The remit of the service designer is rapidly expanding. More and more organisations are seeking to involve designers in order to improve their work processes and drive innovation in service provision. The growing interest in the area was compounded this week by the publication of a supplement with Monday’s Media Guardian dedicated to explaining the unique processes of service design and how design thinking is powering creative change across all sectors, especially in the field of public services. Reflecting on the opportunities and challenges presented in the new information age, Mathew Taylor, chief executive of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce explains that, ”Good design process brings in a good understanding of the context : financial constraints, processes and how human beings behave”. Companies like thinkpublic are using the principles of observation on which service design research is founded to channel new technologies and develop ideas through co-design. Design Council chief executive, David Kester remarks how, “Technology is just ideas. design is about taking those ideas and making them work for people” By recognising the capacity for their employees and services users to become involved the the design process, companies can stay ahead, letting everyone across the organisation have responsibility for research and development and have ‘a connected flow of innovative ideas flowing at every level in the enterprise’.
An article by Pamela Buxton looked at how the pioneering work of thinkpublic provides powerful insight through engaging nteractive research techniques. Focusing on social innovation, the pieces considers how, “people using services may feel isolated and vulnerable” and that “with its holistic and participatory approach to problem solving, service design can directly engage with these end users to identify what they need and how best to deliver it”. The article spoke about a thinkpublic project, part of a Design Council mentoring programme for managers, working with Lewisham Borough Council on investigating ways to improve performance of their homelessness prevention unit. Context was provided for the work by extensive research through visual ethnographic media comprising of three ‘insight’ films. Sean Miller a service designer who collaborated with thinkpublic on the project found the films produced to be ‘incredibly raw and real’ and remarked on how the research was ‘hugely enlightening to both front line staff and management’.
The films were shown at a workshop event with council workers, leading to a ‘What’s next document’ and the generation of 35-40 initial ideas based on this preliminary client research. Ten ideas are now being prototyped which mean that more clients will be able to move the process faster to get off the streets and ultimately into permanent accommodation. Another thinkpublic client, Lynne Maher, acting innovation director at the NHS Institute for Innovation, further elaborates on how by using innovative design processes such as producing ethnographic films, institutions can use the tacit knowledge and experience of frontline staff to identify areas for improvement. “We usually talk about helping patients, but we can also help out own staff, particularly by observation”. thinkpublic worked with the institute on their Productive Ward programme which delivers efficiency with NHS ward staff in order to ‘release time to care’ for patients.
Gaynor Aaltonen, author of much of the Service Design supplement, illustrates that by introducing users and front line staff to the fundamentals of design practice, they can contribute to the generation and testing of low risk prototypes, and improve upon the quality of services. The need for allowing design thinking to inform on how services are delivered follows a great change in how we live today. Society is at saturation point with ‘things’. The emphasis now is on improving experiences, and according to author Dan Pink, “Design without empathy is mediocre design”. The co-design work carried out at thinkpublic puts an emphasis on the iterative, understanding user issues, and working things out with people. Aaltonen proclaims that the public sector is riddled with complexity, and how institutions are increasingly looking to designers, with their ‘ingenious problem solving’ techniques to improve efficiencies and allow civil servants to deliver better services. A participatory approach is the best way to make improvements and public services need to be a two-way dialogue. Given the current pressure on institutions to reform in the wake of the econonic crisis, organisations will need to ‘listen adapt and collaborate’. The UK has outgrown Beveridge’s Welfare state, having built up up layer upon bureacratic layer. “If what is needed is systemic change, design is a highly practical force as well as a driver of innovation”