In the first episode of our new Meet the Team series, Meg speaks to Oceanne, about multiple uploads, new projects and cold January nights.   Transcript Megan Hayward: Hello and welcome to Companies House Meet the Team podcast. My name’s Meg and I work in our external communications department, and I’ll be hosting this series. I’m here today with Oceanne. Oceanne Esparcieux: Hi MH: So hello Oceanne and welcome to our brand new series. Thank you so much for agreeing to be our debut guest. I feel so excited about this series and I’m really pleased to be sat here with you today. How are you? OE: I’m very well thank you. MH: Good, how’s January treating you so far? OE: It’s pretty dark. I don’t think I’ve seen daylight for a few months but it’s treating me pretty well. MH: I feel like we're coming out the other side. The weather looks nice for this weekend. OE: Yeah, I'm hopeful that we’ll see some sunshine soon. MH: So firstly can you just tell me your role title and how you fit into the wider team here at Companies House? OE: I'm an interaction designer and I work within the product team which is situated in the digital department. And my job is to basically design the digital services that we have at Companies House. So everything is moving away from being paper-based and is hopefully going to be online within the next few years. MH: That's fabulous. I think that's the way loads of places are trying to move. OE: I hope so because I hate speaking to people on the phone and I hate filling out forms, so if I can do it online, it’s a bit better. MH: It’s the future isn’t it? OE: Yeah. MH: So I've had this plan that we’re going to have these jokey opening questions to get us going at the start of every podcast, so obviously you’re the first. So I’m going to start with… cats or dogs? OE: Dogs. MH: Tea or coffee? OE: Coffee. MH: Introvert or extrovert? OE: Introvert. MH: Night owl or early bird? OE: Night owl. I’ve got one for you. MH: What? OE: Starter or dessert. MH: Both. Starter. OE: Good shout. MH: Okay, so, moving on. Back to work. Which piece of work are you really proud of? OE: I haven't been at Companies House for very long, so I've not had a chance to work on many services. But I did develop a service for applying for an extension for your filing deadline. And within that service, which has passed assessments and you can now use it online if you need an extension. Within that service, we have file upload and it was a pattern that we didn’t actually have in government yet. So I helped design it with my colleague, Ollie. So we helped build it and it's now available online. And it's not just a single file upload, you can upload multiple files. And it's going to be the standard across all of Companies House file uploads now. MH: That's really rewarding isn’t it. OE: Yep, definitely. MH: So why do users need to upload files? OE: If they are applying for an extension, they need to upload a file to provide evidence to the team within Companies House that will decide whether the extension will be granted. And at the moment when it’s paper-based or by email, 10% of all applications come with files attached. So we wanted to be able to give the user that same opportunity online as well. And it makes them feel like their application is going to be considered slightly better because they’re actually providing evidence for their reason. MH: Yeah, that's really interesting. It's not just a tick box, it's giving that evidence that people can see their reasonings behind. OE: They’re not just saying they’re ill, they’re saying I was ill and here’s a doctor's note. MH: Yeah, definitely. So why do stakeholders need the users to upload files? OE: So it allows the team, the internal team more information, to be able to make that decision. So not taking everything on blind faith, they’re actually being able to dig in a bit deeper and make sure that they can verify things. MH: So Oceanne, why do we need multiple file uploads? OE: Good qu