Camp Digital is my highlight of the conference calendar. Filled with a diverse range of subject matter experts, bringing their vulnerability, war stories, advice, and encouragement to help you walk away feeling educated, supported and warmed by the great work being produced.
Starting with Lou Downe (Founder and Director at The School of Good Services), who brought amazing energy to the discussion of Services we use and how good and bad services not only shape the outcome, but also cost time, pose risks and, can in the long-term, negatively impact our lives.
Using the Gov.uk website as an example, many of the services use internal government terms as form names and in their support. This means that rather than users finding solutions by searching their needs, they’re subject to workarounds such as searching for the DVLA contact number (8th most popular search) because the web service doesn’t fulfil their needs or isn’t comprehendible.
Key takeaway for me: We must step back and concentrate on building new good services, where users aren’t using hacks to workaround bad services and therefore evaluative research may be the result of poor journey hacks. More information on what makes a bad service design on her blog.
Julian Thompson (Founder & CEO of Rooted by Design) followed this up to talk about Afrofuturism. A new term and concept to learn, he talked about creating inclusive product development utilising the power of an afrofuturist on your team. Julian quoted Ytasha Womack’s explanation of Afrofuturism:
"An intersection of imagination, technology, the future and liberation."
The presence of an afrofuturist will create conversations and drive approaches that address the future digital needs for algorithms, highlight digital exclusion and drive inclusive transformations.
I walked away alerted to the subject and keen to explore the importance and change needed to the digital product teams we build to ensure they are truly inclusive and understanding the value that Afrofuturism can offer.
Ned Gartside (Senior Service Designer at Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) illustrated the importance of designing and delivering greener services. Sustainability is broader than just talking about carbon footprint. True sustainable development has goals that the UN have already agreed to. This isn’t just a badge to gain as a product development approach but an urgent factor to comprehend in the face of climate change.
The challenge is around tracing the impact that current digital products truly have; this isn’t as easy as it should be. To understand it, we must look at the 3 levels; direct effect, enabling effects and systemic effects.
To illustrate the principles, Ned discussed a Washington study highlighting the assumption that eBooks would reduce the carbon footprint of book readers was a fallacy when data shows that book readers continued to purchase books leading to a high compound carbon footprint impact.
Ned highlights a great project by the DWP that had looked to measure the carbon footprint of the Personal Independence Payments (PIP) service. The bottom row of the diagram highlights areas that they acknowledged had impact but weren’t able to quantify.
Alongside the UN Goals, I’m keen to explore the 2023 Web Sustainability Guidelines as a great starting point for reviewing existing products and building new digital ones. You can also read more on the subject and the 8 principles for design and delivery of greener services.
Returning from the success of a lightning co-talk last year, Coco Chan (Senior Product Manager at DLUHC) went solo and filled the lecture theatre with energy,urging a keen audience to learn from her experience in building positive team cultures in challenging environments.
Calling out the top 3 myths, Coco looked to dispel the idea that fun and work are at opposite ends of the spectrum, whilst also stating it’s not sustainable to work hard continuously.
Bringing play and light relief can be through simple activities such as picture board mood check-ins (we love these at Transform), dad joke teasers (where you let the team come up with the punchline before you share it) and the extreme scales of success.
Ending on a high, Coco challenged us to think:
“Not everyone feels safe or has permission to instigate fun in their teams. If you’re a leader, show the way. Be silly for a little moment, it gives permission to others.”
Katy Arnold (User Researcher and Design Leader, Ex UK Home Office) brought a vulnerable talk, where she encouraged us to learn from an event which shaped her career; creating a negative image around her professional discipline in the UK Government when going in as a hero/saviour.
Exploring the history of UX Design Maturity models, she highlighted the poor language used creating a non-empathetic start to the journey. References to “poorly educated” culture, not knowledgeable and those stuck in the “dark ages” in many design maturity models, creates hostility when discussing with other disciplines.
She called for Designers and other disciplines to be respectful, build trust (with a handy equation) and utilise UX techniques typically used on our users to build true internal relationships with confidence and understanding.
As usual, I left Camp Digital inspired and realigned to my User centricity values thanks to the vulnerability and sharing of the speakers and attendees. Everyone should insure that they find events like these that ground, grow and connect you with inspirational people.
You have to rely on my takeaways as Camp Digital have kindly published all the talks.