Mar 18Casting out the devil’s advocate3 years ago, when I was a design lead at NHS Digital, I was asked to go to London for a meeting about Wuhan flu. The meeting was with some NHS colleagues, and people from the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Department for Health and Social Care. There…Service Design4 min readService Design4 min read
May 9, 2022A short(ish) history of the NHS design system, Part 6: 2022 — where next?It’s been quite a ride. From the NHS alpha phase, adapting GOV.UK design patterns, and redesigning the NHS website, through to defining and sharing a system, which would ultimately be used by hundreds of practitioners in previously unthinkable circumstances, where next for the design system and service manual? It’s already…Design Systems4 min readDesign Systems4 min read
May 9, 2022A short(ish) history of the NHS design system, Part 5: 2020/21 — the COVID yearsWell. There’s not much to say about what work happened on the design system in 2020–21. The information architecture of the service manual had been reviewed and iterated. The team were taking stock and thinking what to do next. The NHS website content team had been working since January on…Design Systems3 min readDesign Systems3 min read
May 9, 2022A short(ish) history of the NHS design system, Part 4: 2019 — putting the design system ‘out there’The NHS design system was rooted in the redesign of the NHS website, but it was by no means the limit of what it could be used for. All sorts of services, systems and websites would be able to use this, in order to save time (and public money), improve…Design Systems4 min readDesign Systems4 min read
May 9, 2022A short(ish) history of the NHS design system, Part 3: 2018 — standardisation and launch!While we were working towards our September launch of the redesigned website, we were also setting up a separate team to investigate how to standardise what we had, to make it easier for new work to be created. We’d obviously benefited greatly from the GOV.UK …Design Systems8 min readDesign Systems8 min read
May 9, 2022A short(ish) history of the NHS design system, Part 2: 2017 — a website redesign, and an appWith all this activity going on, it was decided that the NHS Choices name was to be retired, and the website as a whole be redesigned. It was clear that as more of the system was undertaking ‘digital transformation’, that the main website would increasingly become a starting point, or…Design Systems6 min readDesign Systems6 min read
May 9, 2022A short(ish) history of the NHS design system, Part 1: 2016 — a website, a brand, and a handful of servicesNo design system (well, no good one, anyway) has a simple beginning, with a team being assigned to ‘make a design system’. They form when multiple strands of work are eventually understood and codified, in order to achieve a wider desired outcome of efficiency and consistency. …Design Systems3 min readDesign Systems3 min read
Oct 23, 2020Building a diverse design team… a year laterA year ago, I published a blog post about the challenges we face as a growing design profession in NHS Digital, and as an industry as a whole, when it comes to building diverse teams with an inclusive culture. …Design7 min readDesign7 min read
Jul 18, 2020DesireI’ve been musing recently on the term ‘desire’, when it comes to the design of services in health and care. It’s a relatively old term in user experience and eCommerce that I remember from my days working on selling internet and mobile phone packages. Desire is your measure of how…Design4 min readDesign4 min read
Apr 12, 2020Keeping your head, when designing during a crisisIt’s a strange time to be working in service design, interaction design, or product development right now. If you’re working on a public service, or in health and care, or for charities, you’re probably having to work faster, and think more clearly, than you’ve ever had to before. …Design4 min readDesign4 min read