Do you need a separate design system for your staff vs public facing services? It’s a common question, but at the NHS we think the answer is No.
I’ve published a blog post to explain why: digital.nhs.uk/blog/design-...
Wow massive flashback to my time in kitchens and working this out. The machine. Can. Never. Stop.
Great (huge) thread on how workplaces really work.
Very late weeknote for the end of last month, for reasons. Back in May! #govdesign #weeknotes antonypoveda.design/weeknotes/05...
A good piece about content-first design from the Defra design blog:
"With prototyping tools at your disposal, it may feel like a waste of time focusing on content as a first step. But using only words helped our team to understand the purpose of each interaction."
Work is a social relationship. We create things together. This is especially true of UX design.
AI's value proposition is freedom from relationships.
So when designers champion AI tools, we are not making ourselves layoff-proof. We are reinforcing a system that frames us as unnecessary friction.
Well he'll remember the work with us, but probably not me 😅
Two mugs on a dark brown wood kitchen top. On the left is a white mug with grey capitalised text that reads 'HEAD OF MORALE'. On the right is a blue mug, with black text in a pale yellow circle that reads 'BEST DAD IN YORKSHIRE'.
This week - Human writing, meetups and mugs: #weeknotes #govdesign antonypoveda.design/weeknotes/21...
As a public servant, I'm trialling writing weekly notes to let people see what I do. #weeknotes #govdesign
This week: Vertigo
antonypoveda.design/weeknotes/14...
Ha, common part of the job as designers it seems. I get referred to as the 'Oracle' 😬 I'd much prefer magpie!
As a public servant, I'm trying out writing weekly notes to let people see what I do. #weeknotes #govdesign
This week: antonypoveda.design/weeknotes/28...
If you want to be a better designer, be a better content designer.
Content design is just design with a bias toward the words.
And that's a good thing.
Many designers spend hours tweaking spacing, colours, and layouts.
But once you have a set of accessible components, it's content that matters most.
Content design shapes everything:
@kateldn.bsky.social the next meetup, in case you're free 🙂
As a public servant, I'm trialling writing weekly notes to let people see what I do. This week: Realistic antonypoveda.design/weeknotes/22...
#govdesign #weeknote
The next 'X-Gov Sheffield meetup' is on Tue 17 March!
We're doing breakfast and lunch meetups in the cafe of Union St Co-working space for public sector folk around South Yorkshire. If you'd like to come along for either, or both, find out more and sign up 👇
forms.office.com/e/iZjT0cNisu
All sounds great! And, of course, a good style guide never goes out of style.
A mockup of a poster for our proposed competition. The 4 hosts and judges of the original 'bakeoff' TV show are behind a table covered in a blue and white checked table cloth. On the tables are various incredible cakes and fancy looking buns. The faces of the hosts have been covered by the logos for GOV.UK, DWP, Scottish Government, Home Office and Ministry of Justice. We've clumsily edited the original bakeoff logo to read 'Great Design System Bakeoff' by pasting over the word 'British'.
As a public servant, I'm trialling writing weekly notes to let people see what I do (while learning how to build a website): antonypoveda.design/weeknotes/14... #govdesign #weeknote
Life is good, thanks, fun, busy. Kid B is due in early April, so more of that coming, I suppose. How are things with you and the team back in the SW?
This is the story I often tell too. Great piece!
I was telling my favourite @imascientist.org.uk story again this afternoon and it prompted me to look up the TES article written about it: www.tes.com/magazine/arc...
“Sheffield Design Lab took place in November 2025, as part of Future Observatory and Dark Matter Labs’ UK 2040 programme” (I was delighted to be able to run this strategic design lab in my hometown of Sheffield, recently, with @darkmatterlabs.org x Future Obs.) futureobservatory.org/news/sheffie...
Is this bait? 😅
And such lovely thoughtful take downs in the comments. 2016, what a time.
I don't often post articles myself but when I do they are great longer reads about how neuroscience is built on and hindered by on the technology metaphors of the day: aeon.co/essays/your-...
DT! is a one-man operation so I need all the help I can get. If you like my comics please share them, and if you'd like to support what I do I have a Patreon where you can sign up to get 3 comics in your inbox every week and 1 bonus early bird comic too! Thank you!
www.patreon.com/cw/designthi...
"ok so just checking, following that argument through, is it legal for you to deny people access to public services based on their current education level then?" /S
I’m running a survey to ask researchers what they want the UK Government Web Archive to offer in the future to enable wider use of the collection. If you’re a web archive user, or you would like to be, please take ten minutes to complete this survey: www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/UKGWA-Rese...
One week left to join this hack day!
Be there or be square.
🎟️: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/connecting...
#hack #DesignSystem #government
I love improving the Service Manual + Standard.
But I'm even more interested in fixing the management of the mountain of GDS+govt content about making great public digital services.
Strategic, joined-up, no duplication or contradictions. Users not having to stitch it together themselves.
Do the hard work to make it short.
