Why government workers need to think more like designers
Author: Yves Vanderbeken
To better serve today’s digital citizens, the first thing a government should do is stop designing complex service request websites that look like a copy of the regulations. What’s needed instead are government applications that enable a good experience, making it easy to request the service.
Today’s digital citizens expect government services to be provided online with the same ease, convenience and speed they enjoy with such popular sites as Amazon, Google and Facebook. Digital citizens also expect the online tools of their government agencies to be always available, easy to use and even proactive in proposing the right services.
Yet far too many government agencies still create hard-to-use websites and apps based on their own internal organization and processes.
A better way ahead
Many governments have realized there is a better way. They’re redesigning their applications to enable a good experience for the citizens to find and request the service.
Some are also taking another look at how to redesign services. But who would have thought that a methodology that was originally created to design physical products — Design Thinking — would also find its way to redesign the website and citizen service request in an optimal way?
Design Thinking starts with a simple yet potentially world-changing question: What is the human need?
Let’s say you want to redesign the way citizens request a recreational fishing permit. For many citizens, this is a yearly re-occurring process. It requires the person requesting the permit to first read through complex information, then select the right formula, next pay the amount to the agency, and finally wait for a document to print and take along when they go fishing.
In the UK, this process has been redesigned from the sports fisher’s point of view. Following a guided process, the potential fisher selects the right formula online, then chooses the duration and pays the right amount. The process is convenient, fast and to the point, so you would want to go fishing!
This is the sort of experience we want to enable for most citizen services. And we can use Design Thinking as a methodology to focus on the end user, rather than on the process being automated.
Organize by function
One way government agencies can apply design thinking is by creating one-stop portal pages, organized not by agency but by citizen function.
In the past, the user would have to click around all the various agency websites involved, each with its own unique design and navigation. Now, the portal does that work for them. The citizen goes to just one site where they can get everything done within a single seamless user experience.
Even the way this system is developed should be different. No more issuing an RFP, sifting through bids, awarding a contract and then waiting for the system to be rolled out, only to discover it no longer meets the changing needs. Instead, the team would compile and prioritize a list of users’ unmet needs.
Then, borrowing some techniques from Agile development, the team can create a proof-of-concept system to deliver the first need quickly. This PoC can be tested in the field, evaluated and, if necessary, modified. The process can then be repeated, and repeated again.
Digital citizens don’t care how government agencies are organized. They just want easy access to government services. When more governments start thinking more like designers, the experience will vastly improve.
About the author
Yves Vanderbeken is DXC Technology’s chief technologist in Belgium. Yves focuses on delivering innovative approaches to digital services transformation, deriving public and business value from data, and helping governments at all levels realize benefits from consolidated platforms and shared services in the drive toward Everything as a Service.