Overview
Public services are how people interact with the government in their daily lives. For example, accessing healthcare, having their household waste collected by the local council, or receiving financial support.
A service allows users to do something they’re trying to achieve. A public service that does not work for its users can frustrate them, add to the challenges they face, and create serious problems in their everyday lives.
For example, they may miss an important healthcare appointment, not get their waste collected, or miss out on financial support to help pay for their living expenses.
Putting users at the heart of design helps create more inclusive, accessible, and effective services overall.
Good public services work well for everyone, especially those who need them most.
What makes a good public service?
The Digital Service Standard for Wales describes what good public services look like in Wales.
A good public service is designed for the people that use it.
This means it:
- does what it’s meant to do in a way that works for people
- helps users do what they need to do
- reflects how people use and interact with public services
Good services are:
- accessible and inclusive
- cost-effective and efficient
- easy to find, understand, and use
- clear, consistent, and familiar
Find out the importance of cost-effective and efficient services on: A prosperous Wales - The Future Generations Commissioner.
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Understanding user-centred design
User-centred design (UCD) starts with understanding the people who will use a service. It ensures services are built around users' needs, not assumptions.
It can ensure that services:
- solve user problems or challenges from the start
- save time, effort and are cost effective
- are accessible, intuitive and simple to use
- reflect how people live, work and access support
UCD is key in delivering good public services that meet the needs of those who use them. It’s about designing services around its users’:
- behaviours and motivations
- needs and challenges
- context and environment
UCD is a way of thinking through problems and finding solutions. It’s a:
- mindset
- process
- toolset
- practice
User-centred design as a mindset
UCD is a way to think and approach challenges and opportunities.
It focuses on:
- understanding and advocating for your users, and their needs
- challenging your assumptions
- identifying patterns, opportunities and potential solutions
- simplifying complexity
- making better decisions
Read How do we become ‘user-centred’? - a case study to learn more.
User-centred design as a process
As a process, UCD is iterative and involves:
- researching to identify, learn and understand the challenges
- generating ideas to explore and define potential solutions
- prototyping to develop and test potential solutions
- delivering the solution and testing it to iterate from feedback
The Design Council’s Double Diamond is a useful way to visualise the steps of the design and innovation process, no matter which methods or tools you use.
When designing public services, we often map it onto the agile delivery phases - GOV.UK.
User-centred design as a toolset
There’s a range of well-known methods and techniques that you can adapt to your work, including:
- mapping
- visualising
- brainstorming
- prototyping
- storytelling
The right approach and tools depend on your specific project, needs and goals.
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The importance of user-centred design
The user-centred design (UCD) approach allows you to:
- have empathy for your users and their needs
- understand the problems you are trying to solve
- make better, informed decisions
- simplify complexity in systems and processes
- challenge your assumptions
- create a shared understanding
By designing your services around your users and their needs, you build something that:
- works for them
- solves the right problem
- fixes it in the most cost-effective and efficient way
It also prevents a poor service from impacting your organisation by:
- investing in something that doesn’t work
- damaging your reputation
- increasing cost, for example in handling support requests
- causing a policy to fail at achieving its goals
Adopting a UCD approach helps develop and build good public services that work.
Read Waste services - showing the value of user-centred design to learn more.
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Designing in the Welsh public sector
The public sector is a complex environment for design, formed by connected organisations, services, teams, and policies.
Users of public services often don’t have other options and may be in a vulnerable situation. This is why it is important to deliver services that work for them.
When designing Welsh public services, you must balance:
- user needs
- policy intent
- organisational and departmental goals
- bilingual requirements
- technological and financial limitations
User-centred design (UCD) is not about making things look visually pretty, it’s about making services work for the people who use them. It puts users of services at their heart, so they work for everyone.
Improving public services in Wales means creating the conditions for better design and collaboration across sectors and systems.
Turning policy into services
Public services often exist to deliver policy.
If government priorities do not turn into clear, usable services, it can seriously impact people’s lives.
Some specific policies and legislations that influence services in Wales are:
- Well-being of Future Generations Act 2015 - Future generations commissioner for Wales
- Welsh Language Measure 2011 - GOV.WALES
People who deliver services connect between policy makers and service users.
UCD provides service users with usable, consistent experiences in a way that works for them and for the government, leading to better outcomes for everyone.
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Delivering user-centred design in an agile way
User-centred design (UCD) and agile are not the same thing.
UCD is an approach that helps teams understand what users need through a set of tools and methods.
Agile is a framework for managing projects that allows teams to build and test ideas in small steps, making the process easier to manage, iterate, and adapt where necessary.
Agile ways of working can:
- help break projects into small, manageable phases
- allow teams to learn and adapt as they go
- improve services over time
Find out more about agile delivery
How agile supports user-centred design
Agile delivery helps UCD focus on delivering useful things quickly, learning from users and making incremental improvements.
Instead of waiting until the end, teams can explore things as they go, and if something is not working, they can easily identify it. This means they can fix problems quickly without wasting time or effort, meeting user needs through regular feedback and improvement.
Find out when to use agile, and the agile stages and ceremonies.