At last month’s Web Publishing Community session, we conducted an experiment in mass remote collaboration. Using a technique called liberating structures, 40 people generated ideas, before sifting through them all and finding the strongest one — all within 20 minutes.

We are looking for an experienced Senior Content Designer to join the Website and Communications team as we embark on major projects to launch the new University web publishing platform and services.

For practitioners of human-centred approaches to design, where face-to-face interaction is often so important to enhancing our understanding, our current requirement to maintain social distancing creates obvious barriers. However, this doesn’t mean our work to ensure we’re meeting people’s needs has to stop. In fact, there are some perhaps surprising advantages to working remotely as a user experience practitioner.

Last week I attended the Service Design in Government conference, held here in Edinburgh. This event brings together design practitioners from across the public sector and beyond, from across the UK and beyond.

We are looking for three experienced Content Designers to join the Website and Communications team as we embark on major projects to launch the new University web publishing platform and services.

Following last year’s successful series of usability testing showcase sessions in support of the Learn Foundations project, we are carrying out some more in 2020.

At this week’s user-focused meetup, around 20 people came to hear me speak about my reflections on studying for a PDA in Service Design with the Service Design Academy.

Throughout 2018/2019, the User Experience Service has been collaborating with the Learn Foundations project team to undertake a comprehensive programme of user research with students and staff. Through this we have discovered how students’ experience in Learn is closely intertwined with how staff work with it. This post summarises all our work, and outlines how we have ended up taking a service design approach.

As part of our comprehensive programme of user research in support of the Learn Foundations project, the User Experience Service has conducted contextual enquiry to better understand the contexts and needs of staff members working with Learn.

As part of our series of usability testing showcases in collaboration with the Learn Foundations project, we worked with the School of Law to uncover usability issues witnessed when staff are using Learn.