A Web Directions event Transform 2016 Australia's Digital Government Conference

Session Details

Dana Chisnell

Redesigning the citizen experience

Dana Chisnell US Digital Service

Every day, millions of people interact with the United States government. People apply for Social Security benefits and small business loans. They look for affordable health insurance and financial aid to attend university. They need passports and tax refunds. But these interactions are often frustrating and cumbersome because of outdated tools and unreliable systems.

Modernizing government, understandably, feels like a huge task. This is because government acts like it is in the business of carrying out legislation. it uses IT as a necessary evil for collecting data off of application forms. That’s a 20th Century (or maybe even at 19th Century) notion of government. A modern government is in the business of delivering services to the public over the Internet, mediated by technology. This is a fundamental shift in mindset, and it drives all of the change, from procurement to design.

Dana will describe her key observations from working with governments large and small:

  • large projects almost always fail
  • engineering problems are design problems
  • delivering great experiences to the public relies on improving the user experience for government workers

Dana Chisnell

Design researcher at the United States Digital Service and co-author of The Handbook of Usability Testing.

Dana Chisnell is an elections geek and UX research nerd (her words) who has trained thousands of people, including government workers, to test their designs. But what she really loves is giving design literacy to the world. She’s the lead on a project to develop a series of Field Guides To Ensuring Voter Intent. The Field Guides, originally funded by a Kickstarter project, are designed to be quick, easy, and accessible help for local election officials to do the best possible design.

She has won two MacArthur grants to expand the Field Guides series. She’s what you might call a “seasoned professional” who, with Jeff Rubin, wrote Handbook of Usability Testing, Second Edition. She’s design researcher at the United States Digital Service, helping teams at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service and at Veterans’ Affairs create better customer experiences.

Don't miss your chance to see Dana and other inspiring speakers

Tickets start at $599, for an in-depth day with the world's leading Government digital service design experts.

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Australia's Digital Government Conference.

CanberraWorkshop May 18th Conference May 19th

SydneyWorkshop May 23rd

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What is Transform?

Australia's Digital Government Conference

As user centric approaches to Government service delivery, pioneered by the UK Government Digital Service change how Governments worldwide meet their citizen's needs, Web Directions brings you experts from the GDS, Code For America, the US Digital Service and Australia's own Digital Transformation Office to address this vital issue.

Whether you're in Federal, State or Local Government, or work with Governments of any level to deliver services, Transform will keep you up to date with developments in Government service design and delivery.

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Praise for past Web Directions events

Web Directions is the must-attend event of the year for anyone serious about web development.

Phil Whitehouse, General Manager, DT Sydney

I’ve been admiring the Web Directions events for years, and was honored to be part… What a fantastic event!

Ethan Marcotte, inventor of "responsive Web design"

Out of any conference, Web Directions is far and away our favourite

Dave Greiner, founder, Campaign Monitor

our audience watches intently

About Us

Co-founded and now run by John Allsopp, Web Directions has for over a decade brought together leading developers, engineers, visual, IxD, UX and product designers, Art and Creative Directors, indeed everyone involved in producing web and digital products to learn from one another, and the World's leading experts across this vast field.

We spend our lives thinking about what comes next, keeping up with trends in technology, practices and processes, and filtering the hype, to make sure you don't miss trends that matter, and don't waste time on hype that doesn't.

We promise attending one of our events will leave you significantly better versed in the challenges you face day to day, and in solutions for addressing them.

In 2016, we'll be organising Respond in Sydney and Melbourne, Transform in Canberra, Code in Sydney and Melbourne, and Direction in Sydney.

vignettes form our events, social, speakers and more. Includes Hannah Donovan skylarking.

John Allsopp

John Allsopp has been working on the Web for over 20 years. He's been responsible for innovative developer tools such as Style Master, X-Ray and many more. He's spoken at numerous conferences around the World and delivered dozens of workshops in that time as well.

His writing includes two books, including Developing With Web Standards and countless articles and tutorials in print and online publications.

His "A Dao of Web Design" published in 2000 is cited by Ethan Marcotte as a key influence in the development of Responsive Web Design, who's rightly acclaimed article in 2010 begins by quoting John in detail, and by Jeremy Keith as "a manifesto for anyone working on the Web".

Code of Conduct

For over a decade, we've worked hard to create inclusive, fun, inspring and safe events for the Web Industry.

As part of our commitment to these values, we've adopted a code of conduct for all involved: ourselves, our speakers, our partners and our audience.

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