Weeknotes 12/05/2023

Weeknotes 12/05/2023

Another short week due to the bank holiday, but the sun has been shining and we are making progress on a lot of exciting projects, so we are not complaining!

Taking care of your mental health

With Mental Health Awareness Week taking place next week (Mon, May 15, 2023 - Sun, May 21, 2023), we wanted to take the opportunity to focus on achieving good mental health.

The theme this year is anxiety, something many of us can experience from time to time.

Anxiety is one of the most common mental health problems. In a recent mental health survey, The Mental Health Foundation found that stress and anxiety around personal finances leave a quarter of UK adults feeling so anxious that it stops them from doing the things they want to do.

The cost of living crisis, uncertainty of watching our costs spiral and the worry of how we’ll get by and support our families can be overwhelming. And for so many of us, looking after our mental health can fall to the back burner.

But as individuals, as families, as communities – we can’t afford to ignore the impact on our mental health.

Here at NRW, we each have one hour per week to spend doing something to take care of our wellbeing. Some of our team use their wellbeing hour to exercise, whether that be finishing early and going for a run or practising mindfulness, using an app like headspace.

As a team, we believe that by talking openly about our struggles with mental health, we can help to reduce stigma and create a community where we can talk to one another about the difficulties we may be facing in our personal lives.

Some of our team shared their advice, and one thing we all shared when it comes to managing our mental health, is the importance of spending time in nature. Whether it’s a long walk through the country, or a chat with a friend over coffee in the park, the benefits of the sun and fresh air cannot be understated.

Alongside a change of scenery, being aware of your inner self-talk and being kind to yourself can help you feel happier. We can all be our own worst critics at times, but if you’re struggling, don’t be afraid to reach out for help.

Placing usability at the forefront of our services

Research shows that people with higher literacy levels prefer plain English because it allows them to understand the information as quickly as possible.

This suggests that while we can understand complex specialist language, many of us do not want to read it if there’s an alternative. This is because people with the highest literacy levels and the greatest expertise tend to have the most to read.

This week, Sam has also been working with waste policy to publish a new waste standard rules page featuring more user-friendly headings. This meant we could remove two zip files from the site – at long last. But there is still lots to do in this area as all of these attachments are not accessible.

We’ll be looking at how the EA has published their most recent standard rules in HTML. Having the up to date list of standard rules has meant we can add them to the form as multiple text boxes and apply routing. If users choose ‘’SR2017No01: Use of waste in a deposit for recovery operation”, they are routed to questions that apply to that rule set only.

Show and Tell - our prototypes

Another exciting week for us, as we’ve been flexing our design muscles and trying something new!

As part of our permissions project, we wanted to make things easier for people who want to use our land. Sam, Laura and Lucinda have been working on a ‘check if you are allowed to use our land’ tool, and this week we gave a demo of the prototype to the permissions team and it went down really well.

It will help users find the answers they need quickly and reduce enquiries. It will also mean we can move away from having lots of complicated content about what you can / can’t do on our sites which is currently not very user friendly.

We’re aiming to get a BETA version published very soon so we can analyse how users get on with it.

Other things we’ve been working on:

• This week, Phil has been working on one of the final ‘managing your woodland’ pieces of content; identify, report and manage tree pests and diseases. He has also been trying to improve the environmental impact assessment form for forestry.
• Sam has had some very good chats this week, including with Lou in waste permitting about moving forward with the new online service. Another productive chat was had with Legal to make sure that we’re dealing with multiple signatories in the best way possible and we’re feeling good about progress.
• Sophie has continued to review evidence reports and other documents to ensure they are accessible to all users who access our services. All content published on the NRW website must follow our style guide and accessible document guide.
• Alex has been conducting his one-to-one interviews with each of the team to get a better idea of our individual wins and challenges on any given day. He has enjoyed getting to know everyone and learning more about how the Digital Team works as a whole.