RED
Designing future public services
Jennie Winhall
Senior Design Strategist, RED

RED
Tackling social and economic issues
through design-led innovation

interdisciplinary team
Hilary Cottam
Designer of the Year 2005
Davos Young Global Leader
Colin Burns
Former head of IDEO Europe
Associates
Charles Leadbeater
Robin Murray

RED 00: prisons
Design for rehabilitation
Partners:
Prison Service

RED 03: energy
Private households contribute
40% of London’s carbon emissions
Partners:
Mayor’s Office
London Energy Partnership
Energy Saving Trust
London Climate Change agency
Borough of Lewisham

RED 04: MPs
New ways for Members of Parliament
to interact with their constituents
Partners:
Ed Miliband MP
Doncaster North constituency office

Public sector reform
“Investment alone is not enough.
The key to reform is re-designing
the system around the user - the
patient, the pupil, the passenger,
the victim of crime.”
Rt Hon Tony Blair, Oct 2001

Limits to modernisation
1 Society has changed:
Many public services were designed in the 1950s or earlier
2 Demand outstrips supply:
Healthcare alone is set to cripple the economy by 2030
3 Emerging social issues

1 in 10 people in the UK
will have diabetes by 2010.
24% of UK children are
obese. Private households
contribute 40% of London’s
CO2 emissions.

1 in 10 people in the UK
will have diabetes by 2010.
24% of UK children are
obese. Private households
contribute 40% of London’s
CO2 emissions.

A new generation of public services
- Designed around individuals
- Co-created
- Preventative

Three things…
1 new healthcare services – two case studies
2 designing for behaviour change
3 transformation design

RED 02: health
An epidemic of chronic disease:
- One in 5 adults is obese
- By 2010 one in 10 of us will have diabetes
- Diabetes alone costs the NHS £10million a day

Communities of
co-creation
- peer to peer collaboration
- open source
- distributed access
- non-hierarchical organisation
- user-driven

a short film…

01
Section title
participants

design process

Living well with type II diabetes
With Bolton Diabetes Network and the people of Bolton

User experience research

Character profiling

Opportunities
1 Segmentation based on character types
2 Interactions that are dynamic, personal, collaborative
3 Tools and services to support people in their daily lives

Hugh

Redesigning interactions

Redesigning interactions

Support
Motivation not medicine
‘Knowing strugglers’

Support

Support

Next steps

Increasing activity in 40-70 year olds
Kent County Council and the residents of Park Wood

User experience research

Opportunities
1 stretching existing interests and activities
2 social occasion
3 peer pressure

activmobs

activmobs

welliemob
timemob
backmob
Prototyping with live mobs

social dynamics

Motivation 1
Feeling better

Motivation 2
Seeing progress

2 designing for behaviour change

Meaningful metrics

roles
Co-created services platform
rules
tools

Aspiration

Generation 1
improving existing services: incremental innovation

Generation 2
Co-creating new services: radical innovation

3 Transformation design

3 Transformation design
Characteristics:
1 redefining the brief
2 collaboration between disciplines
3 fundamental transformation
4 participatory design work
5 building capacity not dependency
6 non-traditional outputs

3 Transformation design
Challenges for designers

Ageing

www.designcouncil.org.uk/RED
jennie.winhall@designcouncil.org.uk

RED creates future services with and for the public. RED is a 'do tank' that develops new
thinking and practice through design-led innovation. We design new services, systems,
and products that address social and economic problems.
For further information on the work of RED please visit www.designcouncil.org.uk/RED
RED
Design Council
34 Bow Street
London WC2E 7DL
United Kingdom
Telephone +44(0) 20 7420 5200
Facsimile +44(0)20 7420 5300
Email info@designcouncil.org.uk
www.designcouncil.org.uk
© Design Council November 2006
Charity number 272099
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 2.5 Licence. The Design
Council must be credited as authors. Work is only altered with our permission. Work is not resold.