Civic Technology
TheyWorkForYou
You shouldn’t need a degree in politics to keep track of what’s going on in Parliament
Role: Design Lead Client: mySociety Date: 2013-2021 Visit: theyworkforyou.com
The problem
How can we use the open data available about the UK government to help bring information together in one place, and make it accessible to both citizens and civil society?
What I did
TheyWorkForYou is a constant work in progress. My role as design lead during my tenure at mySociety was to keep the site design relevant and meeting various outcomes by supporting new technology and data as it became available, such as changes to Parliament’s open data, the rise of smartphones and other technology, and the constantly changing requirements and expectations of the sites many devoted audiences.
I was responsible for designing and implementing new feature requests progressing from an initial brief, through user research, ideation, mock ups, testing and working with the technical team through to the eventual feature launch.
Working, and deciding, in public
One of the constant challenges of a site as complex as TheyWorkForYou was deciding how to present often complex, nuanced information in a way that offered users clarity without oversimplification, or removing context and changing the meaning entirely.
We achieved this through iteration, testing and transparent working, often devoting time to making informed decisions and explaining them to the user base through blog posts and social media.
MP pages
We designed MP profiles, the most frequented pages on the site, to give users key, at-a-glance information initially and then offer routes to more in depth data, such as speeches made in parliament, voting records or declarations of gifts and income.
Understanding that MP pages were often the only pages some users saw we built several features that could convert a mildly-interested user into a return user, such as offering links through to votes or speeches, or routes through to signing up for alerts.
Key challenges
Search and alert
While many people use TheyWorkForYou to follow their elected representative, if you’re a campaigner you’re going to want to know when your topic of interest is mentioned in parliament by anyone. We designed the alert function to do exactly that, meeting the need by offering summary emails when a topic is recorded in Hansard.
Debates
Debates are where the action is, but the way they work is complex and esoteric. We took the raw information (’hansard’ for those in the know) and presented it in a way that ensures clarity and comprehension. Additionally, each moment, from single words to iconic speeches are linkable and shareable, driving site traffic and bringing awareness to important issues.
Multiple languages, countries
TheyWorkForYou covers Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland in addition to the UK parliament, so the design needed to be flexible and adaptive to the different needs presented by each devolved administration. Additionally, for Wales, supporting the Welsh language. Hwyl fawr!
The results
TheyWorkForYou has long been a staple in the global civic technology landscape, inspiring multiple versions in countries worldwide, reusing the open source codebase to bring transparency to democracies way beyond the UK. As well as this, it has lit a fire under the UK Parliament’s own product roadmap, which since the launch of TheyWorkForYou has accelerated, seeing Hansard, MP profiles and more going live.