Simon Wilson

Run notes for April 2019

Distance run at end of previous month (March) 326.73 kilometres I hit my running target for the year - 320km - in March, so a few months ahead of schedule. I revised my goal for the year ahead - to 1092km - recorded in my little tracking spreadsheet. The

1976 Olympics book in Berlin

Over on Kickstarter there's a project I've pledged to support, a book on the design team for the 1972 Olympics, Dept. XI. It reminded me a month back we were over in Berlin for a week. On the desk in the hotel room was an excellent

UAL design school manifesto

Working from the shed today I had to clear the whiteboard off a bit so I could hang some stuff up. A few months back I went to Service Design Futures event at UAL, which was excellent. In the corridor by the hall we were in was a wall highlighting

Weeknotes week commencing Monday 28 January 2019

Monday was some wider design team actions (sorting out designers to get some experience on assessments, sorting designers for some upcoming assessments, little catch-ups with a couple of senior designers), a user research session go-through, and off the back of that getting down some screens to help talk through and

Weeknotes week commencing Monday 21 January 2019

A bit of everything week: Attending an assessment as a design assessor (and the associated prep beforehand and write-up afterwards). Helping with job interviews. Setting up a day of user research sessions (which meant doing some design work and then setting up a prototype as a stimulus). Floating in to

Weeknotes week commencing Monday 14 January 2019

Worky stuff Monday was working from the shed. Some product design work. Some graphic design. Sorting some new stickers. Reprinting some old ones. And a long video call with a user researcher who has recently joined join the project I am assigned to — Janine — giving an overview, the main shape

Weeknotes week commencing Monday 7 January 2019

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Weeknotes week commencing Monday 30 December 2018

The pre-title sequence Another start at weeknotes. Maybe a case of new year, fresh start, but a convenience of reflecting in the last couple of months of last year. I took 2018 as a walk on a path I was continually moving along and didn’t take much time to

Leeds Gov Design meet number 5 – and onwards

Just a quick note to say we have got Leeds Gov Design meet number 5 booked in, for Monday 26 November, from 2pm until 4pm. And we will be back at ODI Leeds. Hooray. If you want to come along you can grab a place on Eventbrite. But we haven&

Leeds gov design meet number 4, done

!Waiting for the meet to get going A couple of weeks back we held the fourth Leeds cross gov design meet. It was the biggest turn out yet, with 30 people turning up. Here’s some of them: !Chris Burns talking at the Leeds cross gov design meet We had

Discovery then alpha. Always.

Your regular reminder of the difference between the discovery and alpha phases of projects. I know there's lots of words around this so it's hard to stay focused, so here's grabs from the UK gov service manual with some handy pointers. (This stuff doesn&

Lunchtime chats offer for people designing gov services

Helllllo. Are you a person designing government or public services? Or maybe you are someone who doesn’t think of themselves as designing those services but helps others with their designing? A user researcher, interaction designer, service designer, product owner, business analyst, delivery manager. Whatever the role you contribute to

Bail reform in New Jersey

On the way to the football yesterday I listened to an older Planet Money episode (there is an update from now at the end of the podcast) on how New Jersey looked at bail reform. The whole focus is on the person granted (or would be granted bail) and their

DWP Digital design examples session for Leeds gov design meet number 3

At the third Leeds cross gov design meet, Chris Hanson and I did a short session on the DWP Digital design examples. Here is a brief write up of the session we did. I did the first half, Chris took over to talk about the actual work we have been

Leeds gov design meet number 3, done

Yesterday - Tuesday 3 July - we had the third Leeds cross gov design meet. (Following on from the first and the second.) !Waiting for the meet to get going About 20 people came along, and so so good to see a wide range of roles at a wide range

Planning Leeds cross gov design meet number 3

Having said a short while back that Leeds cross gov design meet number 2 would be the last I could sort, I have some time to sort number 3. It is nice to be able to keep them going. I am currently looking at the week commencing 2 July. I

DWP product owners meet

I did a session today at the DWP product owners meet on designing. I was given half an hour. I am sure I overran. Anyway. The aim was to get a first draft of what is design and designing to DWP Digital, how to go about it, how we are

Pay to opt out

My daughter got a letter through late last month about going on work experience. She is in her penultimate year at secondary school. Work experience is a bit of a ritual in British schools, the chance for people in their mid-teens to get a week or two's experience

Leeds gov design meet number 2, done

Leeds gov design meet number 1 was on Monday 19 February. You can read about it here. Following the first meet I asked for some feedback on what we could do next. Using that feedback I shaped the next meet. Today - Wednesday 18 April - we had the second

WTF signage

I love looking out for signage. Some signage I love because they delight me in some way. Like signage in airports and wheelchair signs in New York. Them are da best signs. Here is another of my favourites, on an air hockey table at the Hollywood Bowl in Bradford. !Sign

Leeds cross gov design meet number 2

A couple of months back we held the first Leeds cross gov design meet at ODI Leeds. We had excellent sessions from Ellie Craven from GDS, Pete Smith from NHS Digital, James Johnson from DWP, and Caroline Jarrett from Effortmark. I wrote a post just afterwards. You can read it

Continual gradual improvement poster

Just before Christmas I did some posters at work that said "Continual Gradual Improvement". (Grind 'til we shine and all that, yeah?) I opened Illustrator, laid this is out (pretty roughly), printed it a few times on A3, and hung them - all in the last hour

Leeds Service Jam 2018 is coming

I was looking through my Eventbrite history at the weekend. Aside from realising I’d set up over 50 events using Eventbrite 2010, I stumbled across some old memories. Events at Old Broadcasting House (ODH) for one. Amongst the others was remembering the Service Design Thinks meets that used to

Leeds gov design meet number 1, done - and looking forwards

!Ellie Craven leading her session Ellie Craven leading her session On Monday we held the first Leeds gov design meet at ODI Leeds. 26 people turned up. Thank you for coming! And a massive thank you to the four people who led the sessions: * Pete Smith, from NHS Digital, on

Africa chorus lyrics posters

Who doesn't like Africa by Toto? We can't stop humming it in our corner of the office. It's probably not helped I put the chorus from the song onto posters we have hung in our corner of the office. !The chorus of Africa printed,