It’s common in digital product design to have an understanding of the varying levels of reliability of the data you get from user research. What users say and do is full of bias and subconscious and unconscious drivers, making it very difficult to take their data at face value. This…

In a time when the cost of creating art is so cheap — and with transformative artworks being a series of prompts away (the image above took less than 30 seconds to create) — drawing/sketching, the mark making activity of putting pen to paper, appears totally superfluous. An echo of…

As a tool, writing up user needs is a great way to frame your research data in ways that teams (designers) can take action on. They are a fundamental part of the way GDS builds citizen facing products and services. To make something new, to change something in your product…

In a world of double diamonds, ‘solutioning’ and agile software delivery, the mindset of digital product design seems bent towards feature delivery — Functional units of software, which help people do the stuff they’re trying to do. Take Airbnb. A superficial look at what they do could boil down to…

Merging Agile and Design is a challenge. Many places I have worked have often adopted a ‘dual track’ approach to synchronise these two processes. All have had problems and most often it is the delivery of features that is prioritised over solving the right problem. This article is also published…

I previously wrote here about how product teams I have been (and continue to be)involved in, incentivised to deliver and passionate about what they are doing, are often drawn to low-hanging fruit. These are software features that are simple to execute and can be done quickly within the cadence of…

A recent article in the Guardian (Hospitals without Walls: The Future of Healthcare) explores the changes in healthcare delivery caused by the pandemic. It describes a future where care is decentralised, as it moves away from hospital settings. A move ushered in through the increased use of digital tools, such…

TL;DR — Teams rush to build ‘low hanging fruit’, features they think will benefit users but also make them feel their achieving things. However, this is a mistaken belief that outputs equate to outcomes. It's just as fast if you find the areas of highest value to your users and start by immediately delivering a small slice of that. You’ll end up delivering software just as quickly, but it will be a small slice of something great, not a whole piece of some insignificant feature.

I have worked as a digital designer since graduation. Amassing 20 years ago in an industry that has seen my work range from advertising, to products, from small boutique agencies to large global organisations. To some extent, everyone dreams of what they might do differently. What they would have done…