Design Ops

The Design Ops team in the Department for Education support designers all across the department.

Who we are

We're made up of a multidisciplinary team of design and research professionals.

Adam Dumbell

User researcher

Andy Jones

Head of Design

Kerry Lyons

Senior content designer

Vacant

Senior accessibility specialist

What we do

We support the following user-centred design professions across the department:

• Content design
• Interaction design
• Service design

The user resesarch profession is supported by the Research Ops team.

We support designers with:

• setting standards and guidance for good design practices
• working across services to identify and publish common components and patterns
• creating tools and services to improve design processes
• raising awareness and understanding of design and accessibility in DfE

We also aim to raise profession maturity across the department.

How we can help you

• Understand standards

  Standards are key to good delivery and we can help you understand how to apply then in your work.

• Recruitment and onboarding

  We can help with making sure you've got the right job specs and that people have the right tools and tech from day 1.

• Tools

  Advice and guidance on the tools you can, and cannot, use in DfE, or support in getting new tools approved.

• Be a critical friend

  We can help to de-risk your services and products by offering guidance, recommendations, or advice on design problems.

• Get in touch

  You can contact us in several ways:

  • Email: design.ops@education.gov.uk
  • DfE slack: #design-ops
  • X-GOV Slack: #dfe-design-ops