Your persona
Your responses indicate you’ve got a firm grounding in user-centred working practices. Perhaps you’ve developed these capabilities because you’re directly involved in public-facing services. Still, even if that’s not the case, it’s possible to build on your strong foundation and search out ways to become more user-centred in your work. You might even be able to bring others along with you — driving a user-centred working culture is something that everyone can play a part in. Maybe there’s scope for learning from peers or even offering guidance to others.
Build your skills and knowledge
Share this assessment with your line manager. Discuss your outcomes and strategise which priorities align with your departmental objectives.
Who are the users that your department serves? Is there a public-facing element? What sort of user research is going on or has been conducted? Search out opportunities to support workshops by acting in a note-taking capacity/reviewing and tidying up notes post-session.
What tools and tech are used by your department? Play around with prototyping tools like Figma or Miro, so you're comfortable with functionality if you are in a position to contribute. Many of these tools come with the option to auto-populate with templates, which can be helpful.
Search out case studies that exemplify how your government or department has implemented real examples of UCD. Could you get some time with colleagues who were involved? Take time to hear where their pain points are or what they would like to do differently.
Set a reminder to review the accessibility standards you’re working towards regularly. How does the work you’re producing measure up?
Create a community of practice
Develop your interviewing skills by trying them out with colleagues or friends. This could be done completely for the purpose of developing interviewing skills, or you might even be able to find a way to be involved in the next round of user research that’s going on.
Interviewing not for you? Could you get involved in note-taking during user research calls or workshops? You could probably pick up some more tips and tricks about leveraging AI or tech to make this simple. Turning the notes into something that frames insights can be tricky, but if you have someone to guide you or collaborate with you, you’ll be able to finesse this skill.
The Apolitical Q&A pages have lots of examples of people starting out their exploration of what it means to meet the needs of their users. Topics such as Human-centred design principles to our communications and outreach bring together diverse voices.
Keep exploring
Carve out time for professional development. Diarise a chunk of time each week where you can take an Apolitical course, explore community articles, or anything else that aligns with your motivations. 9 Common Myths about Service Design could be a nice article to start with.
Catch up on event recordings such as Innovating with design methods in the public service. And keep an eye on what’s coming up!
Ready to jump into a course? Even if you’re not in Canada How to be Digital in the Canadian Public Service contains loads of fantastic guidance that’d apply to most contexts, particularly Section 3, which is all about user-centred design.
If you’re looking for inspiration for structured skill development, take a look at our Learning Plans where we have stitched together disparate educational resources into rich, diverse, cohesive and enlightening learning journeys which can have a transformative impact on both professional and personal lives.
What's next?
Not sure if this is the right persona for you? This diagnostic and its suggested outcome have been designed for illustrative purposes and may not reflect your level of awareness or competency.
Find a guide to the statements covered plus the scenario questions here: User-Centred Working Self-Assessment and Scenario Summaries.
Explore the other personae using the links below:
Leadership:User-Centred Working Explorer, User-Centred Working Consolidator, User-Centred Working Trailblazer
Non-Leadership:User-Centred Working Explorer, User-Centred Working Consolidator, User-Centred Working Trailblazer
⬅️ Government Skills Impact Tracker | Digital and Data Skills Hub ➡️