Training
I supported prototype training on Monday, helping people get a sense of what it takes to build prototypes using the NHS prototype kit. Ed and Frankie have created a great day that gives people what they need to start using it. It was lovely seeing people from different disciplines enthusiastically making stuff. Also the first time I’ve ever used a web‑based text editor.
I’m not sure the GOV.UK prototype kit gets the recognition it deserves for its role in supporting government transformation. A community (by which I mean, mostly unfunded) project that made prototyping in code using the same frontend components as the live services the default. It’s a multiplier in speed and efficiency of design. It lowers the barrier to making realistic design that translates directly to production code. It forces designers to think in the material of delivery.
Making pretend things
I’ve begun building a new prototype to explore what our longer‑term vision for personalised prevention services could look like. I’m not using a prototyping kit for this one. To attempt to model a future state where the NHS App is a native platform for personalised journeys, I needed more complex logic and routing than the kits provide.
The trade-off is that I’ve spent more time than I’d like on aesthetics, though I’m still using the GOV.UK design system for the basics. It’s interesting to see the effect that fidelity has on people. I showed a colleague a page they’d seen as a wireframe a few times before. Seeing it like it would appear on a phone, their reaction was very different.
Making real things
The work our teams are doing is starting to become more real and with that comes lots of exciting learnings and some new tensions.
I’m never sure if communicating through presentations is a good idea. Using visuals is useful, and having things set down is too. But the precision is a funny thing. Putting something in a deck doesn’t make it true. But not being precise about what you’re planning will raise alarm bells. So much energy goes into internal communication. The job I had before joining the public sector was at a startup of about 5 people. We’d chat about things and build as we went. My first day in government, I joined a meeting about a meeting and it felt ridiculous, but that’s my life now. Complex orgs.
One of the tech architects on our team created a Gantt chart of what it takes to ship a single page of HTML here. It is bleak.
My immediate reaction is that we need to find ways to reduce the time to deliver. I’ve talked with the teams about partnering to use existing systems as a way to reduce governance blockers. I think it also means that every discovery will need to set plans in motion to get approval to ship, even if we don’t have concrete plans for what we’ll ship.