Design

“In government and the wider public sector, we’ve built our identity around “services.”Digital teams design them, measure them, apply the Service Standard to them. But most of what we call a service isn’t actually a service. More often, the work we label…

“Acceptance criteria (ACs) are a key part of user stories. They set the boundaries of what should be achieved – telling the developer when to stop, the QA how to test, and the product owner what to expect. Because they’re…

“A pidgin language is a simplified language, usually used for trade, that allows people who can’t communicate in their native language to nonetheless work together. User stories act like this. We don’t expect customers or users to view the system…

“The 15 universal principles for designing services that work for users. Use them to design, assess or monitor the quality of any service.” An archived PDF of this page can be downloaded if the original is inaccessible.

“Many services (as end users would know them) transcend teams, directorates, organisations or departments. It’s not obvious where service designers should sit, since we want them to be working on services which by nature don’t always fit current organisation structures.”…

“Organisations have latched on to “user-centered design” as a buzzword. In many cases, executives seem to misinterpret it as a euphemism for “thinking from a user’s perspective.” They don’t fund user research or provide project owners the latitude to create…

“Service design will never be effective if it’s only seen as ‘digital’ or given the remit to work as ‘digital’.” An archived PDF of this page can be downloaded if the original is inaccessible.

“The third list I’m going to tell you about very quickly is the BBC iPlayer, which of course is nothing more than a list, presented well. A list of telly programmes and radio programmes. I thought I’d tell you the…

“Recently I’ve been working on a team thinking about what digital government services might be like in the near future. Conor, our interaction designer, summed up the last 9 years rather well. ‘We essentially create boring magic.’” An archived PDF…

“As I’ve spoken about service design over last few years a number of people have told me that they are business analysts and that they do the things that a service designer does. I’ve especially heard this a lot working…

“Design teams rely on various forms of guidance to maintain consistency, advocate for usability, and find efficiency in their work. There are several types of design guidance, and understanding differences among them helps create a structured approach to design.”  An…

“The Local Government Service Design Maturity Model has been developed for service designers in local authorities to use with council staff. It helps councils to explore how well they support and grow service design practice. Councils can use the model…