to talk of pee and poo, and it might save lives
We love talking about interaction design, and service design and tech interoperability and even AI. What matters most to the users of our service is that our content is easily discovered, understood, and is structured in a way that encourages progression and engagement when needed. Which is why what we say, and how we say it, is arguably the most important thing we do.
As Sara (@S_Wilcox ) put it — “We talk about body parts and how bodies work and sometimes that means talking about uncomfortable topics. We’ve published an A to Z list for people who write about health, including the words ‘pee’ and ‘poo’.”
It’s for such weighty matters that we created a (Content) Style Council to overview our content style guide.
February 2019 — events to promote our NHS Digital Service Manual with integrated frontend library (and Design Principles)
<Stuff> gets real in February. We’d released an early version of the Service Manual in September, but February saw it rebuilt using the full NHS.UK styles from our own frontend library — in effect ‘eating our own dogfood’ (as some might say). To sit alongside our Design Principles we had more comprehensive content guidance and integrated the frontend library and prototyping kit. We’re also clear about our roadmap ahead with work on a proposed Service Standard for Health, more accessibility guidance and guidance for measuring health outcomes.
We then went on to shout about it with our first public Show & Tell using Youtube Live (presentation available in Google docs) — and a ‘how to’ Medium post, and a guest appearance at the NHS England Empower the Person event.
This was closely followed by @chrimes_adam and @MikeMonteithDev attending ‘hack events’ to show off the frontend library and prototyping kit.
March 2019 — the story behind our frontend library and prototyping kit
We then went on to blog about why we did what we did. As David (@thatdavehunter) puts it — “After we relaunched the NHS website last August, we needed a way of sharing what we learnt with other digital teams to help them build accessible, mobile-first products and services too.”
March 2019 — the vexed question of icons
I’ll also throw in a blogpost from Ben, who we share with the Medicines team, on icons. Icons seem to be the dividing line between user centred design and what I’ve seen referred to as “snazzy design”. We’re clear on our viewpoint — as Ben (@CLLLLMORE) puts it — “Icons represent ideas in a simple, visual way. But we must use them carefully, and only where they help people. Users’ needs must come first, and we shouldn’t be afraid to challenge how people use them.”
April 2019 — a revised cookie banner for NHS.UK
We haven’t blogged about this yet, but if you are familiar with PECR (Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations), GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and the impact of Article 50 legislation you know this isn’t an easy design challenge. I think we did well with our newly launched pattern — building on our redesign patterns and potentially becoming a future standard.
April 2019 — the Standards & Redesign team use the frontend library to build the NHSX website
If you work in Health you know what a big deal NHSX is. They asked us to help build their website for them, using a sprint (and one minute) to build 3 prototypes, test with 16 users, iterate 4 times, show and tell twice to NHSX stakeholders and then launch it. A testament to our standards, frontend library and the power of coding in the open.
Visit https://www.nhsx.nhs.uk/ and https://github.com/NHSX to see what we did for NHSX.
Reflections on 2018/19
The above’s a nice roll call of the Products we’ve shipped, and reflects the brilliance of some of the people I work with.
But a reflection and a reset wouldn’t be much use if I didn’t learn something.
So this is what I’ve learnt for myself.
I love being a Product person — and I love delivering Products. In 2019 I also re-discovered a love of writing about my work — becoming a serial poster in Twitter and Medium (often combined!) — like in this Twitter thread below:
But you’ll note none of the corporate blog posts are from me.
Because for me a good Product Lead creates the space for the team, and the people within it, to do their best. The Product Lead isn’t (and shouldn’t) be at the front.
As Product we face out to stakeholders to create a quiet bubble for the team, and we create the right environment for individual members to shine and grow.
In the past people have tried to do what we’ve done and failed, but this particular group of banderos succeeded massively, and a part of that is because ‘we changed the weather’, rather than waiting for the weather to change for us (to channel Tom Loosemore — see Changing the Weather Inside your Organisation).
This isn’t easy, you manage stakeholders, secure the budget, and build confidence in part through your own persona. It’s a kind of magic.
I’ll write more about thoughts on Product leadership in a later post.
But more generally, my mini 'listicle' for 2018/19:
- People are brilliant. Particularly if you create the space for their talents to shine, and for people to develop in ways they haven’t before.
- (All) organisations are a challenge. They just are. If you’re lucky your organisation upholds being transparent and open and it explains the background to budget and priority decisions (which means even if you disagree, understanding helps you process).
- It’s important we do work well. Yes I know about the ‘work to live and live to work’ meme but work can be half of our waking lives, and if you’re fortunate enough to be working in the public sector doing work that makes a difference to people’s lives why would you not want to be the best you can? If you have that attitude it helps balance out the ‘people are brilliant, organisations are a challenge' vibe.
- Magic can happen, and I think last year it did. I’m really proud of the breadth and depth of the work I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of, and in some ways lead.
- The potential for the future is massive. It’s a matter of public record the organisation and the sector I’m working in is undergoing a radical transformation, perhaps the biggest digital transformation ever.
So thanks to the Standards and Redesign team of 2018/19 — Olivia, Mark, Eric, Mohammed, Dominic, Leigh, Dean, Ben, Adam, Ross, Sab, Becca, Caroline, Brad, Michael, Mike, Dave, Ash, Karl, Zoe. You’re all brilliant.
And thanks to the sponsorship of Alan, Juliet, Marc and Matt.
Here’s looking at you 2019/20, will you be as good?
ps — late addition — Ashley’s blog post published in June — “Tips for effective accessibility research- How do you make sure your research project is truly accessible? Ashley Wheat, User Researcher on the NHS website, explains how the team worked with people with a range of access needs to improve their product”.
We believe that if we make the NHS website work better for people who have the most complex needs, then we can make it work better for all.
