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!

The Future of Publishing

Clever little video from the UK branch of publisher, Dorling Kindersley. There is an interview with the creator of this film on the Penguin Blog and you can view the original inspitation for this film here.

Creative Review Annual 2010

Last year I managed a a project at thinkpublic with The Young Foundation, Kingston PCT and The Cambridge Road Estate in Kingston, Surrey.

The project’s aim was to discover what residents living on the estate made them feel happy and healthy, by understanding these common aims and drivers the Primary Care Trust were able to make better decisions about how to deal with the long term health inequalities that existed in the area.

To engage with the local community and health services thinkpublic designed a campaign called YouCanKingston and a text message feedback system. I’m excited to say that this work has now been selected for the Creative Review Annual 2010. They have also published this year’s Annual as a very smart iPhone application.

Design Week: Thinking About Co-Production

Co-production is where there’s a shared responsibility for the delivery of a service. The term ‘Co-production’ is being used all over the place at the moment but it’s still a grassroots model with many projects running on a very small scale. Well, NESTA are trying to change that and have launched a new paper called ‘The Challenge of Co-production’ to kick things off.

Just before christmas I was asked by Design Week to comment on NESTA’s new publication, particularly with it’s relevance to co-design. These have been published in this week’s magazine so I thought i’d share them too — here’s a snippet from the article:

“Thinkpublic head of design Paul Thurston is forgiving of the paper’s lack of focus on co-design, saying, ‘As a company that provides design services it is very beneficial to have Nesta promoting this way of thinking and approach to public services.’

He also states that co-design comes before co-production in the creation of services, suggesting that the paper is correct that co-design ‘can lack any continuing involvement in delivery’.

Says Thurston, ‘Co-production is a product of the co-design process, at the end of which you hand over a service that has been designed in partnership with end-users to those users and professionals who deliver the service.’

To read the full publication download it here (PDF).

Designing Services with Innovative Methods

Earlier this year I was invited to write an article for a book by Satu Miettinen and Miko Koivisto called ‘Designing Services with Innovative Methods’. The article aims to discuss the key areas of opportunity for service design in public services; these include building capability from within organisations, creating meaningful user involvement and personalising public services. I have used examples from my work at thinkpublic throughout to highlight how this can be achieved.

The book has now been published by The University of Helsinki and Kuiopo Acadamy of Design in Finland and is available to buy through their bookshop. A number of reviews have also started to appear on service design blogs such as Jeff Howard’s Design for Service and the response has been very positive.

The book includes an overview of the Service Design field from Satu Mittien as well as articles from Fran Samolias (IDEO), Arne Van Oosterom (Design Thinkers) and Ezio Manzini (Politecnico di Milano) to name but a few.

Design Week Voxpop

Last week I was invited to write a Voxpop for Design Week, the Voxpop is a weekly feature in the magazine where four design experts are asked to respond to a news item/proposition from the design industry that week.

The proposition I was asked to respond to was:

“The world’s biggest mobile phone makers have announced a deal to use a universal phone charger that will work on millions of handsets. What single design change would improve your everyday life?”

And my response was:

“As a commuter who has to spend more that 15 hours a week travelling, I would like to see a similar ‘universal approach’ adopted by train companies. Different operators delivering differing levels of service, quality and speed in a network that doesn’t link up has a massive impact on my life. The design that I would like to see is a franchise system that delivers on quality, offers good passenger experience and encourages innovation.”