Pete Jobes

Finding help and support on GOV.UK

As part of the government's pandemic response, I worked in the service strategy space looking at how people find help and support. The nature of the pandemic meant that we were seeing massively increasced numbers of people looking for employment related support. During this project we worked rapidly to move away from the existing solution, that listed benefits by name, and create one that categorised them by people's circumstances.

I worked closely with User Research, Content Design and Analytics to prototype and iterate versions that were remotely tested with citizens. The approach of categorising by need rather than name proved to be a big part of signposting people during the pandemic. As part of this piece we were also able to simplify some navigation sections to group legacy benefits that analytics showed were not used into index pages and slim the content of the menu itself.

Understanding local employment markets with data

Explore the digital skills market by area is a service to help local enterprise partnerships use data to understand the employment market within their area. The service was a collaboration between DWP, DFE and DCMS.

I worked on this project from conception, working alongside our User Researcher to establish the user needs and understand their problem space. We then moved on to conducting co-design sessions before working closely with data scientists to understand what was possible with the data we had. I rapidly iterated prototypes and took them out for user testing each sprint. As no patterns or components were available in the GOV.UK Design System for working with data, I worked with users to produce components that worked for them. The service pioneered a human centred approach to data services within the public sector and led to me co-founding the cross government UCD + Data community.

Virgin Money ISA Transfer Service

The ISA Transfer Service was a rapid project to enable customers to electronically transfer their ISAs from other banks into Virgin Money. I worked to understand the legal requirements and technical contraints and designed an initial service in Sketch. I prototyped the service and took it out to user test in Virgin Money lounges with customers who had ISAs. Iterating on their feedback, we were able to release the service in time for the ISA transfer deadline. Ability to transfer online depended on multiple factors, the service quickly triaged customers so that those who could transfer electronically did and those who could not were given the correct form and had expectations set around the non-digital process. The service drove £44 million of ISAs into the bank in it's first quarter.

Virgin Money Savings Help Hub

Virgin Money savings customers were finding it difficult to find help with their accounts. This was driving increasced traffic to the call centre, resulting in higher waiting times and a poor experience. I worked closely with colleagues in the customer contact centre, listening to calls and interviewing them about their experiences. From there I redesigned the help section of the website to reduce cognitive load by using a simpler information architecture. The solution was built to be simple, accessible and responsive.

GDS Design Crits and Prototype Training

As a senior interaction designer at DWP, I worked with Jon Houghton and colleagues from GDS, to organise and run cross government design crits and GDS Prototype Training in the North of England. This gave an opportunity for public sector designers based outside of London to attend sessions closer to them.