We are nearly at the end of 2024, this year has certainly zoomed by.

Santa is getting ready to leave Lapland (you can track him on the 24 December). The digital team are also getting ready to leave work for a few days off. It’s certainly been a busy old year.

This year has been filled with lots of work, some excellent stuff, some worries, a lot of drama, loads of laughter, more problems….and a few tears.

Despite all this, the digital team has done some really excellent work, something I think everyone in the team should be really proud of.

Lego Santa in the snow

The 12 days of Christmas

Did you know? The actual 12 days of Christmas, was between Christmas Day and Epiphany (6 January), this was historically a time of rest, feasting, gathering with loved ones, and general merrymaking.

The song itself was first written down in 1780. The aim of the song/game was you had to sing until you made a mistake, then pay the price with a sweet when your memory fails.

Phil would be firing sweets out from every direction, his memory is not what it used to be, it’s pretty bad for a 29 year old.

Sophie and Philip cannot believe they will be 30 next year either, more on that in the summer when the big days arrive.

Looking after loved ones (and yourself!) at Christmastime

The festive season can be a time of joy and spending time with loved ones, but it can also be a stressful and lonely period.

But your mental health still matters during the holidays. Here are some simple ways to improve your mood.

Here’s some advice to bear in mind over the busy festive period:

  • If you’re feeling stressed by the spirit of the season, incorporate some of the activities and hobbies that you enjoy all year round as ways to destress over the holiday period. You could turn these into festive activities, like crafting gifts or doing some baking. Practicing mindfulness can be also a great way to unwind.
  • If you know someone is spending Christmas alone, whether it be an elderly neighbour or a colleague or family friend, consider inviting them to Christmas lunch, after all company is the best medicine! Even if you can’t physically be together on Christmas, giving someone a call or reaching out to show your appreciation for them can make all the difference to someone feeling lonely during this time of year. Additionally, the Campaign to End Loneliness have some helpful resources.
  • If someone you know is grieving the loss of a loved one, it can be very healing to acknowledge their feelings, remember their loved one and offer support on days where they may struggle.
  • If you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health, don’t be afraid to reach out to a helpline for professional support. MentalHealth.org has free mental health resources and the Samaritans are available to speak to all year round - their free helpline number is 116 123 and calls to this number won’t appear on phone bills, providing you anonymity.

Improvements to Environmental Permitting for installations

We’ve worked with the Regulatory Approaches Team extensively this year to overhaul the installations Environmental Permitting content and application forms on the site. We took the opportunity of changes to how charges are applied to make the web guidance clearer to find and understand, included clearer information on complying with permit conditions and worked out a better way of providing Best Available Techniques (BAT) documents. What we’re probably most proud of however is finally delivering a digital version of the application form. We’d had two or three failed attempts at doing this previously (following the introduction of accessibility regulations) but the old paper form was too long and complex to just ‘lift and shift’. We needed a new approach. We managed to get some time with the permitting team and adopted a three-way collaboration between the digital team, reg approaches and permitting to explore how we could reduce the size and complexity of the application process whilst making it easier for permitting to process the forms. We also drafted a new guidance page to help walk applicants through the questions. We haven’t had much feedback on the overhauled section of the site yet but we’re seeing that as positive – like a good referee, you don’t notice it when it works well.

On a personal achievement note, Shaun had a long conversation with Randy the dolphin in a harbour in Brittany.

Photo of a dolphin

** “So long and thanks for all the fish.” **

Better understanding users with disabilities

At times, accessibility requirements can feel like unnecessary hurdles to overcome just to be able to publish your content online. But when we put ourselves in the shoes of the individuals who face these barriers to accessibility, it becomes clear why the guidance is so important.

We are encouraging users to experience the world through the lens of sight loss with RNIB’s new tool: Eyeware.

RNIB Eyeware is a free and innovative AR (Augmented Reality) app which immerses users in experiences of sight loss, offering a glimpse into the world of those living with various sight conditions.

Whether you’re a content designer or are simply curious about the challenges faced by individuals with sight loss, RNIB provides a unique and empathetic experience showcasing the importance of accessible products, services and environments for those living with sight loss.

The offline world is brimming with barriers to inclusion, so it’s even more valuable that we do our part to create an inclusive online space where every user is considered.

A Christmas Bauble

22 digitally designed, created and launched things of 2024

We thought we would highlight just some of the amazing things we have achieved this year, to go with the Christmas song ‘The 12…..’ the newly titled Christmas song….’The 22 days of Christmas’.

On the first day of Christmas….or rather the 2 January 2024, the organisation gave us tons of work….the work has been flooding in ever since.

On top of this mountain of work that the organisation fires at us, the digital team has its own priorities on what we think we should be improving. These priorities are based on opportunities where we can genuinely make a difference for the user.

Here are just some of the amazing digital designed, created and launched things that we have been working on this year:

  1. There’s been a lot of great teamwork from Sam, Kim, Phil and Gruff (from the translation team) around the standardisation of our forms, including how we changed many form names to something meaningful for the user, created patterns for save and continue and submit and get a copy, got a custom domain
  2. Our content designers, Sam and Phil completed some hefty content design work on bird licensing
  3. Sam published a new apply for a grant form and start page. The form now has a simpler flow - with one thing per page – and standardised address fields and some new, simplified wording
  4. Phil and Heledd played a key role in delivering GovCamp, a collaborative event between public sector organisations and services in Wales. This was an exciting opportunity to network and share learnings with other teams in the digital space
  5. In January 2024, Laura, Lucinda and Sam went live with ‘apply to use land we manage’ which has had over 500 applications so far. We’ve also created new content on charges for using land we manage – a challenge given the complexity around how we charge
  6. Sam iterated the Dee cockle fishery licence holders return form
  7. James managed User Research sessions for both marine and species
  8. We’ve made a consistent effort to work in the open, and our blogs have been receiving good interest and feedback. We’ve continued to publish a set of week notes each week, collaborating as a team to share reflections, challenges and achievements in a transparent manner. With over 100 editions, this has become a valuable archive for our team’s work
  9. To help improve our services, we’ve conducted content audits for species and marine
  10. Shaun has recently published some updates on Best Available Techniques.
  11. We designed and delivered new content and forms for businesses to register and deregister equipment containing banned chemicals called Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). We had an eye on the government digital standards ‘step by step navigation’ pattern while doing this work, creating a page that presented a logical journey, step by step. Although we don’t have the tools to use this pattern type, we think it would be useful across our services
  12. Sam and Alex worked together to create content that helps users send us their hazardous waste return via a new web app
  13. Lucinda celebrated a year in her new role as content designer working with the flood product team – Congratulations Lucinda! In her first year in post, Lucinda has launched the new sign up to receive flood warnings service and monitored its efficacy with users. But that’s not all, she even found time to convert an old van into a camper, finish 2 half marathons and put herself in a ballot for a full marathon in 2025!
  14. Sophie and Kim have worked with Lucinda to improve the experience for our internal staff and users, by redesigning our content request form in line with feedback to ensure a clear, concise process for requesting updates
  15. Lucinda has learned new skills in Figma and has been applying this knowledge when managing and updating the NRW design system
  16. Phil continues his work to improve the trees, woodlands and forests section of our website. Work has also started on improving the change a felling licence form and web content
  17. Toyah and Sam redesigned the band 1 marine licensing content and application form: Marine licensing low risk activities (band 1)
  18. Our publishing team has been busier than ever, publishing new charges information, forest resource plans and many high-profile reports onto our website. Reports like the Dŵr Cymru & Hafren Dyfrdwy water reports, Flood Risk Management reports, reports on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Pay Policies and the Welsh Language report have now been published on our website
  19. Alongside managing the inbox, Kim and Sophie have provided numerous accessibility audits for subject matter experts, and met with many on a one-to-one basis to support in their understanding of the requirements
  20. Our team has worked with others across the organisation around key dates like Global Accessibility Day to create content that builds awareness and understanding around this topic
  21. We’ve been working on a series of learning materials for the new learning management system to better support our colleagues in understanding the accessibility regulations to further improve the quality of the content sent in to our team
  22. As a team, we’ve been organising our content management system media centre to ensure a consistent order and structure to our back-end files

We have done so much more as a team, in fact we could be here all day talking about what our lovely team has achieved this year.

Well done team, you have once again been amazing!