Weeknotes — 15 November 2024

Content design cliché alert: these weeknotes do not condone PDFs.

This week I’m backing in the process

I’ve written recently about the approach we’ve taken when working with subject matter experts, meeting weekly or fortnightly, learning their subject enough to write about it and collaborating to update the content.

When that doesn’t happen, and you meet someone once to tell them all the things you’re changing without any warning or prior engagement, it leaves them feeling disconnected. It probably leaves you feeling like they don’t care.

If you want non-design people to engage in your work, or approve changes you know are necessary based on your own expertise, sometimes you have to bring them with you.

This week I’m trying not to get ahead of myself

I’m involved in some work to audit our existing team content design guidance.

It’s called guidance, but I’m starting to wonder if it should be called process documentation. Guidance suggests it’s optional. But there are somethings we need to do consistently. Like 2i checks before content is published.

There’s gaps in our team processes that I think we need to address, and overlap where some documents cover the same thing. When the team doesn’t follow processes, or doesn’t know it’s there, we lose consistency in our work. If there’s a gap, then we might make errors or mistakes, instead of following best practice.

Getting something that covers our end-to-end process is something I’m keen on. Not because we should slavishly work in the same way. But when someone new comes into the team, they might have different experiences or approaches. Having something we can all fall back on that says “this is how this team works” is useful. This can be split into here’s what you must do, here’s what you can do if you’re not sure. It saves everyone time and gets everyone working consistently. As long as the guidance reflects how the team actually works.

It’s very tempting to dive in and think we need a process for this, let’s go and write this now. Or this process documentation isn’t quite right, let’s fix it.

But I know that auditing everything, grouping it by what it’s for, who needs it, and when it would help them do their job, will mean we can make much bigger improvements than by looking at one thing at a time in isolation.

This week I published some guidance

That said, I did go off and do my own thing recently.

I noticed some inconsistencies when we write about Scottish councils across the service. Really minor things like ampersands and “and” being used interchangeably, sometimes using “the”, sometimes not. Sometimes we forgot to add “city” or “island”.

It’s such a small thing. But I wrote a list based on what we should use, using evidence from councils themselves and what users search for. It’s a small piece of consistency, a small bit of process guidance that helps someone in that moment if they need it.

It did open a can of worms for me. How do we make sure people who work on our service that don’t have access to our internal team guidance follow this?

I’m accepting that what I’ve done helps my team for now, and hopefully addressing who needs what and how they can access it will be part of a larger piece of work.

This week I was a frustrated user of a service

I wouldn’t normally go into this but as a user of something I found pretty frustrating, I fancied having a wee pop at my local council this week. Sorry lads.

This week I tried to work out how to get a specific parking permit using my phone.

There was no webpage on their site about the information I needed. It was all on a PDF, and the text was small, which meant I couldn’t read it on my mobile phone while pushing my daughter on a swing in the park.

I wasn’t even trying to apply at the time. I just needed to know:

• how to apply
• what I’d need to apply
• how much it would cost

Turns out the answers were scattered across this very wordy, rather inaccessible PDF:

• I need to apply by post, there was no online form or email option
• I need copies of a few different documents, but they weren’t in a clear list at the top
• there’s a fee, and it’s payable by cheque or by the council phoning you to take payment

I ended up going through the document on my work computer the next day and writing down what I’d need to gather and do to apply.

It made me appreciate those bullet lists that say you will need x, y and z before you start. In that moment, I just needed the headlines so I could work how big a task it was gonnae be, so I could plan to do it later.

It’s a niche service I’m trying to access. Not many people will need it and resource is likely focussed elsewhere. Maybe it’s been missed in a content audit before a new site was built.

But the council provides this service, and if I don’t access it, I could be fined. To me, that information should be somewhere findable and accessible on their website.

This week I’m listening to

Some psychedelic New York rap from ELUCID — REVELATOR and AKAI SOLO — DREAMDROPDRAGON. All caps when you spell the man’s name.

Former Champ — Volume 2. The best new band in Glasgow. They remind me of the Strokes, in that there’s choppy guitars, warm crooning melodies, and not a single second wasted. Tight as you like.