Ben Holliday is an experienced design leader, writer and speaker. This is his blog (started in 2005). If you’re new to this site, Ben has published a playbook for design linking together many of his blog posts from the past 5 years. You can book him to speak at an event, get in touch or follow him on Twitter.
I love maps. They’re an essential part of a design process. This quote is taken from an article originally written for ‘Interactions magazine’ in 2008:
Continue reading…“Making a map is a way to hold a domain still for long enough to be able to see the relationships between the various approaches, methods, and tools.
Back in 2015 I first wrote about hypothesis driven design. I explained that everything can be seen as hypothesis driven design – “The real question is whether or not we write down the assumptions behind the design decisions we make and measure outcomes.” Continue reading…
“80 per cent of the value of any work will come from 20 per cent of its activities; and the other 80 per cent of activities will arise because of needless complexity.” – Richard Koch (The 80:20 Principle)
Based on the main idea in the book (described above), I found some useful advice about reading when looking back through The 80:20 Principle. Continue reading…
Last week was Services Week – organised by the Government Digital Service as a series of events for UK government, but very much a celebration of work across different design and digital teams in the UK. It was noticeable how many teams and organisations were contributing to, or organising events. Continue reading…
Since 2015 I’ve always published a yearly round up. This year there is so much that I could say and focus on that it feels overwhelming to reflect for too long. This is especially the case as it’s also the end of a decade.
So I’ll keep this brief. Continue reading…
How to use service patterns is something that I know a number of different organisations are starting to think about. This is a conversation that I’ve seen prompted by the LocalGov Patterns library that we’ve been working on at FutureGov with Essex County Council. Continue reading…
There was a lot of interest in my recent blog post about how to work in the open in government. I explored some of the reasons why I think that working in the open is important. In this post I want to explore why working in the open can also be inspiring. Continue reading…
With more organisations working with service-oriented approaches to delivery in the public sector, this is increasingly leading to questions about models for service ownership in how we design, develop, maintain and improve whole services. Continue reading…
As I did at the Create Leicester conference last week, I often start talks by saying that ‘design is a good idea’.
The line between good and bad ideas is very thin. A bad idea in the hands of the right person can easily be tweaked into a good idea.
— Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit
I’ve seen this through my experience as a designer. Continue reading…
The gates of UK Parliament (Creative Commons License)
I recently commented on this Guardian article — Benefits system automation could plunge claimants deeper into poverty. Continue reading…