Hi I’m Laura, Head of Design for GOV.UK at GDS.
I lead design teams that make interacting with government more inclusive, accessible, and usable.
Last week was quite the ride. We kicked the week off with our Secretary of State (SoS), Peter Kyle, announcing the new Digital Centre, and blueprint for modern digital gov at the GDS office in London. It was a real buzz to be there and hear the support for our work from our ministerial team.
I recently saw the Bluesky post from Jenni Tennison asking for suggestions for the new digital centre and the vision for digital public services. That was swiftly followed by the excellent blog from Martha Lane Fox about working in the open, and now I can’t resist throwing my hat in the ring for this as I’ve been around long enough to have seen some changes (good and bad) and see the challenges and opportunities that currently exist. In the words of Martha, “Let’s go!”…
I'm making an effort to bring my website into the 21st century, and try my hand at blogging more regularly.
I’ve been reading a lot about “promise theory” recently, and realised this is a useful mindset for designers to adopt. Although it’s a theory applied in predominantly technical domains, the mindset can be utilised anywhere. After all, a promise is a concept we all intrinsically understand as humans, and have most likely participated in at some point.