As we say goodbye to another busy week, here’s just some of what we got up to in the final week of February…

Despite being a shorter month, our team has been as busy as ever. Here’s what we’ve been up to:

  • Phil and Laura have completed the full change a species user journey prototype and are waiting for final comments from subject matter experts before working with translations. Work is well underway on some side hustles that form part of the user journey or have similar content, including submitting a reference, bat trainer endorsement and renewing a licence.
  • Our Communications team has asked for training for their staff to help them create and upload news releases and blogs on the website. Comms officers are also going to take a more active role in managing content in the “featured” strip on the home page. Mary has met with Comms team leaders to understand their requirements, and she has discussed ideas with fellow content designers to update our publishing manual ready for the training.
  • Toyah has been working deep in the customer platform project mines, as work begins on overhauling existing web content (and writing new stuff to fill the gaps) to support the new system. It’s an ambitious content plan to say the least, so you’ll probably not see her again for another few weeks! She’s also been setting up user research interviews, in which our delivery partner is presenting some future key functions to former licence applicants for their feedback.
  • Lucinda has been working on designing a multi file uploader component for our design system. The changes to our flood message sending system has been through user acceptance testing this week. Lucinda attended to help in spotting any urgent bugs before the changes go live.
  • Mary and Sophie created content for the second edition of the DDaT bulletin which is sent to all Digital, Data and Technology staff. They wrote an item about the forestry management plans project which is aiming to create an online application process for landowners and their agents. The item highlighted the importance of understanding user needs as well as internal processes, and explained how our content designers are using MIRO to map out the flow of questions the user needs to answer and design a first draft of a digital form.
  • On the forest management plan project, Sam and Jane have been focusing on designing a high level flow of web content that will enable users to find and use the guidance they need to successfully complete an application. They also had another productive session with subject matter experts this week so will be able to continue refining the prototype ready for testing with users.
  • Mary and Jane have been designing the web content for new parking charges at two more sites. This has involved further collaboration with subject matter experts to clarify and streamline processes.
  • Shaun met with a representative from the flood team to finalise a new page to help users work out who has responsibility for carrying out work on rivers. This is a complex task for users incorporating different steps and pieces of guidance. We’re currently finalising a simple page to help users understand whether a watercourse is classed as a main river or not.
  • Shaun also went along to a workshop James held with the Knowledge and Information Management team to inform the development of the new intranet.
  • Laura’s superb idea for 1:1 sessions with colleagues across NRW to learn more about the website and what we do started with Sam meeting a colleague from legal Monday. Talking with someone keen to learn about what we do, why and how was super positive and motivating. Showing examples of work – the before, the messy MIRO in between and the after – seemed to make a big impact. They asked a very perceptive question about we can improve things for users when internal processes are often a problem. This is where Sam wished she had a few days to talk…!
  • Sam’s been working on building the logic for a marine licence check service so that users know which licence to apply for having answered 5 yes/no/not sure questions.
  • Sam’s been chatting more with her contact in waste about new content for people who deal with hazardous waste as part of their work. They’re also looking at ways of improving the IA so that the majority of users can find what they need without having to encounter niche guidance for only a handful of businesses in Wales.