Research with the Parliamentary Digital Service

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User researchers in PDS are currently planning research on several topics in the coming months to better understand the needs of Members and their staff. This research will ultimately inform new digital services and improvements to existing services, including how amendments to bills are tabled and supported, how Hansard is used, and how interests are submitted by Members and staff.

As well as Members and others, we are particularly keen to conduct research with Members’ staff, crucial users of our digital services. We hope that this will be an interesting opportunity for Members’ staff to shape the design of digital services in Parliament and potentially test prototypes of new or improved products and services.

The exact requirements for each research project will differ but we expect that most would require around 30-45 minutes of your time and involve an open, informal interview about your experiences and preferences or testing out new prototypes. All participation would be on a confidential basis and sessions would be scheduled at a time that suits you, either in-person or online.

You can express your interest in participating in user research in the coming months by completing this form. If you express an interest, we may contact you in the coming weeks to try and schedule a research session. By completing the form, you are not committing to take part in any specific research initiative and we would try to ensure that no-one takes part in more than one research session every quarter.

We would like to hear from a wide range of Members’ staff. If you have any colleagues who may be interested in taking part in the research, please do share this message with them.

Having problems logging in?

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As you will be aware, as a result of the cyber-attack at the weekend, the good folks in the IT department have been working round the clock to protect the system.

Many of you will find that you are having problems logging in at the moment, whilst the work is ongoing.

Please do not ring the help desk.   If you’re on the Parliamentary estate, please be patient and don’t swamp the help desk with calls – they are working on it as fast as they can, and every extra phone call takes them away from the task in hand.   If  you do need to speak to someone, please go one of the drop-in centres instead:

Drop-in centres
Lords Members and Lords Members staff: Moses Room (9am)
Commons Members: Members Centre, PCH (9am)

Commons Members staff: Boothroyd Room (10am)
Staff of both Houses and Digital Service Staff: Boothroyd Room (10am)

Digital Service colleagues will be floor-walking in Fielden House, Millbank House, 7 Millbank and 14 Tothill Street from 10.00 am.

If you’re in the Constituency

Please be patient.  The Digital Service team will contact you in due course – there’s a lot of people to contact, so it will take a while.