Week 1 - Public services are my jam 🍯

I just finished my first week at Made Tech. Starting what is a new role for me, Head of User-Centred Design. 

Also this week I’m moving house and getting wedding invites ready for printing. In doing the latter I discovered G.F Smith’s beautiful online paper catalogue. 

Public services are my jam 

I love working in public services. This affection has steered my career decisions since first becoming a designer. So when a chance to join Made Tech, which works exclusively on public services came up, I went for it. 

The company has a big emphasis on building real services and multidisciplinary teams. Two things I care about. This made my decision to join easier. A big factor too was that Made Tech has a Bristol office. Meaning I can finally achieve a personal ambition of walking to work; a glimmering prospect as infection rates go down and offices open up. 

Warm welcome, usable tools

Starting a new job remotely is surreal. My new teammates have made me feel welcome and supported getting set up. It’s been a relief using Slack, Google Workspace and other collaborative tools at work again. I didn’t realise how much of my mental energy in the past was spent on tools with lots of usability issues. 

Depth of skills, breadth of work

My first task is to build a picture in my head of the work Made Tech does and how it does it. The two ways I’ve gone about this is:

1. Start meeting designers and researchers at Made Tech

2. Go along to show-and-tells

I’m struck by the user-centred design experience already at Made Tech. For example, Kimberley, a user researcher, was previously part of the team at the Office for National Statistics, who built the impressively usable and coherent census.gov.uk. 

Another thing is I’ve been reminded of how broad the public sector is. Just in the handful of teams I’ve met so far, work has ranged from support for people in court cases, tracking opportunities for UK exports to communications with carers and green energy funding. 

Where should I focus first?

This is my first time formally doing a Head-of role. I want to be strategic and understand what is wisest to focus on first. As I meet more teams and see more work, hopefully, this will become clear.