Weeknotes S2 E2

I’ve heard some of my fellow UPFRONT Bond-ers talk about the feeling of a vulnerability hangover after sharing, but it wasn’t something I’d experienced myself until I hit share on last week’s weeknotes and tagged Torchbox. The cringe factor is so very real!

But, this is clearly a muscle I need to keep strengthening, to get better at writing and sharing my work in the open, so here we are with episode 2!

Highlights of this week have been:

• Some really positive workshops and discussions with a long-standing client. We walked through a lot of the features, problems and opportunities that we’ve been discussing over the past few months, and identified the #1 outcome that we should focus on first . We want to be in a position that the users who are eligible for accounts are easily able to create them, and that we can keep these up to date and respond to changes in their roles, email address or organisation. We identified that the verification step in place at the moment could be a significant blocker for getting people in the door, and we want that first experience to be a positive one. So we’ll be mapping out the current state and desired future state of the sign up process, and identifying the changes we need to make. It’s not a shiny new feature, but I’m thrilled to see this kind of work prioritised. It was also one of those sessions that just flowed, and the collaboration and partnership between team members on both sides was so evident — they are a real joy to work with.
• With a couple of clients, we’ve been exploring Wagtail multisite and whether certain areas of content and functionality should sit as a microsite, or be incorporated into the existing site. The technical effort to set up a microsite in an existing Wagtail instance isn’t too significant, so we’re exploring the SEO and UX impact of both approaches to assess the right way forward.
• Planning the next phase of work following a big discovery project. We’ve had great collaboration across disciplines during the discovery phase, leading to a proposal for a programme of work with a significant focus on SEO and content strategy as well as UX design and development of some new page types. It should be a great case study for focusing on getting strong foundations , and I’m looking forward to pinning down how we’ll measure the impact of the changes.
• A sunny visit to Blenheim Palace on my childcare day with my youngest. I’m realising that from September she’ll be starting at preschool, and there’s only a few months of having Thursdays just the two of us. Bittersweet! I also had this butterfly land on me and had to pretend not to be frightened in front of my 2 year old while I could not get it off me!

A young girl in a pink coat points at the large butterfly that’s landed on a woman in dark trousers.

It’s also been another week of juggling, with my eldest daughter’s school closed for all 4 of my working days. I’ve been grateful for my husband’s role allowing him some flexibility, as well as the ongoing support from my line manager and Torchbox team.

Happily, it looks like next week might be back to normal *fingers crossed*, and I’m looking forward to an in-person planning session with the delivery manager on one of my projects, from my kitchen table no less! As we both live in the same town, it’s easier than both driving into our Charlbury office. Some things are easier to set out in post its than on Miro or a Google doc, and as she couldn’t make the Torchbox Spring Party last week, it’ll be really lovely to catch up in real life.