Can Design Really Deliver ‘More For Less’

A few weeks ago I was interviewed by Design Week for a short feature on Public Sector Design called Civic Strategy. It’s a fairly straight forward ‘state of play’ type article, but the thing that struck me was that everyone quoted reiterated a similar point. That design can deliver ‘more for less’, but can it?

Can design really offer ‘more for less’?
Yes, I admit it, I have used this phrase, but it’s everywhere. How many times have you heard this recently? Count it over the next week and I bet it gets into double figures.

It’s the strapline for an economy that doesn’t want to admit it’s messed up. But it’s optimistic, which I like. There’s no point feeling all rubbish about stuff is it? However, when it comes to the design industry is the statement true or is it a phrase that simply tries to tick the ‘value’, ‘resourceful’ and ‘effective’ boxes for clients.

What do we mean by more?
We are talking about more hospital beds because of growing health problems, more school places due to our rising population, more prison cells because of greater inequality and more police on the street to catch the criminals etc etc. All very expensive and increasing all the time.

But as well as the physical stuff we also mean ‘more expectation’
Expectations of what our public services should be doing for us. People manage their own bank accounts, phone bills and social lives online so there is frustration when government services just don’t match up to these seamless interactions experienced elsewhere.

The ‘More’ in the phrase “design can deliver more for less” could be described by the term ‘added value’ and covers what I believe to be the following 3 statements:

1. The design of better quality services
2. The design of a better customer experiences
3. The design of solutions that have greater impact

What do we mean by less
Quite simply, as the ex Chancellor of the Exchequer, Liam Byrne summed up on a post it note: “I’m afraid to tell you there’s no money left.”

So how can this be achieved for less?
It can’t. It’s simple economics that you cannot continue to deliver better, or even the same services for less money. Can you make them more efficient? Yes. Can you improve the quality of them? Yes. But can you do this for around 25% less money? I don’t think so. Just think about yourself here, could you continue to live the same lifestyle if your pay was cut by 25% and the cost of your bills kept on rising?

Well that’s a bit rubbish for design isn’t it?
Not entirely, have a think how this works in other industries and you get a better picture; in the airline industry, if you pay less you expect to get a worse service. Passangers on Ryanair expect a poor service and pay less because of this, BA passangers pay more and expect greater service experiences, which are generally delivered through booked seats, in-flight food and customer service.

So it’s all about expectation?
Sort of…this contrast tends to work out overall with two different designs for what is essentially the same thing, a flight from A to B. You could look into other similar experiences like a hospital appointment, train journey or shopping trip and see much the same thing — Design being used to create the communications and delivery mechanisms.

So, can design offer ‘more for less’?
It can’t save the economy from being bad, it can’t save the world and it certainly won’t make everything fine and dandy but it can offer a solution to the ‘more’ half of this statement.
By applying design to public services and using it to design better quality services, better customer experiences and more targeted solutions it can create a consistent journey for the customer, user or provider that sets expectations as well as meeting them.

With regards to the ‘less’ element than it gets a bit tricky. Creatives have never been keen on measurement, but the argument that using design will create the better services (described above) for less money feels like we are all telling each other it’s all going to be fine and ignoring the fact that we simply cannot prove, except from a few examples, that design makes public services cheaper.

However, if design is great at creating an ‘added value’ proposition then surely it’s great at creating ‘value subtracted’ propositions? Or should they be treated as two separated beasts, like the accounts and creative department of design agencies.

So to sum up
Let’s stop using political soundbites like ‘more for less’ and start thinking of better ways that design can have an impact and create a positive impact on the future of public services. We already know how to do the added value bit really well, now lets see how good we are at making it fit the new economy.

What do you think? I’d love to hear what’s on your mind right now. Email me directly or even better, share it with the world and leave your comment here!

Service Design in Cardiff

I’m passionate about “Helping other people think Like a Designer”, I get the most joy in my work when I’m helping other people practice design methods such as observation, prototyping and user testing. Through my work at thinkpublic I have been fortunate enough to work on projects that do exactly this, teaching NHS staff how to look for the right things, school teachers to focus on their experiences and helping councilors to prototype their ideas.

However, after 5 years of working in the big smoke I am off to start a new venture in Cardiff. I’ll be leaving thinkpublic in July and leave behind a company that has grown from a couple of people back in 2005, into the UK’s leading social innovation and design agency. I feel really proud to have been a part of this and look back at the many successful projects i’ve worked on, such as; Experience Based Design, The Productive Ward and The Dementia Advisor Service. Projects that will continue to impact on public services for years to come.

One of the first steps on my new venture was a presentation I gave at the rather wonderful Chapter Arts Centre. It was part of last month’s Pecha Kucha Night Cardiff and included a selection of interesting talks from people such as; Julian Sykes from Hoffi, Peter D Cox from Cardiff Civic Society and Anand George from Mint and Mustard.

I will continue to blog about service design, social innovation and design thinking here and look forward to sharing more about my new venture soon.

Register now for #PKNCDF

Tickets are now available for the second Pecha Kucka Night Cardiff on Thursday 27th May. I’ll be presenting a talk entitled ‘Helping people think like a designer’, it should be a brief intro to Design Thinking, Service Design & Engagement. The night is happening at Chapter Arts and tickets are free but you do need to register, which you can do here

Pecha Kucha is a presentation format that encourages concise points, bold visuals and fun. It does this by strictly limiting presenters to 20 slides for 20 seconds each.

Service design as a marketing strategy

User testing campaigns have been running for a long time; from Dove Soap ads in the 1950’s to Danny Baker’s ‘Daz Doorstep Challenge’ in the 1990’s. These ads presented the product as ‘hero’, a must-have item that will solve your problems. Recently though, a number campaigns have shifted this focus and presented the product or service ‘in development’, or; service design marketing.

Service design as a marketing strategy, some examples:
Windows 7 / User Insights

Universally disliked but still an interesting approach. The “Windows 7 was my idea” pulls out user-insights from different users who, we assume have been involved in the design process. Maybe it’s just me but i simply don’t trust this campaign is real. The focus on what was wrong with previous versions does strike a chord though It does demonstrate a certain amount of product honesty, like you would expect during the user-insights stage.
Image: thinkpublic

The Oxo Factor / Co-design

Launched last year this campaign invited families to come together and design a new version of the famous Oxo ads. The website contained co-design tools that supported families through the deisgn and filmmaking process. An engaging and hig-profile campaign (finalists were broadcast during the X-Factor final) that reflects the brand’s key value, ‘family’.

Confused.com / Prototype & Test

A comparison website that uses it’s UX as it’s unique selling point. Videos of what we are led to believe are user experience tests are shown being conducted by a diverse range of customers. The advertisments build trust, highlight it’s ease of use and finish with the desired outcome (i.e cheaper car insurance). This campaign’s strength is in how convincing the tests are.
Image: Fluent Studios

In service design we capture the process, visualise the insights and map out the stakeholders. We then use these to explain the journey, to evidence the depth of research and to form the basis of our service designs.

But what if we aren’t just designing a service but creating content for a marketing campaign too? Recent campaigns from Confused.com, Oxo and Windows 7 do just this, basing their campaigns around the user-insights and user-testing phases in the design process.

I’d like to see a high-profile campaign that was built around the whole service design process. A compelling design story that sold a new service as well as demonstrated the organisation’s work process. Which service or organisation would you want to see a campaign from?

Service Design Thinking Is Now Online

An abridged version of the ‘Brief Guide to Service Design Thinking’ presentation myself and Nick Marsh have been working on is now online. This version is focused what it means for people interested in UX (it was delivered at the UX Brighton event in January).

Amazingly, it’s only been up 24 hours and it’s already had over 500 views, been the most ‘tweeted’ presentation on SlideShare and made it onto the homepage.

If you run an event and would like to discuss how ‘A Brief Guide To Service Design’ could be tailored to your audience, or you would like us to talk at your conference then please get in touch.

£30k for great intergenerational project ideas

I’m currently working on a project at thinkpublic for the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to develop a new approach to supporting social innovation projects. The first stage of this process is a call for ideas that is currently open for UK projects at www.intergenerationall.org and for Portuguese projects at www.entregeracoes.org, or you can follow the project on twitter.

If you have a great idea then your organisation could be awarded £30,000 of funding to make it happen. They are looking for innovative and dynamic intergenerational projects that deal with three key issues: Environment, Migration and Intercultural issues, and Isolation and Loneliness.

Designer Coppers & Raw Ideas

A few of my friends are police officers — they joined the service because they wanted to make a difference, make people safer, lock up criminals and do something important. But, whenever I speak to them about their jobs it’s always the negative aspects they focus on.

During a recent conversation I decided to push the concerns of one friend further, fresh from reading Tim Brown’s Change by Design I asked myself “How can we make the local community safer and police officer’s interactions with residents better?” and re-connect him to why he joined the Police in the first place.

Further discussion with other colleagues and friends who are members of the justice service uncovered some very similar themes. I spoke with magistrates, social workers and senior police officers who all identified four key areas — or design challenges:

How can we…?

1: Deliver a high-quality service with fewer resources
2: Manage tensions between police surveillance, data collection and public consent to this approach
3: Communicate the different roles and responsibilities within the police service
4: Engage with the local community using technology

Obviously this isn’t a full design project and these are merely casual conversations, but the things that have really struck me over the past few months are how many ‘raw’ ideas people had for how these challenges could be addressed.

A design process that employs observation, brainstorming and prototyping has the potential to address any design challenge, but we shouldn’t ignore the ‘raw ideas’ that people working within organisations have in them. These are magnificent starting points that have already undergone hours of design thinking, even if the person doing so is unaware what’s happening — It’s our job to unlock these and use design to make them reality.

I have written up a few of the best ideas below. Some are quite specific and relate to particular aspects of the job that have a big impact on officers and/or the public whereas others refer to systemic issues. I’ve tried to group together similar ideas wherever possible and hope they provide interest, stimulation and inspiration. Continue reading…

A Brief Guide To Service Design Thinking

Myself and Nick Marsh presented our first ‘Brief guide to Service Design’ presentation last Tuesday at UX Brighton. The presentation focuses on two key areas — Design Doing & Design Thinking and provides what we believe to be a true reflection of the practice and approaches of Service Design today.

UX Brighton is a network for people interested in digital media, they run regular networking events, talks and book clubs. All events are published on www.uxbrighton.org or you can follow them on twitter. Thanks to UX Brighton for having us, iCrossing for hosting the event and Magax for the beers.