Design Council
We are all becoming more astute consumers. As we learn more about how to get what we expect from private businesses we are coming to expect more from our public services too.
The need for innovative solutions that help the public sector respond to what the public expects, has become widely recognised. We also appreciate that the public sector operates within tight budgetary constraints so it needs to get results that are cost effective, efficient and that deliver the right experience for the public. Design has a clear role to play here. It can help the public sector take innovative approaches to the creation and development of its services.
At strategic level, Government has recognised the imperative for innovation in the public sector and the Design Council has set up Public Services by Design, a new programme to enable and inspire innovation within public services which will help government create services that are not only cost effective, but connect the public into the heart of policy making.
The design process is at its simplest a means of problem solving. We see and use design all the time, whether on iPods or advertising campaigns, so design is often seen to be of use solely in the delivery of such end products. However, the design tools and methods used to create great products are also ideally suited to the development of people centred policies and services.
Design approaches the complex problems of service delivery from the perspective of the people who both use and deliver it. It works in a collaborative and highly visual way to develop an insightful, inclusive set of solutions that effectively balance the needs of the user with those of the provider.
Find out more about the design process, and see how it has been applied in service innovation
Public Services by Design will be co-developed over the next two years with a programme available from autumn 2010. We are currently undertaking this co-design process through a series of workshops and live projects alongside a wide range of people working in public service delivery, policy, and design.
If you would like to become involved with the programme, or nominate a particular project to be involved in this development phase, please email us at: publicservicesbydesign@designcouncil.org.uk
Designs of the time (Dott) spent 2007 asking how design could improve how people live. The public services they use on a regular basis - schools, health services and transport for instance - were at the centre of the design projects undertaken. The results show that design methods can help identify what people really think about public services. Users were also involved in the design process and they helped identify practical ways to make public services more user friendly so that they would be better used and become better value for money.
In more depthYou can find out more about what happened from the
Dott websiteRead more about how to meet the challenges of
designing services, written by Bill Hollins, management and marketing expert, and about
inclusive design from Roger Coleman, Professor of Inclusive Design and co-Director of the Helen Hamlyn Centre at the Royal College of Art.
