Insights, views and tips

Designing to integrate AI - LinkedIn – 1

Designing to integrate AI into personalised government services

CYB’s Senior Service Designer Erlend Prendergast writes about how government can provide more personalised AI-enabled services with smart design decisions

1 May 2025

Large Language Models AI Service design

Healthcare - Anita - blog header

The importance of research and user-centred design in healthcare

Drawing on her experience of the healthcare sector, CYB’s Lead User Researcher Anita Chandra writes about how the NHS can benefit from putting research and UCD at its centre

2 Apr 2025

Healthcare NHS Service design

CYB Christmas - blog header

A Christmas letter, 2024

Founder/Managing Director Ben Stewart reflects on an eventful and successful year for CYB, and looks forward to 2025

18 Dec 2024

NHS AI in Government Large Language Models AI Government digital

AI blog series - part 3 - blog header – 1

Problem Lenses: How and when should I use AI? - Part 3

Part 3 of Ali Salaman’s three-part series looks at how businesses can use AI to explore ideas and manage knowledge with large language models

21 Nov 2024

Large Language Models

AI blog series - part 2 - blog header – 1

Problem Lenses: How and when should I use AI? - Part 2

Part 2 of Ali Salaman’s three-part series explores the potential for AI to help businesses with process automation and optimisation, promote ethical choices and translate text

20 Nov 2024

AI in Government Large Language Models

AI blog series - part 1 - blog header – 1

Problem Lenses: How and when should I use AI? - Part 1

Part 1 of Ali Salaman’s three-part series looks at how AI could help businesses automate repetitive tasks, support complex decisions and generate insights from unstructured data

19 Nov 2024

Large Language Models AI in Government

Global rollout - Ros - blog header – 1

What is it like to roll out a digital service to every country in the world?

Working on a service that requires a global rollout is exciting - but also full of obstacles. CYB’s Associate Project/Delivery Manager Ros Vaughan writes about her experience

24 Oct 2024

Government digital Service design Transformation

Digital Leaders Week - blog header

Webinars, a MeetUp and DL100 award nominations: CYB at Digital Leaders Week

Caution Your Blast have plenty of activity scheduled during DL Week from 14th-18th October – here’s everything we have planned

10 Oct 2024

Large Language Models

AI performance - blog header

How do you ensure performance when building AI services?

When building the FCDO’s first ever public-facing LLM service, CYB came through challenges to guarantee performance - our Head of Engineering Ali Salaman explains all

5 Sept 2024

Large Language Models AI Government digital

AI user research - blog header

What I learned conducting user research for an AI service

Building AI services means new ways of working. CYB’s User Researcher Truly Capell writes about what she learned working on the FCDO’s first public-facing AI-enabled service

24 Jul 2024

Research Ops Research Philosophy User Research

AI content design - blog header – 2

Why AI won’t work without content design

CYB’s associate Content Designer Helen Gaskell writes about why we won’t be able to fully trust AI until we fix the information we feed it

10 Jul 2024

AI in Government Large Language Models AI

Marriage - Launch - blog header – 1

Caution Your Blast announces launch of new UK Government marriage service

CYB has built a new service for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office that makes it easier for British people to get married or register a civil partnership abroad

15 May 2024

Digital service FCDO Service design

AI in Government - Launch - blog header

Caution Your Blast announces launch of new UK Government AI-powered service

CYB has built a new innovative enquiry service for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office that leverages Large Language Model technology – a first for the UK Government.

18 Apr 2024

Large Language Models Government digital AI

AI in Government - Content design - blog header

Being honest about AI services: How much do users need to know?

As CYB helps the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to engineer LLM solutions, we’ve been asking – do users need to know that a service uses AI?

14 Mar 2024

Large Language Models Content design

CYB Christmas letter - blog header – 1

A Christmas letter from CYB

With another exciting, challenging and rewarding year nearly over, CYB’s Founder and Managing Director Ben Stewart reflects on what 2023 has meant for the company

15 Dec 2023

AI Large Language Models

Anita - Research ops - Blog header

Research Ops at CYB: creating tailored frameworks for success

CYB’s User Research Lead Anita Chandra writes about how we developed a bespoke Research Ops model that has already helped our big name clients

11 Oct 2023

Engineering Day - Blog Header

CYB Engineering Day: developing with LLMs for client solutions

Head of Engineering Ali Salaman writes about how his team continues to grow their expertise around Large Language Models

29 Sept 2023

Large Language Models

Research at CYB: creating user segments to make tailored hypothesis Pt1

Research at CYB: creating user segments to make tailored hypotheses (part 1)

In the first blog of a series, CYB’s associate Senior Performance Analyst, John Drinkwater, writes about the project that led to vital research work

17 May 2023

Introducing CYB’s research philosophy

Introducing CYB’s research philosophy

CYB’s Head of Research, Katie John, presents the key values and ideas that underpin our work in the area

12 May 2023

User Research Research Philosophy

Psychological Safety p1

How CYB creates psychological safety in our user research sessions

Caution Your Blast’s Head of Research Katie John writes about how you can navigate difficult subjects when conducting user research

2 May 2023

User Research psychological safety

How to run a successful hackathon

How to run a successful hackathon

CYB's head of engineering, Ali Salaman, shares all you need to know to organise a successful hackathon.

26 Sept 2022

Running research sessions to understand assisted digital support

Running research sessions to understand assisted digital support

As a User Researcher, it is important that we design services that work for everyone. To do this, we need to make sure that we research with people who can’t or don’t want to use digital services.

20 Sept 2022

User Research usability testing

back to school - christine

How to transition into the wonderful world of service design

In this "back to school" blog series, CYB's head of design, Christine Fent shares how you can transition into service design and why now might be the perfect time of year to reassess your career path.

8 Sept 2022

Service design career change

Developers and User Researchers

Why should developers get involved in user research?

This week we hear from Richard Bray, one of CYB's talented web developers on why he thinks developers should get involved in user research.

4 Jul 2022

Development User Research

One week on - Hackathon 2022

One week on from Caution Your Blast’s first hackathon of 2022 - how it went, what we did, and what we learned.

It’s been a whole week since Caution Your Blast’s first hackathon of 2022, and CYB’s Paul Williams has been reflecting on the event - how it went, what we did, and what we learned.

27 May 2022

Hackathon - Blog header

Why CYB is partnering with Climate Edge for its next hackathon

CYB and Climate Edge aim to help smallholder farmers upscale their business

17 May 2022

Climate Innovation Hackathon

Christine Fent quote

How Christine Fent used service design to help UK citizens stranded abroad during Covid-19 lockdowns

Christine Fent, Head of Design at Caution Your Blast

28 Apr 2022

Mike testing

Five things I’ve learned from running remote unmoderated usability tests

Mike Green, an Associate User Researcher, shares one way of testing designs quickly and reliably with lots of users

7 Apr 2022

User Research usability testing

CYB Voices - Roshni

CYB Voices: Spotlight on Rosh Ghedia, User Researcher

An interview with Rosh Ghedia as part of our new series of conversations putting a spotlight on, and celebrating, different members of our team.

16 Feb 2022

Mental model rev

Using mental models to understand complex services

Analysing how users behave and what help they get from organisations

9 Sept 2020

P1170364

Can the COVID cycling trend be helped by digital?

Can the COVID cycling trend be helped by digital?

3 Jul 2020

behavioural change Service design

Bereavement

Researching sensitive topics: what we learnt talking to bereaved families

Learning about difficult subjects through user research

25 Jun 2020