Explore ways to advocate for and improve access to channels used by the Design System community

[Katrina-Birch]

What

Access to community support is essential for optimal use of the DS, but many users, particularly non-permanent civil servants, don’t have access. The strategies people develop to compensate for lack of access are time consuming and not always successful. People don’t fully benefit from the improvements we make to the DS because they can’t learn about them or from the experiences of other teams. As such they may end up working in silos. All of these impacts are exacerbated for inexperienced users who lack networks which they can fall back on.

So what?

• Experienced practitioners rely on existing professional networks for support
• Some contractors don’t have access to cross gov Slack channels
• Some contractors don’t have gov email addresses
• People use Slack to get support

I meet lots of people who don’t even know X-gov Slack is there. Without access I ask a colleague - “Can you ask this question please?”

It’s like gold… a connection with government.

Before I start a new contract, it’s really stressful worrying about whether I’ll get access.

My email address - I can’t be a service assessor without an email address!”

Now what?

Explore ways to advocate for and improve access to the design community