Welcome to the mid October issue of the Button Insight newsletter!

Button creates meaningful digital services and we are excited to share our work, research, and learnings with you in our twice-monthly newsletter!

The insight you’ll receive in your inbox every two weeks will help you up your digital communications, user experience, and customer relationships.

We’d love your help to create the best pro tips, stories, and insights that will help you build reliable technology that maximizes citizen impact. So tell us what you’d like to learn from the Button newsletter by taking this survey. Yes, there are prizes!

Alec Wenzowski | President & Co-Founder | [email protected]

In This Issue

1. How lack of trust in government affects digital services—and what we can do about it

2. Case Study: How Button built a game-changing social media & brochure tool for realtors

3. Employee Showcase: Meet Elliott, and find out what ”user research” is!

Need To Know

How a lack of trust in government affects digital services—and what can be done about it 

Button Service Designer Jaimie Park previews her FWD50 keynote by outlining a path to better engagement, better memory, and more trust. 

Public trust in governments has fallen after years of pandemic measures and communications, along with other major challenges including inflation, labour shortages, and extreme weather events. For people who deliver digital government services, maintaining public trust is a difficult dance: not only do the services themselves gain or lose trust on their own merit, but the users’ perceptions of politicians and digital privacy colour their interactions, too.

Trying to navigate those pitfalls can be overwhelming. But understanding what exactly the problems are, and what can actually be done with them, is what Button Service Designer Jaimie Park is setting out to do in her November 1st keynote speech at the upcoming FWD50 conference in Ottawa and available online.

In it, Jaimie outlines what the stakes are in both the short- and long-term when services aren’t seen as reliable, usable, and trustworthy. But she also lays out how trust can be fostered through being honest and reciprocal with the public about not only current services, but the history of how services have been delivered to them and how they’ve been affected.

That acknowledgement requires investing time and resources in both better engagement and better record-keeping—which can lead to a living system where the people in the community build and share the knowledge that helps government continually learn how to serve them better.

Read Jaimie's pre-keynote breakdown of one of today’s defining issues of government service work here.

Case Study

How Button helped citizens access publicly funded chest construction surgery

The Challenge

RealVault is a social media and brochure tool for realtors, providing co-marketing technology for the real-estate vertical. One of the biggest challenges faced on a daily basis in real-estate co-marketing is a lack of consistency in marketing materials that realtors had to build using only MLS listings. There was an urgent need for an automated brochure and social media content generator that could eliminate inconsistent branding for the listing real-estate company and the many selling realtors. Button set out to create an easy and intuitive interface for users. It had to be so simple to use that realtors did not require help or training.

The Solution

Expertise: Full-stack Web Development, UX/UI

Deliverables: Web Application, Cloud-based Deployment

Technologies: JS, Node, React, HTML/SASS

The Outcome

Button made the UI incredibly explicit and linear. With data mapping multiple sources, Button leveraged our API and Data experience to map multiple feeds to create one super-feed that supports the entire system. This created automation, coupling the super-feed with advanced front-end layout techniques, resulting in the production of brochures and social media content using a simple query, like an address or ID. Fuzzy and Partial Search were utilized to make it even easier to use, so realtors could generate content even if they only recalled parts of the address or listing ID. Print-ready PDF generation was established, creating a pixel-perfect HTML-to-PDF generator that spits out high-DPI PDFs that are ready to be printed, distributed or shared.

RealVault now has a modern, clear marketing and communication solution to take to market. The high-conversion templates help realtors close business and are compliant with any brand’s look and feel across most social platforms. Time-consuming back and forth to get information or marketing approvals are a thing of the past. Realtor templates are designed with the latest insights in data science, offering appealing layouts that get buyer attention, and drive a strong emotional connection.

Employee Showcase

Meet Elliott, and find what ”user research” is!

NAME Elliott LeePOSITION User ResearcherWITH BUTTON SINCE October 2021

Elliott is a user researcher who explores the needs of stakeholders and users to improve digital services. As a designer, he uses his research skills to effectively study the best practices in UX/UI for the particular area he’s working in and how to address the key needs using evidence-based methods. His rigorous and diligent research methods come from his background in studying human attitudes, thoughts, and behaviours as a psychologist. He used to be an assistant professor of psychology where he researched and taught about personality, social processes, and the natural environment. He has studied how being in nature improves our lives and how to encourage people to treat the earth better.

At the heart of it all Elliott is a Christian, a family man, and a talker. Working with him means you’ll get to know his two young kids, who are the funnest little monsters ever, because they constantly pop in during calls. He’ll have a coffee chat with anyone because he loves to talk about anything and everything—from how to fix a hot water tank to understanding the complexities of the human experience. He’ll also have a coffee because he loves coffee—especially paired with a good pastry. He gets spoiled with fancy pastries from his wife who is an awarded pastry chef. After a good coffee, he likes a good beer. He’s been passionately brewing craft beer for over ten years and has worked for two breweries.

Elliott brings all his professional and personal experiences to Button to coordinate research on how to improve digital services. He has a PhD in psychology in which he garnered expertise in both quantitative & qualitative research methods. He uses both in a mixed methods approach to exploring user experiences, business processes, and stakeholder needs. Throughout all of this, he loves using collaborative design practices. In order to maximize the benefit from meeting with users and stakeholders, he loves to work with them in creative ways to identify problems and ideate solutions.

If you ever want to chat about research, design, or anything at all give him a ring-ding-ding. And check Elliott out on Social at Github and LinkedIn.

Worth Your Attention

What We’re Reading: The Half Life of Valery K, by Natasha Pulley

This work of historical fiction about a nuclear scientist in 1960s Soviet Union is beautifully written, articulate, and thought-provoking. Themes include seeking out the truth even when it’s dangerous, pushing the government to be more accountable to citizens, and cultural differences between the Soviet Union and the Western world. Needless to say, it has never been more poignant and timely than it is today.

🎯 Join Button in Edmonton tomorrow...Button is partnering with Public Sector Network for their upcoming Digital Government & CX Roadshow in Edmonton and Toronto.

Working in close partnership with Service Alberta, Button is delighted to bring the Public Sector Innovation Show to Alberta. Plus, we have free swag (above), so come by our table and get to know our team.

Alberta’s public sector is ripe for digital innovation. Public sector organizations are using technology to connect with citizens to build a more resilient, innovative, and diversified economy.

Public sector organizations are using technology to connect with citizens to build a more resilient, innovative, and diversified economy. Innovation is not just about implementing technology. Public sector organizations are now actively collaborating with an array of external organizations and industry partners to gather feedback about digital solutions to create more robust and user-friendly public services.

... and in Toronto next week, Tue., Oct. 18!

Button is the Silver Sponsor at the Toronto PSN Digital Government & CX Roadshow on Oct. 18. Designed to explore the most efficient strategies to help public sector leaders gain internal buy-in and develop a roadmap for digital transformation, we hope you can join us on October 18 to connect with the experts and share ideas to build a better public service.

Registration is free for public sector employees.