Playbook
This playbook was originally published in October 2016 as an easy reference to share with people delivering products and services to meet the UK government’s service standard. I’ve since added a few additional posts as they’ve been written and published on this blog.
I still use many of these links for my own reference and share them with organisations and teams.
Starting with the problem
Ask the right questions to frame the problem.
Think about how you use different types of evidence.
Don’t be scared. Get out the building. Talk to people.
Collaboration
Move your team(s) from “everyone wants to solve the problem” to “everyone wants the problem to be solved”.
Learn to enjoy the size of the problem. Make it fun.
Quality conversations over fixed design processes.
Raise expectations, or, don’t accept low expectations from the teams, clients, or the sectors you work in.
Prototyping and iteration
Start with one thing. But most importantly, start–don’t wait for ‘enough’ evidence.
Think about iteration and prototype to learn. Here are some design principles for better iteration.
Prototypes can be more valuable than specifications or documentation.
Make sure you give design feedback with feeling. How things feel is important. Push harder and ask better questions.
User research
Look for the most significant problems.
Watch out for “it seemed to test okay”.
Data-driven design
Everything is hypothesis driven design. Get to a shared understanding with your team(s) and write things down.
Understand the metrics that matter for your service.
Do less. Good design is about limits and constraints.
Strategic design
Don’t separate out strategic thinking from other design disciplines. All design is strategic unless you just see it as implementation.
Know what good looks like
What does a successful product or service look like?
Be bold
It matters. Be prepared to put sticks in the ground.
And finally, design is an opportunity to bring small moments of joy into the world.