This week was another busy week in the Digital Team, made better by the beautiful sunshine we’ve been lucky enough to experience this week…

Here’s what the Digital team has been up to this week…

  • Sam and Laura received a set of PDF guidance documents that had been signed off with the expectation they would be published on our website without change. The guidance duplicated some content that already exists, and was heavily ‘about us’ and how NRW regulates. They advised that the rework needed to create improved, more user-centred content would be considerable - starting with explaining why the documents would cause problems for users. It was agreed that we would publish them as accessible PDFs, given external commitments made, and revisit them later.

  • Shaun met with the water impoundment subject matter expert to discuss how best to redraft the guidance on low risk water impoundment activities in such a way as to address confusion around when an impoundment is classed as low risk and what that actually means in practice.

  • Phil and Laura worked through comments from the species team and updated the change a species test content and prototype.

  • Laura has been dusting off the review of the ‘using land we manage’ application form, looking at the trends and prioritising potential actions ahead of a meeting with the SME

  • Jane and Sam made further amendments to forest management plan content to improve clarity. They’ve had really positive meetings with forestry SMEs who are being bold and working with us to move away from PDF guidance to a user-centred, task-focused approach.

  • Sam and Jane are prepping slides for next week’s show and tell to DDaT about this project and looking for forward to UR interviews starting next week.

  • James has arranged user research interviews for next week about our new online application for forest management plans

  • Sam and Lucinda joined a design huddle with the customer platform team to discuss button text: what does ‘back’ mean to a user, what do the words ‘task list’ mean to a user, when we refer to it later in the journey etc.

  • Alex joined the PRTR task and finish group. Defra is retiring the existing pollution data submission portal, and the group has been set up to review potential replacement solutions ahead of 2027.

  • Finally, Heledd is shaping what chapters and guilds could look like for the team. Ray is keen that we adopt the Spotify model, but we’re also keen to look at principles from Emily Webber on communities of practice. Alex has done some great groundwork whilst Heledd was on leave, including testing early thinking with Sam. We’ll share more in the coming days. We don’t think this is something that we can design fully upfront - it’s something that will be shaped by people across the team, and evolve organically over time.