Sparck

We are delighted to share that CGI has officially completed its acquisition of BJSS. This marks an exciting step forward, combining BJSS’ digital innovation and engineering expertise with CGI’s global scale and industry depth—delivering even greater value to our clients. We share a commitment to delivering high-quality service and outcomes to our clients. ➡️ Same trusted team, greater impact ➡️ Scale and agility ➡️ Expanded end-to-end services ➡️ Industry focus For our teams, the merger offers new career and innovation opportunities. Please follow CGI for the latest news and updates across the group.

When you work with user-centred designers you’ll often hear them talk about user journey maps. But what are they, and what’s the point of them? 🗺 Service designer and design lead Harriet de Wet has been delivering a talk about user journey maps for a while. Now, she’s turned it into a blog post 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eT6dAE3H It explains in plain language: • what journey maps are • why you need them • how you make them • how they fit alongside other tools and techniques It’s part of our ongoing mission to demystify user-centred design (UCD). If there’s something in the world of UCD that has you puzzled, ask us about it and we’ll see what we can do to make it make sense. [Image description: A simplified illustration of a user journey with checkpoints and an end destination.] #design #ServiceDesign #UCD

User researchers have a whole toolbox to draw on for drawing insight from service users. For example, scenarios can be helpful when researching sensitive subjects. We always want to speak to people with real, lived experience of using services. At the same time, we need to ensure the safety and wellbeing of research participants. On one current Sparck / BJSS project around mental health services, we needed to get input from people who’ve used those services. Joanne Kilcoyne, the researcher on the project, looked into a range of options before settling on scenarios as an effective approach. By presenting fictional characters and asking participants to talk about their cases in the third person, we removed the pressure to talk about their own circumstances – while leaving the door open if they felt comfortable to do so. The insight we gained was really powerful, and effective. Research participants told us they liked this approach because it made them feel less vulnerable and exposed. Some did choose to relate their own experience to that of the personas we created – but it was a choice they felt empowered to make, in their own time, on their own terms. [Image description: Research participants with one under a magnifying glass.] #UserResearch #healthcare #research

One thing that makes designing for UK public services such a joy is the comprehensive guidance available at both government level, and from individual departments. 📚 The motherlode is the Government Digital Service (GDS) service manual, which everyone at Sparck / BJSS not only has bookmarked but could also probably recite chunks of in their sleep. If you want to know how to structure a form, or when to use a button rather than a link, or how to write the perfect page title, GDS is where you start. You can check it out here 🔗 https://lnkd.in/e6EfNepN But things get really interesting the deeper you dig. Although the idea behind the founding of the GDS was to consolidate public sector digital services, and create consistency, most public sector organisations also have their own supplementary guidance. This typically covers subjects, language, patterns and components that are needed for specific services, or in specific contexts. An important one is the NHS service manual, which derives from the GDS original, but tailored for healthcare. Here’s where you can find that 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eTz6HKA There are also service manuals from the Welsh Government, with standards for creating bilingual content in Welsh and English, and the Scottish Government, with an additional emphasis on designing for lived experience. Sometimes, the manual or style guide from one department can help solve a problem in another. For example, the Office for National Statistics has great, detailed advice on how to write about numbers and money. If you’re serious about user-centred design, in the public sector or otherwise, these are resources worth knowing. And check out the BJSS listing on the UK government digital marketplace for more on our credentials when it comes to GDS 🔗 https://lnkd.in/ehSGd2Nf [Image description: A finger navigating guidance on the screen of a tablet.] #design #GDS #NHS

Organisations struggle in times of change but futures thinking equips leaders with tools to navigate volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) contexts more effectively. 💡 Before we go any further, have you read our essential and totally free futures thinking eBook? 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eiF9dwyx It’s a great place to start if you want to know more. When it comes to VUCA business landscapes, it can be all too easy for leaders to: • hope things settle down and return to ‘normal’ • look away from the problem • stay in the relative comfort zone of short-term issues But smart organisations accept that change is happening and address it head on. And they give themselves the edge through futures thinking practices such as horizon scanning and scenario planning. It’s not about predicting the future but understanding a range of possibilities – and embracing that ambiguity for a strategic advantage. To find out more about futures thinking talk to Lauren Fridlington or Matthew Mullan. They’ll be happy to chat, and to find low-cost, low-commitment ways for you to explore the possibilities. [Image description: The Sparck and BJSS eBook on futures thinking.] #FuturesThinking #strategy #planning

People at Sparck employ user-centred design principles every day at work – but can they help us solve problems outside work, too? In the 2-minute explainer below content designer Polly Lyons explains how UCD helped her adjust to the challenge of becoming a mother. #design #UCD #motherhood

Children spend more time on screens than ever, for both entertainment and education, and designing child-friendly digital products is a unique challenge. 📱 In the latest post on the Sparck blog Vania Pomares explores how designing digital products and services for children is different – and what it can teach us about designing good products more generally. “Children’s motor skills, cognitive abilities, and emotional regulation are still developing, which means they interact with technology in a fundamentally different way to adults,” she writes. “For example, younger children may struggle with precise actions like typing, clicking, or using a mouse. But the proliferation of touchscreens, operated by tapping, swiping, and drawing with fingers, has made it easier for them to engage with digital products.” Find out more in the blog post 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eYkHqmiN [Image description: A smartphone next to a pacifier and a teddy bear.] #design #UCD #ServiceDesign

Public sector service assessments are more than a test we have to pass – they’re also a powerful driver of continuous improvement. 📈 What is a service assessment? It’s a when a panel of experienced specialists reviews the work you’ve done in designing a service, and provides feedback on what you might need to improve. Typically, that means being assessed by a panel of experts against the UK Government Digital Service (GDS) standards over the course of several hours. That might feel pretty daunting but in a recent article here on LinkedIn Sparck consultant Oliver Sutcliffe wrote enthusiastically about service assessments: “Service Assessments are the best. They ensure we are holding our work to the highest possible standards and… measure how well your service matches up against key service principles.” As Ollie explains, service assessments can help: • identify opportunities • keep the needs of service users front and centre • challenge us to do our best work • champion the needs of underrepresented groups You can read more on Ollie’s personal LinkedIn account 🔗 https://lnkd.in/ez58YcXr [Image description: A clipboard with a checklist.] #GDS #design #ServiceDesign

How does being on a low income, or having past experience of poverty, effect the way people interact with services? 🎧 Ray Newman is a content designer and project design lead at Sparck. He was recently the guest on a podcast called ‘Accessible Numbers’ hosted by Laura Parker. In the episode, he talks about his own experiences of childhood poverty – and shares practical insight into how we can make services more accessible for people on low incomes. And Laura talks about her dyscalculia, and how struggling to understand numbers can lead people into debt – or exclude them from services altogether. You can hear it in all the usual places via Laura’s website 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eZ8m2U86 That's also where you'll find a transcript and show notes. [Image description: A podcast microphone.] #ServiceDesign #inclusion #accessibility

We try to keep things positive here at Sparck but examples of bad customer experiences are always educational – and even inspiring, in their own way. 🍕 Our head of experience design and customer experience, Kerrie Hughes, always has a story handy to illustrate key CX principles. For example, here’s one she’s been telling recently as an example of how, in omni-channel retailing, we need to focus on making the experience seamless for customers. “My teenage daughter was given gift card for Christmas that could be used with multiple retailers,” she says. “The gift card has a number and PIN. My daughter wanted to use it for to get fast food delivered – obviously! So she went onto the delivery company’s website, spent an age selecting what to eat, then went to check out.” Sounds great, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, as Kerrie explains, this is where things started to become frustrating. “She spent ages hunting for the gift card field in the checkout page. She eventually found it, entered her details... and then got an error message!” To fix this, Kerrie and her daughter had to go to the website run by the gift card supplier. create an account, enter a lot of personal information, verify the account, and redeem the gift card. “Then things started to get really silly,” says Kerrie. “We got sent yet another number and PIN which we then had to enter somewhere else. There was then *another* number and PIN – that’s 3 if you’re counting! It took an hour before we could successfully order a single pizza.” Frustrating as this was, Kerrie was of course taking notes. “I always love looking at how someone tries to use a service as a *big* clue to how it should be designed,” she says. “Observe your users. Talk to them, and listen. Their pain points are opportunities to improve the service, and get ahead of the competition.” [Image description: A pizza with a single slice cut out.] #CustomerExperience #CX #design