Cogworx

Cogworx works on the kind of digital services that sit behind everyday government interactions, from the digital transformation of the jury summoning experience to enabling real-time recording of court hearing outcomes. Other projects have focused on understanding what residents need from local services, and on designing and developing government services that support UK businesses. The common thread is public-facing infrastructure that has to work for people who did not choose to use it and cannot be expected to learn it.

The agency's activities span stakeholder engagement and workshopping, user research, usability testing, accessibility testing, business analysis, service design and UX design. Rather than handing over a strategy document, Cogworx provides the people and expertise needed to create and maintain a user-centred service on an ongoing basis, working iteratively so that products and services improve as evidence comes in from testing and research. This is aimed at organisations that want to embed human-centred thinking into how they deliver services, not just commission a one-off redesign.

Cogworx was started in 2016 and is owned and managed by four founding Directors, based in Maidenhead. The founders describe their approach to planning, designing and delivering services as applicable anywhere, which shows in the spread of the work: courts and jury summoning on one side, business-facing government services on the other, unified by the same research-led, accessibility-focused process.