It’s been quite a quiet week for us in the team due to bank holiday Monday and half term. But it’s possible the parents in the team don’t feel it’s so quiet at home…

Lucinda and James are trialling using our memory translation software, Phrase, to produce these weeknotes. We have part-written the edition in Welsh and translated it into English, the other half we translated English to Welsh. So a bit of an experiment this week.

Getting our CMS sorted

We spent last Friday as a team consolidating our website’s CMS and we managed to relocate at least 1,500 old documents!

We have set aside one Friday a month for this important work.

The work included:

  • Group photos in folders
  • Making sure the folder names reflect the structure of the website
  • Deleting pictures and documents that did not belong to live pages

From time to time we receive complaints from the public or our staff about old website content appearing on search engines. This causes problems for users if they come across old content as:

  • it could be factually incorrect
  • it could be misleading
  • it could refer to plans, projects, consultations etc. which have long since ended

When scrutinising the problem in more detail, it became clear that we had unpublished the pages in question, but the documents at the foot of these pages still existed in the CMS constraints library. Because of that, search engines sometimes presented them in search results.

So we spent the day going through our CMS folders to look for orphaned content. That is, where it did not belong to a live page.

We will continue the work with the aim of making the CMS easier for us to use but also to reduce the risk of our users seeing old content.

User research on species

James and Heledd met with Helen Griffiths from the Future Regulation team to discuss looking at species licensing as the first stage of a licence reform project.

We know there is much to improve on our processes for licensing species. The content is currently full of:

  • Word application forms
  • Legislative language
  • A complex system of having to pay for licences over the phone

We believe that species will be a good starting point for a wider project on improving licensing across the organisation:

  • There is a mix of applications from organisations and individuals
  • There are a large number of applications every year but they are low risk
  • Our team members have worked on the content in the past

Preparing for a marine licensing event

James has been preparing questions to ask marine licence applicants at a face-to-face event next week.

Our marine licensing team and the Welsh Government have organised a ‘Meet the Regulator’ event to discuss our work and listen to any problems applicants are experiencing.

Toyah is coming down from the north and it will be an opportunity for her and James to speak to the audience in a less formal atmosphere than research interviews. We hope this will build on the marine licensing research we did with Deloitte at the beginning of the year.

It will also be an opportunity for some of the team who live in the south to meet Toyah for the first time!

Sign up for flood warnings - styling our service and updating the Figma design system

With only six weeks until go-live, Lucinda has been reviewing the styling of the new sign up for flood warnings service.

There are noticeable inconsistencies between the new service, the Figma design system used by the developers, and our website. Maintaining consistency is important to make sure users recognise and trust that the service is ours and legitimate.

A recent accessibility test also highlighted issues with colour contrast and link styling.

Luckily, help is on hand! Alex from Sparck will be helping Lucinda in updating the Figma design system so that the developers have clear documentation of the styling we use across our services.

Lucinda has recorded the necessary changes but lacks the access (and confidence in skill) to update the file herself. Alex will help in both aspects, ensuring the design system file is stored within an NRW Figma account, and Lucinda can shadow and learn the best ways to manage and update it.

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Updating the design system will also give us the building blocks for designing and prototyping future NRW services. Lucinda hopes to gain insights into designing in a way that streamlines the workflow from design to development, so it can be as efficient as possible.

Content Design, second edition

Heledd joined the launch of Content Design, second edition by Sarah Winters and Rachel Edwards.

Giles Turnbull quizzed Sarah about what’s changed in the world of content design since 2017:

  • More people are now doing content design and talking about content design – and we need to keep doing that.
  • Other disciplines now recognise the need to bring in content designers (e.g. product managers, tech etc) now say “we need a content designer on this work”
  • Much stronger emphasis on journey mapping as part of content design – and how it also helps differentiate between design and “just writing, or editing”. There’s a whole chapter dedicated to this (currently available as a free download: Content Design, second edition - Journey mapping)
  • Remote working is the norm now, so the new book reflects that.

There were some great questions, such as “what do you say to blockers” and “advice to leaders” – Sarah’s advice was to get them in a room (or virtual), and show the research, the data and how the thing is failing and the cost of doing it the wrong way.

When it comes to AI, and its impact on the world of content design, Sarah sees a bigger challenge – humans. In a world of more content being churned out with AI, more lies go around faster, the role of content design to help get the right content to the right person at the right time is going to be even more important.

Other things we have been doing this week…

  • Heledd has been planning our team day on 11 June. This will be an opportunity for us to talk to the IT, Data, and GIS teams about the future possibilities of the website
  • Sam and Toyah have been working on ideas for structuring marine licensing content. Sam has also published content about recycling in the workplace
  • Toyah attended her first face-to-face content design event ‘Content Teatime: The Future of Content Design’ in Manchester.
  • Alex attended Public Digital Services Center ‘Agile’ training
  • Shaun has announced changes to our ammonia pages. He has also been working on guidelines for hydrogen and installations
  • Owain has been working with the BJSS team on upgrading our CMS
  • Kim has been working on getting the 2023-24 diversity and inclusion annual report published

Friday facts!

  • June is the month with the most daylight hours in the Northern Hemisphere. And of course it is the month with the fewest hours of daylight in the Southern Hemisphere
  • Did you know that June used to be the fourth month of the year? It was only 10 months to a year before Julius Caesar introduced a new calendar of 12 months. And June moved to be the sixth month
  • There is no other month of the year that starts on the same day of the week as June