This month I had the chance to do an ‘about me’ session at work. This meant sending my sister to my parents’ house and my scrapbooks. (I’d been planning to get these photos myself on a planned visit to NZ in March 2020 but… you can guess why that didn’t happen). Seeing my younger self reminded me of a sense I’d had that we don’t really change that much, we just become the people that we always were. Enjoy this clipping from 1 November 1994.  

This month in digital government and design

• Caroline Jarrett writes about things she learned from her diplomat dad John Sankey (RIP).
• She also wrote about how to prototype a digital form on paper.
• Beward of the seduction of transparency.
• Being disabled is expensive.
• The UK digital archive turned 25 and used it to mark the first 9 years of GOV.UK.
• If someone is in the Dunning-Kruger dip of their skills (they think they know more than they do) organise a set of talks and ask them to present something with you.
• Just because your form could have save and return, doesn’t mean it should.
• HM Land Registry are working on a design maturity model for government. Interesting to compare to A Scottish Approach to Service Design.
• Design systems as knowledge graphs.
• I also love the idea of graceful extensibility.
• On a more typographic level, it takes a village (and in particular, font engineers) to create a well designed font.

FInally, I went midly viral when I found out that I could create an html (and screen reader friendly) version of Google slides by changing the URL from /edit to /htmlpresent

Miscellany

• How is Amelie 20 years old?
• Speaking of films: Meg Ryan films, ranked! I agree with other commenters that missing out Leopold and Kate is a travesty.
• Don’t romanticise the food of your grandparents. It was probably deeply colonialist.
• People selling mirrors. You never know what you’ll get in the reflection.
• How to use an Epipen on someone. Important.
• I’ve finished listening to the audiobook version of A Ghost in the Throat by by Doireann Ní Ghríofa. It’s part historical reconstruction of the life of Irish poet Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill, part reflection on the life of a woman and mother, written with a poet’s precision.
• A totally objective ranking of every UK local authority logo. Rightly points out that the Newcastle one is hideous, but endearingly so.

Until next time,

Vicky