Digital

  • The most common myths about User Research (and why they persist)

    13th July 2026 by

    Aileen Baxter, Lead User Researcher at Social Security Scotland blogs about some common myths around user research.  User research has never been more important in government, yet it remains widely misunderstood. Even as research becomes more embedded in teams, misconceptions still exist about what it is, when it should be used, and the value it…

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  • Moving beyond clear and simple to reach overwhelmed users

    9th July 2026 by

    Sarah Waterfield, Senior Content Designer blogs about using a test and learn approach to improving letters issued by Social Security Scotland. Imagine you’ve waited months for an important decision. One that will shape your daily life. The process has been long and sometimes difficult: gathering documents, sharing personal health information, asking for help, then the…

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  • Why our team blogs

    26th June 2026 by

    Claire Robertson, Senior Content Designer in Social Security Scotland guest blogs about the value of blogging. On the 2 year (ish) anniversary of our Social Security Scotland content design blog, I thought it would be useful to reflect on the value of blogging and how it has helped our team. What do other teams think…

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  • Boost creativity and collaboration: The power of pair writing

    18th June 2026 by

    Morven MacAllister, a content designer in Social Security Scotland blogs about pair writing and its benefits. What is pair writing? Content designers create content for everyone. We make complex services and systems easy to use and complex language easy to understand. We help users complete tasks and help teams design tasks for a user to…

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  • Drawing is designing

    6th October 2025 by

    Guest blog post by Andy Robertson, Senior Content Designer in Social Security Scotland. In the age of shiny new Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, I’m making the case for pen and paper. As a senior content designer in government, here’s how I use my drawing skills.     I love to draw Some of my strongest…

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  • Writing for wellbeing: why we created a trauma and stress writing guide

    18th June 2025 by

    Guest blog from Sarah Waterfield, Senior Content Designer at Social Security Scotland. At Social Security Scotland, we know that language matters. The words we use in our communications and webpages shape how people experience our service. Many of our clients have faced difficult life events or negative experiences with benefits. If our language is complex…

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  • Understanding how we can serve people with additional communication needs

    11th June 2025 by

    Guest blog from Fiona Wright, Senior User Researcher at Social Security Scotland. Making our communications more accessible is a key focus for the user-centred design team at Social Security Scotland. From years of research and design work, we understood that some clients with additional communication needs were facing barriers to accessing our service. To understand…

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  • We made a content design system in 4 weeks

    18th March 2025 by

    Guest blog post from Andy Robertson, Senior Content Designer, Social Security Scotland. We built a design system for our intranet. It creates a consistent user experience for our colleagues processing benefit applications. The design system is a library of reusable content and patterns. Here is an overview of our approach to plan, write and build…

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  • Iteration and continuous improvement – a Blockbuster story?

    12th February 2025 by

    Guest blog from Jayne Purcell, Service Design Lead, Social Security Scotland. Iteration and continuous improvement are words I hear a lot. What I have observed over the years is that iteration and continuous improvement usually means iterating and improving the current design, with not enough effort put into exploring the future and the vision to…

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  • The Social Security Programme – approach to integrated assurance

    5th February 2025 by

    Guest blog from Lois MacFadyen, Head of the Digital Assurance Office. The Social Security Programme was set up to build and implement the new Social Security System in Scotland, making arrangements for the delivery of 17 benefits.  The design and development work on the first end to end service started in October 2017 and the…

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