How many times did that happen? Why we don’t answer that question
When presenting findings from usability testing, we often get asked ‘how many people had that issue’. In this post, Steve Bromley explains why we don’t answer that question.
Unity without uniformity
Accessing semantic data with OData web interface
We recently launched a web interface to help applications access and query our semantic data in a triple store. Jianhan Zhu talks about what this means for our data.
Switching off our old search service
On the 6 September last year, we turned on a new search service for parliament.uk. On the 19 January we'll switch off the ‘old service’ for all our users and we'll be fully decommissioning the service by the end of January.
Links on our beta website
We recently did some research into links to other websites on beta.parliament.uk. Colin Pattinson shares some of the insights we found.
Why user researchers work in multidisciplinary teams
The user research team are a busy bunch so how do they decide where to focus their time? Steve Bromley explains what these teams look like in Parliament and why user researchers support them.
Gender and language in blog posts
We’ve blogged before about language and gender. We’ve found that removing masculine words and gender coding from job adverts has a huge effect on applications from women. This got us thinking, how gendered is the PDS blog?
4 things that make bad videos
Gemma Rogers has blogged about why making videos isn't always a good idea and what you can do to make your videos better.
Using Google Ventures Methodology for the first time
We recently tried using the Google Ventures design sprint methodology on our committees project for beta.parliament.uk. Rachel Elliott-Potter talks about what we did and what we learned using this new way of working.
Heading into the future without forgetting the past
2017 has included some unexpected things for the PDS. In her first week, Tracey Jessup talks about becoming the new Director, what PDS has achieved so far and what the future holds for us.
Technical governance – making the strategy real
In his last post, Rupert Hay-Campbell talked about our technology strategy and its principles. But a strategy with some principles is not going to make change happen on its own so we’ve also decided to look at our technical governance processes.