Public Services by Design - Snook

Public Service DesignWe are Snook | @wearesnook @wearesnook
Public services by
design
Sarah Drummond

Today I will talk about:
A short design history
Design methods
Models of designing public services

A short history
The industrialisation of design
provided our discipline with new
‘mental models’

We are in the next
industrial revolution.
Previously, patterns
changed our work and
design went through
industrialisation

Louis Sullivan, founding father of
modernism
(Wainwright building)

Form follows function
Descriptive: beauty results from
purity of function;
Prescriptive: aesthetic
considerations in design should be
secondary to functional
considerations.

Ornamentation is crime

Founding Industrial Design as an
profession and an expertise

Design Council
"to champion great design that
improves lives and makes things
better"
Mission statement, 1944

Design Research Unit
"[a need for a] service equipped to
advise on all problems of design...
addressing the needs of "the State,
Municipal Authorities, Industry or
Commerce." [anticipated a post-war
demand for] "the reconditioning and
re-designing public utility services"

RED studio
‘We design new public services,
systems, and products that address
social and economic problems. These
problems are increasingly complex
and traditional public services are ill-
equipped to address them.’
RED 02 Transformation Paper 2006

Service Dominant Logic
A meta-theoretical framework for explaining value
creation, through exchange, among configurations of
actors. The underlying idea of S-D logic is that
humans apply their competences to benefit others
and reciprocally benefit from others' applied
competences through service-for-service exchange
(Vargo and Lusch, 2004)

SILK
‘To do policy differently’
An in-house innovation lab inside Kent
County Council, 2007 spearheaded by
Sophia Parker

Government as a
platform
Building products and services whilst developing
capabilities across all Governent departments

Building Gov.UK
Took government services online,
saving in first 5 years £3.2 billion

Scaling through patterns
GDS and other ministerial
departments are now producing
design and service patterns to
minimise duplication of effort and
scale Service Design

Design for all users all of the time
Government in the UK is slowly
embracing Service Design and
sectors are following their work with
interest

How we design and
deliver services is
changing but we have lots
of hard work to do.

We have unconsciously
designed complex, broken and
hard to run services because
we thought about everything
as products

“I spend most of my working day typing and inputting
services plans, ﬁling, etc., all admin tasks.”
The British Association of Social Workers and Social Workers Union

Administration costs us people
We have created systems that don’t solve problems.
They create more work, cost us more to run and take us
away from the frontline

20% of UK GDP is spent on public services
80% of the cost of government is spent on
services
- Louise Downe, Deputy Director for standards and services, British Government

Design is not a panacea but a helpful
mindset and tool to safely test
transformations for services in the public
realm

I have roots in Product
Design, via Government
and Snook

Public sector = No design
Mapping policy to delivery from Scottish Government (2007-2010)

In early 2000s
embedding design
became a term
discussed in the
design industry.
The Royal Society of
Arts began to
document this.

Public Service DesignWe are Snook | @wearesnook @wearesnookPresentation titleSpeaker name | @twitterhandle @wearesnook
8 years
250+ projects
Scottish born with global ambitions

We are an award-winning design
agency based in Glasgow & London,
helping organisations produce great
services by putting people first

We’re on a mission
to make services
better everywhere,
wherever they may be
Presentation titleSpeaker name | @twitterhandle @wearesnook

We believe in building the
capabilities of organisations to
design so they can deliver great
services themselves

Service Design
is the design
of services

We explore
business processes
in alignment with what
people experience

Helping someone to do the
thing they need to do

Every touchpoint,
interactions on
every channel

Front to back,
back to front,
inside and outside
the organisation

Joined-up channels
We ensure touchpoints
line up across all
channels for the
customer and that your
service is efficiently
delivered.
User-centred
We research and
understand how people
experience your service
in order to improve it.
End-to-end experience
We map end-to-end
journeys and ensure
customers can easily
transact with you.

Service design is mindset and
principles over a defined approach

Design is grounded
by user research

Putting people first,
understanding what people
need not what they want

End users are staff too

Finding problems and
problem caring
Here’s my top five IT fix requests:
1. Use standard usernames
Each system appears to require its own type of login. My usernames include
hoggda80645, david.hogg. dhogg, hoggd, hoggd80927, DHOGG,
80927hoggd and david. Add to that inconsistent passwords (some requiring
uppercase, some not allowing uppercase, others needing punctuation).
Solution: We need this to be standardised. The NHSnet email address is a
good place to start for a username or alternatively couldn’t we use the
registration number - GMC, NMC, HPCC? The username ‘gmc123456’ makes
a lot more sense.

Working visually
Communicating ideas
through form, interrogating
touchpoints

Design is everything
The function, the language,
the service name, the end
delivery

Testing and prototyping to
develop products and
services

Continuous Improvement,
constantly delivering
improvement, not just
delivering a new product

Inside Out On the edge Outside

Big LotteryWe are Snook | @wearesnook @wearesnook

Pre-discovery
Understand
what the
problems are to
create focused
discovery
brief(s)
Discovery
Research to
find out what
people need,
context, current
process
Alpha
Build ideas that
respond to
needs and test
concepts
iteratively
Beta
Public or closed
testing at scale
preparing for
live launch
Live
Launching fully
and ensuring
performance
review in place
to continuously
improve

Exploring the needs
of customers using
digital public
services
Making digital transformation work for citizens and
local government

Shadowed users
through services.
We wanted to
understand the end to
end user journey.

We map these
highlighting patterns
where there are issues
across multiple
channels. Where can
we meet user needs?

“Snook helped us develop a much stronger strategic
understanding of the service design approach and
to start building in-house expertise in Renfrewshire
Council. They proved to be a great choice of partner
in our move to adopt service design as a core
approach to the improvement of services and
access for all our citizens”
- David Amos, Head of Policy and Commissioning

Designing a £600,000
funding programme based
on what women need
We explored what role digital technologies can play in helping to
support women affected by domestic violence and abuse.

Interviewed survivors
of domestic violence
and mapped to
quantitative research
on people’s needs

We build user stories
to frame the design
As a
_________
I need _________
So I can _________

to frame the design
When _________
I need _________
So I can _________

to frame the design
When I feel the confidence to leave
I need to know the critical documents to
take
So I can leave safely in under 15 minutes

Built experience maps
from interviews with
survivors of domestic
violence. We then
framed their
challenges

We are trying to
understand and
present detailed
insights across the
journey of domestic
violence. What do they
need and when?

Stimulating tech
innovation among support
organisations
The 10 new collaborations are funded
by Comic Relief and Big Lottery Fund.
They’re user-led and test-led, working
on the 5 design challenges outlined from
this research. Snook provides expert support
and input to the funded projects.
New tech for good projects in the
UK working on increasing the
digital products and services
available to women.

In the news
'I had minutes to make the call':
the tech helping domestic abuse
survivors
“I’d like to see technology which is
consistently iterated and tested at
every step of the way with
survivors.”
- Eve Georgieva, Snook
'I was black with bruises. I didn't
recognise myself.' Domestic
abuse calls reach all-time high -
but experts hope technology can
help
The project aims to create
technology that will allow a victim
to find help and record evidence
of abuse.
It’s time to be bold: How we can
use technology in the fight
against domestic abuse
Digital technology is an
undervalued resource in our fight
against domestic abuse.

Future-proofing social
housing allocation
We turned insights into action for Wheatley Group’s
development of housing services and embedded a person-
centred approach within the organisation.

“We need empathy to understand
complex needs!”
Wheatley Group’s five-year strategy
commits to increasing sustained
tenancies and increased customer
satisfaction to above 90%. To help
achieve these commitments, it’s
important to understand current and
future customers’ journeys.

Co-designing new service
journeys
We facilitate then frame the design
with Wheatley Group’s service users to
define what good looks like.
We then, as a design team, define
what is possible to deliver.

From personal stories to future needs
achieved through journey mapping
We found across regions there was no
one consistent way of defining
accessibility, costing huge expense in
re-homing shortly after moving in.

On the edge
Value in being the outsiders to bring a new
perspective on how services are delivered
Difficult to always reach or be part of full
implementation
Costly for the organisation

Public Service DesignWe are Snook | @wearesnook @wearesnookPublic Service DesignWe are Snook | @wearesnook @wearesnook

“Having a twitter account seems more dangerous than
having a gun - we’re not trained”
- Police sergeant

We prototype through
sketching and building
‘fake’ experiences to
create a solution that
meets needs

We then run usability
testing of all
touchpoints before
launching the service

Service RepublicWe are Snook | @wearesnook @wearesnook
“I know from the enthusiastic way in which you laid out
the potential of your interactive site that there are real
possibilities here for much greater engagement and
rapid response”
- David Blunkett

"The issue of inconsiderate parking ... can have a
significant impact on those with disabilities, parents
using pushchairs and just be a general nuisance to
pedestrians.
"MyPolice has helped highlight this problem to us
and as a result we are working together with Perth
and Kinross local authority to proactively tackle the
issue."
- Sergeant, Amanda Nicolson

Outside
Social Innovation / service transformation more
achievable as less system constraints
Difficult to turn models into everyday operation
Can be used as a model for organisations to drive
service transformation

Ireland’s First Public Sector
Service Innovation Centre
Cork County Council

“The senior team at Cork County
Council wanted to improve
customer and staff outcomes
county-wide and set up a centre
to use and showcase service
design approaches.
With a council in the process of
‘going digital’ we saw an
opportunity to ensure services
were led by user needs.”
James Fogarty, Deputy Chief Executive

Focus on council
Customer Service Transformation
Develop their design capability

Building a user-centered
council for citizens and staff

Designing services not
forms.
Moving from a lift and shift
attitude.

Housing Representations
Elected Members
Housing Department
Live training project

250
Reps a month
15 minutes to process
each one
5
Hours to process the
reps daily
3
Day acknowledgement
KPI with a
10 day response time
wasn’t being met
The situation was ….

Stakeholder
and journey
mapping
Session
User
Research and
Interviews
Persona
Development
and user
need
Blueprinting
user stories
High level
prototyping
of the service
Co-designing
detail of the
form and
service
Usability
testing and
research
Review
Meetings
Discovery
Alpha

Research:
User interviews
Shadowing Staff
Observation
We interviewed users - local and
national elected members, analysed
how staff ran the service and the
existing data we had been collecting

It seemed really rather
complicated...

Customers meet
directly with Public
Rep or with staff in
their office.
Liaise with reps
one to one, over
phone/email to
offer advise and
answer and
questions
Email confirmation
15 mins per
application
Scanning
paperwork
System very slow.
Checks info
available
Norma emails user
to advise query is
waiting for them to
answer. Chases
user to answer.
Further information
sought through Norma
or system updated
Not everyone updates
system
Councillor gets
acknowledged for
work done
Norma checks
data on CCS and
ihouse
Email,
Post,
Face to Face
Clinics/Office
Phone
Email
Post
Face to Face
Telephone
Email
Face to Face
Emaill
Post
CCS System
Scanning
documentation
CCS System
Internal Post
Email
Excel Spreadsheets
iHouse
Phone Email Email
Post
Clinics/Office
Phone
Email
Post
Face to Face
STAGESTORYBORADFEELINGTOUCHPOINTINTERACTION
Local Rep meets
Constituent
Local Rep
Contacts CCC
Norma confirm
receipt.
Norma inputs
data into
System
CCC forwards
query to relevant
dept
Dept answers query,
looks for further
information &
updates system
Dept advises
Norma of updates
CCC advises
local rep of
updates
Local Rep contacts
constituent

“It is time consuming to document, scan and upload
original correspondence onto CCS system takes
approx. 15 mins. Excluding the time involved
chasing staff for answers, sending confirmation and
other correspondences”
- Norma, Housing Department

Lack of clarity on what
information is actually
needed and useful to
submit a representation
● Elected representatives send in
everything they think is relevant
● Photos are not required by Council
staff
● Lack of clarity around what is
and is not required to process
a representation

TD’s (which is the Government elected
member) make a higher amount of
representations than local councillors
Councillors (Local Elected Members)
can ‘shine a light’ on individual cases
of citizens

The Re-design
Standardising data collection
Document to support elected members
Developed a workflow for housing staff

Re-designing the service:
Great engagement from
elected members and staff
● Ran prototyping workshops to
design what information is needed
● Breaking down the content
● Co-designing the needs across
different users

Language was important
Senior management recognised how
important the language was when
we walked through the service
visually in the co-design workshop

Usability Testing:
Testing our design with
elected members
Usability testing on the YourCouncil.ie
(Firmstep platform) allowed us to
quickly test our designs and find out
what worked and what didn’t before
going live

Processing Reps
The processing of documents by
housing policy reduced from 15
minutes to less than 2 minutes per
rep. In most cases elected members
are submitting relevant documents.
This means roughly a week of time
saved per administrative staff member
per month.
Decrease in time spent processing

Instant Response
The reps are getting instant
acknowledgements – they
were previously waiting weeks
despite having a KPI of 3 days.
Nearly 75% of responses can
be answered straightaway
once they’re in the system.
Decrease in time spent waiting for
acknowledgement

Data Dashboard
A Dashboard is now always available which
saves ½ day a month (6 days a year) in
preparing a report for the Development
Committee
Day a month saving in
preparing data

Saving on every acknowledgement
and response
Cost Savings in postage
There is a cost saving in postage of
€1 per acknowledgment and
response.
This is a saving duplicated for the
council and the elected members.
We think this is roughly €12,000 a
year in savings for the council and
elected members

Cost Savings in staff
We’ve cleared the backlog so much
so that the staff member we had been
working with has been freed up to
work on other projects and initiatives
two days a week.
Days a week for staff
members now free

The real value of the service
emerged through this work
Reps are service co-producers in supporting some of the
most vulnerable and marginalised in our communities.

We’ve hooked housing
Our short intervention created an appetite for more Service
Design. We’re now looking at repairs, enquiries and grants.

Winning Hearts and Minds
“For me, the greatest part of the process had to be changing people’s mind-
sets. Initially we weren’t given the go-ahead to work with elected members.
After taking senior management in housing through the process, they got
onboard, organised information and training workshops. I skipped back to the
office”
Karen Fitzgerald, Customer Service Transformation Team

Where now?
Multiple projects underway
using Service Design
approaches
From library services to flood risk,
planning to environmental reporting

We’re now collecting
and analysing data on
what works
We can follow transactions by
service users to continuously
tweak our services and we are
in control.
Data is our new material.

We’re creating the
business case to feed
upstream.
We’re analysing our
performance against
Government digital standards,
and producing reports
contrasting service
performance and maintenance
possibility pre and post design.

Inside Out
Requires upfront strategic readiness of
organisation
Takes a longer period of culture change and
strategy to move from
Requires significant investment
Short term results are quick, however longer term
commitment can lack focus after first investment

Building design capabilities
We’ve been focusing on building the capabilities of
organisations whilst we deliver live projects

Dormant
Unconscious
incompetence
The organisation doesn't
recognise it isn't performing or
where weaknesses lie.
Design deficit
No resource for design or
literacy to recognise the value
Starting Block
Conscious
incompetence
The organisation are making the
first steps to improve and are at
the planning stage of how to do
this.
Clean Slate
Solo lead or one design expert,
often organisation will be
smothering this person to a
clear goal to scale or build a
team
Sprinting
Active Unconscious
Incompetence
Have started trying to improve,
but are doing more harm than
good through unfocused efforts.
Lift and Shift
Small team focusing on user-
centred approaches and service
improvement to a dedicated
team offering a UX/CX service
across the business
Stretching
Conscious
incompetence
The organisation are making
active positive improvements
and have a scalable plan in
place to develop their
capabilities.
Design as a service
Small UX/CX team working on
products and services offering
skills across departments and
teams to a solidified and
scalable model for growing
capability org wide
Running
Unconscious
competence
The organisation have scaled
their approach across
departments and teams with
competence growing in
improving products and services
and building a sustainable
approach.
Embedded Design literacy
Larger UX/CX centralised team
working on products and
services and other departments
start using embedded
designers, work across multiple
groups full time. Non designer
move to design literate in the
business. Moving to non
designers becoming design
fluid.
Pacing
Conscious
competence
The organisation are using user-
centred approaches across all
areas of the organisation and
literacy is high across all teams.
User-centred organisation
Design is alive and living across
all processes internal to the
business. The end users are
always considered and projects
are delayed if the design isn't
delightful. Consistent conscious
act of ensuring the sustainability
of the user-centred approach
across the whole organisation.
Learning
Style
Typical
Approach
Design
Capacity

A wider perspective across the
public realm
A culture shift to allow design to and
the principles behind it to flourish

#OneTeamGov
Bringing policy
and delivery closer
together

Public Hacks
Inviting organisations and
citizens to work together on
solving problems

Principles
Co-design and co-realisation
Engage staff in the re-design
Design is critical to improving public services
Culture must be addressed to make space for design

Scottish approach to Service Design
“We are committed to making this model the way forward
for all service design. We are clear that public sector
services should be designed with, not for, the people
who will use them.”
- Nicola Sturgeon, Programme for Government (2017)

Thank you / ありがとうございました
Sarah Drummond
sarah@wearesnook.com
wearesnook.com
@wearesnook

Public Services by Design - Snook

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