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.

£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.