Sam McLeod

@jackcols @eliskahsk 😍

Finally, thank you to Rey and @eliskahsk Literally, what would I do without them???

Happy international women’s day. Time to stop and recognise the impact of all the brilliant women that have helped me, our users and our teams, And who have generally have been fantastic human beings 💪💪💪

@IamKathrynGrace I’ve been that person walking out of a hospital with a cancer diagnosis. I had brilliant care at St Georges in London but not especially well joined up, and zero (obvious) support with mental health or managing the side effects of C that you have to manage for rest of life

One of my tests for doing a good job longer term is… “if a couple walked out of St James’ hospital one with a new terminal/big diagnosis, WHAT WILL WE OFFER? Is it what people need? Is it enough? Is it joined up across a community - NHS, charity, GP, funders, friends, family?

When we say #UserCentredDesign ie. what people ‘need’, I am so delighted to discover Maggie’s centre in Leeds. Are we all thinking wide enough? #health #care #cancer #maggiescentre #charity #NHS #workingtogether #architecture #interiordesign #space #light archdaily.com/941540/maggies…

@vonRunte Sounds delicate, reason for people feeling risk averse culture. At least we don’t have to make case for user research. Drop u a line

@sam_mcleod_ Tell me about it. Current situation: waterfall, reactive project, strict deadline, no user research, no user testing, and the most sensitive subject I've ever worked with. Every time I try to go back to the (design) process I get "we don't have that luxury" as a response.

Anybody know any blogs etc about gov services that are physical/people supported, with some digital/product components? Seems to be much more out there if you research ‘customer experience’…

@vonRunte Sounds interesting. One of our challenges is digital/agile ways of working versus non agile culture of people delivering the human parts of the service. Frantic deadlines making co-design difficult

@sam_mcleod_ I'm actually working in a service like this right now. 80% of the processes are people based and just a small bit being digital. It has to be this way, there's no room for automation due to the sensitivity of the subject.

@jaskirankdesign Sorry to hear that Jas, sending love ❤️

Taking time out for quality time with my family. My beautiful trendy grandma said goodbye last night in the comforts of her family around her as she took her last breath. We enjoyed lots of meditation, bonding and sharing stories. Been so hard watching her in pain X

@KaraKane_kk Great question, we have that too at dfe at the leadership level. I always thought that 'customer experience design' comes from the corporate world, so maybe it's from people coming into gov from the private sector and bringing that language with them (and yep about ££)

Why does user-centred design turn into 'customer experience design' as it works its up to leadership level thinking and strategy?

@johncutlefish Industrial-era thinking?

@jacintamellejam also, process maps touted as blueprints🤨

@KaraKane_kk @acg_whd @claragt @benaldo @laurahaber01 I’d be interested in sharing your learning too. Getting dfe civil servants to become user-centred is a long haul task! Be great to hear more about your experiences

@acg_whd @claragt @benaldo Hi Alice 🙂, I shared things with @laurahaber01 yesterday evening so she can share learnings with you.

Becoming a user-centred organisation takes time (and sustained effort). 3 years ago @claragt and I piloted a training course on user-centred design for senior civil servants at the Department for Education and it massively failed.

@kiernan_alice @SimonHurstUX Congratulations both, look forward to seeing pics 💕

Hello service designers! We're recruiting senior service designers to join us at DfE. Come and help us make positive change in education and social care #servicedesignjobs #servicedesign #education civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi?j…

@rheanna_od So sorry to hear that @rheanna_od xx

My wonderful father-in-law... the world is poorer without him in it

Come and join us! We're looking for a @DfEDigital Head of design to help build and develop a team of brilliant designers, building services that make education and care better for children and students civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi?… #headofdesign #govdesign #UCD #UX #publicservices

@suthen @leannecoker @jacintamellejam @estebano_ Thanks @suthen looks interesting

@leannecoker Is this of interest to you and your teams @sammcleod01 @jacintamellejam @estebano_ ?

@SimonHurstUX @kiernan_alice Haha good effort, almost there, more like m’ cloud ☁️

@SimonHurstUX @kiernan_alice Trying to write it! Easier to tell you on a call 😉

@SimonHurstUX @kiernan_alice Wow! Congrats to both of you that’s wonderful news 🤩

Perspective comes from zooming out. Insight comes from zooming in. They’re both enhanced by zoning out for a while.