Let the outsiders decide

You need to listen to your Outsiders, even if they wear denim vests

The battle for the human race is no longer just a fight between good and evil. Nowadays any web person worth their digital salt will tell you that there’s another battle that’s being waged to save the future of the world wide web.

The battle between the Outsiders and the Insiders.

Who are they?

The Insiders are a pretty big group, but they usually involve the following characters:

• staff
• angry hippos (both kinds)
• academics (they just love rubric)
• silo guardians
• heads of IT
• anyone with innovation in their job title

The Outsiders group is simpler to define. Anyone who uses your website.

Let battle commence

We’re currently redesigning our website at Nesta and we’re trying our hardest to give the Outsiders a fighting chance. Our Insiders are quite a formidable bunch, and it’s taking a lot of persuasion and numerous nudge tactics to reframe Nesta’s information as something that is useful to Outsiders, not something that is convenient to Insiders.

We had a brilliant meeting with our Outsiders, which has produced an interview that’s like a scourge for our backs. Painful as it is, we need to listen, learn and build for them – and resist the impulse to build for us.

Make it for your Outsiders

There’s a really simple principle at work here, and it’s this: outsiders know best because they’re the ones who you’re making it for. At Nesta we talk a lot about people-powered services and use newfangled concepts that even Google hasn’t heard of like Coproduction – but they all have the same searingly simple motor driving them: design things WITH your users not AT them.

The Government Digital Service rocks

There’s a great example of this principle being put into huge and resounding practice. The web dudes at the Government Digital Service have been dismantling and remantling the entire crazy stock of insider websites that built up like so many barnacles on a galleon and they’ve rebuilt them into a one-stop-shop for outsiders only, namely Gov.uk

For a behind the scenes glimpse at what they’ve achieved in just a short space of time, check out this great slideshare from Neil Williams – On her majestys digital service.

Only one way to build

So forget all the internal evaluations and departmental hand-wringing  – there’s really only one way to build websites.

Let the outsiders decide.

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