Scottish Enterprise Design blog https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/ Transforming public services to businesses in Scotland Mon, 17 Aug 2026 14:29:01 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/cropped-saltire-32x32.png Scottish Enterprise Design blog https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/ 32 32 What’s in a name? https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/whats-in-a-name/ https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/whats-in-a-name/#respond Fri, 07 Aug 2026 14:36:43 +0000 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/?p=107557 People who use assistive technologies, such as a screenreader or speech-recognition software, need to know the names of interactive elements on the web. Otherwise they may not be able to recognise the thing they’re dealing with, and so be unable to interact with it. Which means we, as authors, need to give things meaningful accessible …

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]]> https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/whats-in-a-name/feed/ 0 Why people use subtitles and captioning https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/why-people-use-subtitles-and-captioning/ https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/why-people-use-subtitles-and-captioning/#respond Thu, 18 Jun 2026 20:08:13 +0000 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/?p=84919 I’ve been attending a series of events for Digital Accessibility Week 2026, a cross-government online event taking place from Monday 18 May ending on Thursday 21 May which is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). One of the events was Designing with autistic people – Inclusive design that benefits everyone, organised by HMRC’s digital accessibility team. Delivered by …

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]]> https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/why-people-use-subtitles-and-captioning/feed/ 0 How to create a user story map with a Miro table https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/how-to-create-a-user-story-map-with-a-miro-table/ https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/how-to-create-a-user-story-map-with-a-miro-table/#respond Fri, 10 Apr 2026 10:06:06 +0000 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/?p=60626 Thanks to some truly inspirational collaboration with my colleagues Martin and David recently, we’ve figured out a way to create a user story map from a Miro table. Best of all, the story map and the table are synced. So if you update one, the other updates at the same time. No need to maintain …

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]]> https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/how-to-create-a-user-story-map-with-a-miro-table/feed/ 0 Would you hire Sam? https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/would-you-hire-sam/ https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/would-you-hire-sam/#respond Thu, 19 Feb 2026 21:07:29 +0000 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/?p=53405 Sam is looking for a job. They’ll do pretty much anything. Sam’s CV looks pretty good, so you take them on a 3 month trial. At first, things go well. Sam works 24/7, never gets sick, never needs to go to the bathroom. Never gets ill. Never takes a holiday. Sam doesn’t have kids or …

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]]> https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/would-you-hire-sam/feed/ 0 404 not found https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/404-not-found/ https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/404-not-found/#comments Wed, 11 Feb 2026 22:34:15 +0000 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/?p=50581 Let us offer you a way to find it (Or, a small UX improvement on this website) I came across Joe Allen’s Smaply blog post, Journey mapping beyond the happy path: designing for edge cases, breakdowns, and recovery earlier today. It’s an excellent post, and you should read it. Coincidentally, I’ve been drafting a post …

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]]> https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/404-not-found/feed/ 1 Standard accessibility acceptance criteria  https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/standard-accessibility-acceptance-criteria/ https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/standard-accessibility-acceptance-criteria/#respond Thu, 29 Jan 2026 22:13:09 +0000 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/?p=45510 This is based on a document I wrote several years ago, a proposal to standardise test acceptance criteria for our quality assurance process. I deliberately avoided any reference to WCAG guidelines or success criteria – instead, I chose to keep the focus on the user experience, what they should be able to perceive, understand, and …

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]]> https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/standard-accessibility-acceptance-criteria/feed/ 0 The point of the doing is the doing, not what gets done https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/the-point-of-the-doing-is-the-doing-not-what-gets-done/ https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/the-point-of-the-doing-is-the-doing-not-what-gets-done/#comments Thu, 18 Dec 2025 16:19:06 +0000 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/?p=27790 I noticed a comment in a chat today at work, along the lines of: We used an LLM to categorise the sticky notes from a workshop. It did a really good job, and even colour-coded the notes and aligned them. To which I shrugged, thought “good on you” and went on with my day. Later, …

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]]> https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/the-point-of-the-doing-is-the-doing-not-what-gets-done/feed/ 3 No more cookies for you https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/no-more-cookies-for-you/ https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/no-more-cookies-for-you/#comments Fri, 17 Oct 2025 15:34:53 +0000 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/?p=10254 Historically, we’ve used Google Analytics to measure usage of this website. GA has some advantages: it’s free, for a start, and it’s also the default industry standard. Even gov.uk uses it. But it also has some, in my opinion, fairly major drawbacks. So I’ve been thinking for some time that it would be good to …

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]]> https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/no-more-cookies-for-you/feed/ 3 I cycled to work https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/i-cycled-to-work/ https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/i-cycled-to-work/#respond Thu, 05 Jun 2025 19:05:17 +0000 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/?p=4571 I did something amazing today. I cycled to work.

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]]> https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/i-cycled-to-work/feed/ 0 The disability myth https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/the-disability-myth/ https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/the-disability-myth/#respond Sat, 10 May 2025 19:40:55 +0000 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/?p=4528 Everybody needs, and uses accessibility improvements, whether they realise it or not.

Whether it's access ramps or lifts to footbridges, they help all of us, every day.

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]]> https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/the-disability-myth/feed/ 0 Who are we willing to exclude? https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/who-are-we-willing-to-exclude/ https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/who-are-we-willing-to-exclude/#respond Fri, 14 Mar 2025 21:04:30 +0000 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/?p=4062 This is an exercise I like to run at the start of any project. It’s based on a tweet a long time ago by Jamie Knight (and Lion, of course) which I can’t/won’t link to because, well, twitter. You can read Jamie’s bio on their site or LinkedIn profile. The exercise is simple. At the …

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]]> https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/who-are-we-willing-to-exclude/feed/ 0 What do service designers do? https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/what-do-service-designers-do/ https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/what-do-service-designers-do/#respond Sat, 08 Mar 2025 20:43:50 +0000 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/?p=3554 Tricky. Not in the sense that I don’t know what I’m doing when I do what I do. I just do what needs done. Tricky in the ‘it depends’ sense. One thing we don’t do, in any conventional sense, is design services. We don’t take a brief, don our turtlenecks, retire to a darkened room …

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]]> https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/what-do-service-designers-do/feed/ 0 Good Services Scale: an interactive assessment https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/good-services-scale-an-interactive-assessment/ https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/good-services-scale-an-interactive-assessment/#comments Thu, 17 Oct 2024 20:58:49 +0000 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/?p=3822 Ask any service designer to list their top 5 or 10 people in the industry who have influenced them, and it’s a fair bet that most of them will mention Lou Downe. Lou literally wrote the book about service design in the public sector in the UK. And pretty much introduced the concept into UK …

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]]> https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/good-services-scale-an-interactive-assessment/feed/ 1 Making our account managers appy https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/making-our-account-managers-appy/ https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/making-our-account-managers-appy/#respond Fri, 13 Sep 2024 20:52:43 +0000 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/?p=3703 The title of this post is an obvious reference to a famous GDS blog post by Tom Loosemore back in 2014. Tl;dr – native apps are bad, web apps are good. Which I wholeheartedly agree with, on the whole. The web is open and free. Native OS apps are neither. Given a choice, for a …

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]]> https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/making-our-account-managers-appy/feed/ 0 Show your stripes https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/show-your-stripes/ https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/show-your-stripes/#respond Fri, 21 Jun 2024 13:28:00 +0000 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/?p=3619 Today is #showYourStripes day. I’ve updated the header on this site for one day to mark it. The chart above shows how temperatures have varied from the average across the whole of Scotland from 1884-2023. It’s fairly apparent what’s happening. You can create your own stripes for where you are thanks to the University of …

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]]> https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/show-your-stripes/feed/ 0 Telling a story https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/storyboards-for-service-design/ https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/storyboards-for-service-design/#respond Thu, 30 May 2024 19:58:01 +0000 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/?p=3585 In my experience, service design is mostly about telling – and selling – stories. Telling the stories of people we’ve met through user research. Understanding what makes life difficult for them, and adjusting our approach to accommodate what they need. Telling these stories helps us make sure our UX designers and developers and content designers …

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]]> https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/storyboards-for-service-design/feed/ 0 How to create inclusive personas, without creating inclusive personas https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/create-inclusive-personas-without-creating-inclusive-personas/ https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/create-inclusive-personas-without-creating-inclusive-personas/#respond Thu, 16 May 2024 20:55:42 +0000 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/?p=3490 I watched a webinar earlier today about creating inclusive personas to encourage accessible, human-centred design. The instructors talked about the disabilities people have, the assistive technologies they use, and how to create inclusive personas that describe those needs. And that’s all great, and laudable. But, with all my experience, I am not convinced it’s always …

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]]> https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/create-inclusive-personas-without-creating-inclusive-personas/feed/ 0 Go with the flow https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/go-with-the-flow/ https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/go-with-the-flow/#respond Mon, 15 Apr 2024 19:58:21 +0000 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/?p=3383 I’ve been working on a project lately with a small team and a similarly select group of Scottish Enterprise account managers to create a slicker way of bringing businesses into their portfolio. It’s a bit of a pathfinder project, to figure out how we might use Microsoft Power Platform technologies to deliver new services at …

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]]> https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/go-with-the-flow/feed/ 0 On colours https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/on-colours/ https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/on-colours/#respond Wed, 13 Mar 2024 21:15:22 +0000 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/?p=3357 Some readers may have noticed that Scottish Enterprise launched a new brand identity recently. Our logo was updated, and our typefaces and colour palettes changed. I’m not a marketer, so that’s not my domain and I have nothing to say about that. But I am a designer. And, when you’re designing communications material, whether it’s …

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]]> https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/on-colours/feed/ 0 Card sorting to improve information architecture  https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/card-sorting-to-improve-information-architecture/ https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/card-sorting-to-improve-information-architecture/#comments Mon, 15 Jan 2024 15:32:40 +0000 https://design.scotentblog.co.uk/?p=3160 Ahead of our migration of the Scottish Enterprise website to our new design system, the User Experience (UX) team wanted to make some improvements to the information architecture of the site. First of all, what do we mean by information architecture? Information architecture, or IA, can mean different things to different people. To some it’s …

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