Five Questions with Michal Perlstein, Head of Seattle's Digital Experience

Work & Co

You’ve been vocal about the importance of shifting from traditional project delivery models and bringing a product mindset to your work. What does that look like for your team and the products you manage?

Michal Perlstein

At the heart of it, it’s about how we view all our stakeholders as “partners”. This shift illustrates our recognition that we each bring expertise and value to the outcome, but none of us can reach the outcome alone. We can build an amazing website, but without the departments managing important services and providing content, our desired outcomes wouldn’t be achieved. Similarly, without well-crafted and iterative digital experiences, the city’s services and content may not reach the audience as intended. This is very different from a “servant to the business” mentality.

We have open lines of communication with our partners, and there’s no expectation on embarking on projects without critical thinking. We aren’t going to succeed with a short-term win that will unravel later. For requests and ideas that might hold water, we engage in thoughtful research and discovery on whether something is valuable as a global update, and of course we have constraints – we need to know if a new project is technically feasible, sustainable, and supportable. Our professional responsibility is for the best interest of the product, driven by legal requirements, advocacy for the public, City priorities, and design standards.

W&C

Consistent brand expression across digital platforms is a challenge for global brands, organizations, and governments alike. Can you speak to some of the design and content principles that underpin a coherent digital presence across all City departments?

MP

Consistency reflects security and authenticity. We need to build trust with the public and do everything possible to safeguard that. Our priorities are different than that of another brand. While we want to provide a great digital experience, we’re not aiming to showcase trendy designs. Our goal is for all people to accomplish the tasks they set out to do with ease. We lean on our city Digital Style Guide, leveraged internally and available publicly.

W&C

What opportunities do you see for human-centered design to improve how governments engage with their constituents?

MP

The most fluid aspect of our web properties is the content. With a decentralized content management model, it’s a group effort for all content editors to adhere to our user experience practices.

In my view, we must always focus on clear writing, utilizing plain language. It’s common for program leaders to get so focused on how they think about and describe things in an exclusionary sort of way, and forget to consider the constituent. Instead of assuming that the reader has all of the same background about the big picture, context, and jargon, we need to shift to using clear and concise language that simplifies the bureaucracy and removes distractions. The best approach for content when it comes to our city digital platforms is one that’s more inclusive, less mentally taxing, and overall, more respectful to the public we serve.

W&C

In a recent addition to Seattle.gov, your team redesigned and standardized information about government assistance and discounts. It was a massive undertaking across eight departments and 14 programs. What were your biggest learnings?

MP

The greatest outcome is that we proved that accessible-first development is possible. Our lead developer integrated accessibility into each phase of the work, and by starting very early in the concept established an inclusive mindset throughout. Iterative design is key, as our assumptions may be wrong, and we always learn from new perspectives during usability testing. We also faced the fact that not all content fits into a template and we need to employ some flexibility. Consistency doesn’t mean that each page must be identical.

W&C

Part of your role includes educating technologists and communications professionals about the importance of digital accessibility and the impact on the people left out of government services. What are some of the ways your team goes beyond compliance standards to build trust and engagement with residents and users?

MP

It’s those subconscious cues that reflect the legitimacy of a website, like visual identity standards to help users immediately know that the site belongs to the City of Seattle. We are undergoing continuous improvement across the website to improve discoverability by updating information architecture and navigation within each section based on human-centered design. We’re thankful that our partners have embraced this shift away from a more siloed organization-focused architecture. This new human-centered paradigm is clear from the main megamenu on Seattle.gov, along with the topic pages that aggregate information from various sections into a central location.

Other ways include managing a dynamic application header and footer, providing transparency into our practices by explaining design principles, displaying the web analytics we collect, requiring a statement explaining that the City’s strict privacy policy no longer applies when clicking a call-to-action leading to a third-party website.