Service as usual interrupted.
Currently in a power outage. Was supposed to be in Scotland for board meeting but had to come home and assess Storm Darragh damage/rescue some cats and a freezer of food. Mega annoying, as our board was covering some important stuff including voting for group members and our corporate plan (which is really full of the juicy bits about what we intend to do, how we deliver that etc).
No power for 2+ days now, have thoughts on National Grid and service design/delivery in emergencies.
Our experience (and other locals);
- Two x 1.5 hour phone calls to National Grid to no answer from us (and similar experiences across the board)
- No route to report a power cut without a landline (landlines down anyway cos no power innit)
- We don’t appear on the map, even though 83 homes in our area are without power
- Varying ID numbers for close by areas with different time estimations of power coming on, so unsure which one to follow
- One postcode for general updates which covers a VAST area of different connected buildings
- We know of 3 people who registered as vulnerable and received no support from National Grid during this period, one requires power for a ventilator
Some very quick reflections on this
- People want/need a feel of regular updates or feel like there is live information
- Most of us, for a period have/can access mobile signal for however long our batteries last and if main towers haven’t gone down (we can walk/drive to signal areas)
- Some of us have no access, so I want to emphasise I don’t believe everyone has access, and I hope most of these people are scooped up by local community groups (ours kicked into action, or public services)
- Perplexed how a service that knows it will have a spike of usage, extreme spike really, is not prepared to manage demand? (This includes little discernible direct homepage information beyond a corporate website malarky)
So I spent most of today mulling over in my head what if we went from this (everyone calling) and not getting through…
To some kind of interaction where it felt like information was live.
So imagine the best bits from live newsfeeds, to whatsapp to what David Durant described as a sort of Ushahidi model. The mock up is really illustrative, not an actual design, but even spinning it up quickly got me thinking about easy wins of making things feel more like live information. So could the National Grid design into their power outage response;
- The feel of live information
- Named areas being linked to their system of ID codes
- Someone personally writing to you/feel of a human touch
- Prepared guides to sign post through that help people in these situations
- An ability to add other people to local updates
- A live information page linked through a whatsapp style update interaction
I don’t know, I recognise lots logistically/system wise would be required to be rethought to deliver this but I am SURE it would reduce the number of phone calls or something to this effect.
Making something feel more live than a static webpage of ‘times until power is on’ it might give more of a sense of movement. That and other communication principles and content design like talking like a human, explaining what’s happening etc.
In other non power out weeknotes (late, because, well, now I have power…)
Sing Wild Seeds
Collaborated with music producer/engineer Danny Trachtenberg to work out how to get people to leave vocal and instrumental samples in response to scenarios on a website, and what we might do with those to create songs after it.
Earlier in the week we were all on a call together and couldn’t find clear consensus through words, so I suggested we just grab a coffee, sketch it out, and boom, in one hour, we’d sketched the whole thing. Power of visual language and all that (and working side by side).
Less design work, more life work this week
Used OpenRent to find some lodgers and was really impressed with their service to cover all the basis of renting a place out. I thought it was just a room advertising service, turns out, they can arrange gas and electrical testing directly with contractors. Monday made the order, Thursday it was done and certificates in my inbox.
OpenRent is a great example of a service thinking about my ultimate outcome, renting a place out. It offered up an end to end service: Tenant/Lodger agreements, insurance stuff, house testing and more. It didn’t deliver all of those, but worked with 3rd parties to but managed to keep it all in one simple place for me. And in a non pushy way. An example of a whole service to meet my overall end goal of safely renting my house out. UI needs work though…
Read
Finding services on Government websites by Ross Ferguson/Public Digital – Nice, reminds me of the tear down I did of Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park website to identify services we offer, we may not have seen as services
Goal-orama by John Cutler. Just nice, on different types of goals/outcomes. Language matters and all that.
Complicated, complicated, lemon, complicated by Tobia Revell. I’m glad this guy is blogging again, some good takes in general on life.
Listened
Obsessed with Like the end by James Blake. One of those songs I’ll listen to on repeat for about a month. Video is a hot take on post, post, late, even later, and more post Capitalism and America, done by AI, lovingly curated by a human director/art worker.
Moved
People, I got an x-ray. Praise the NHS. Now we wait, then I can move again. Been a real slog, ate crap, not even walked, can’t wait to move again.
Until next week.
