Service & Content Designer

The planning system is one of the most important layers of everyday democracy. It shapes our homes, our neighbourhoods, our environment and therefore our lives. It is also at the front line of the climate challenge – as we retrofit our existing homes and neighbourhoods, and build new ones. Yet the planning system we have today is famous for being slow, opaque, bureaucratic and inaccessible, especially to those who don’t have a lot of money or time.

We are working with local planning authorities and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHLCG) to build a planning system fit for the 21st century. To do this, we are building Plan✕ , an open source, low-code platform that allows planning authorities to rapidly and collaboratively build simple, accessible digital public services, like building services out of LEGO. They are some of the first government services in the world that use ‘rules-as-code’ to bake legislation, policies and guidance into the services themselves, making complicated, opaque services like planning simpler and more transparent for everyone.

As we enter a phase of rapid expansion of Plan✕ , there is growing excitement about what it can do - both local and national governments want to use Plan✕ to build new, user-centered public services, in planning and beyond. They need support to help them design and build those services around users' needs.

The role will involve:

• Hosting online discovery sessions with stakeholders and experts to scope new services, and to understand user and stakeholder needs.
• Designing and building service flows within the Plan✕ editor, using clear language that is easy to understand.
• Making sense of legislation and policies, converting them into rules.
• Working with officers and user researchers to test and improve those services.
• Producing graphics and visual content (only if you're into that kind of thing)
• Producing resources for council officers on how to design, create and manage services in Plan✕
• Working alongside the product team and developers to improve the platform.

If you are a clear thinker and communicator, and have a passion for making public services better, this is the perfect role for you.

• Excellent logic / analytical skills Able to unpick complex, overlapping sources of information and make sense out of them. Willing to do the hard work to make it simple for users. (We have put an optional puzzle below).
• Clear thinker You must be able see the wood for the trees. Or if you don’t understand something, you are someone who has the confidence to say so, and ask a person who does.
• A natural do-er deliverer Someone who is happy to operate independently, take the initiative and quickly build a first version of a service, which others can then help test and improve.
• Loves making things simple You should have some understanding of the principles of user-centered design and best practices for digital content.
• Good writing skills Able to distill complex information into clear, accessible, jargon-free language, without distorting its meaning.
• A good listener and communicator able to draw-out people’s knowledge, build trust, to read between the lines of what stakeholders are telling you, being sensitive to their fears and concerns, whilst also finding ways to allay those fears or challenge false expectations.
• Purpose-driven Motivated by working on big social challenges, and making democracy work better.

• Experience or knowledge of the planning system or adjacent areas like building control
• Experience or knowledge of user research (UR) and testing with users
• Significant relevant experience designing services and/or content for the web especially for public services.
• Illustration or graphic skills For example, using Adobe Illustrator or similar to create web graphics and even videos.

If you are interested in this role, but are not sure if you exactly fit all of this description, or if you would need a higher salary, please apply anyway and tell us.

• Work with a small, but incredibly talented, friendly, and motivated team in a high-expectations, but always kind and inclusive environment. Trying to…