Sarah Drummond's Keynote at Doers Conference - Budapest

Doers ConferenceSarah Drummond | @rufflemuffin @wearesnook
Designers ≠ user
centered organisation
Sarah Drummond

Doers Conference @wearesnookSarah Drummond | @rufflemuffin

We have unconsciously
designed complex,
broken and hard to use
services
We are Snook | @rufflemuffin @wearesnookDoers Conference
Image courtesy of http://whatsworthseeing.com/i-daniel-blake-review/

We’ve expected users to
become experts and
navigate our dysfunction

We need to design our
organisations and systems
to work for users

Birmingham Design FestWe are Snook | @rufflemuffin @wearesnook
“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

Unconscious design 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

This is an endemic
challenge

Conscious Design
Japan, Kyoto Station, 2017

Unconscious Design
Edinburgh, Pissed off neighbour

We accepted that things were
the way they are because
‘they’ve always been that way’

“Everyone can — and does — design. We all design
when we plan for something new to happen,
whether that might be a new version of a recipe, a
new arrangement of the living room furniture, or a
new lay tour of a personal web page. […] So design
thinking is something inherent within human
cognition; it is a key part of what makes us human.”
- Nigel Cross (1982)
Doers ConferenceWe are Snook | @rufflemuffin @wearesnook

Role
Service Design
as a role and
responsibility in
a process
Service Design is an ongoing
team sport
Collective
Action
Service Design
as a perpetual
collective verb

Coers ConferenceWe are Snook | @rufflemuffin @wearesnook
We have new materials to
design with from
governance, politics,
finance to people and
policy

Coers ConferenceWe are Snook | @rufflemuffin @wearesnook
Every organisation is a
collection of micro design
decisions, made on a daily
basis that form our user
experience

If our system is to work we have to
all consciously design together

We must build organisations and
collaborative systems that can
design for what users need, not
what their structures dictate

DesignCapacity
Intent and Impact
Dormant
Starting
Block
Sprinting
Stretching
Running
Pacing

“We only make
blueprints, none of our
designs make it into
reality”
- Common feedback from most early embedded design
teams

Designers ≠ user
centered
organisation

User centred
organisations are a
weak link sport
“To truly be design-infused, the
organization must ensure every
influencer of a project has that
same design literacy and fluency.”
- Jared Spool

@rufflemuffinSarah Drummond @wearesnookDoers ConferenceSarah Drummond | @rufflemuffin @wearesnook

Improving satisfaction
in the returns process

“Some places are 
14 days: if they
have 30 then that
would make me
more likely to
return.”  
Sarah Drummond | @rufflemuffin @wearesnookDoers Conference

So what must we do in the early
stages of building this capability?

We must build a basic
design literacy across
organisations and
systems to enable
good user experiences
Literacy
>
Detailed
knowledge of
what
differentiates
good quality
from poor quality
Fluency
>
Repeated
practice of
procedures to
create good
quality outcomes
Mastery
>
Comprehensive
knowledge and
craftsmanship for
intuitive work

Don’t build toolkits or
processes at an early stage,
focus on demonstrating
impact of a user-centred
approach

Loch LomondSarah Drummond | @rufflemuffin @wearesnook
Transforming a health
service from bad to
best in show
Addaction IAPT services

IAPT challenge
Losing clients between
referral and
assessment

User research
Reviewing the
journey with clients,
staff, referral
partners and
observation on site

Service Mapping
We mapped the
existing service
journeys from staff
and client
experience

User needs
Understand the user
needs of the service
across the end-to-
end journey from
referral to successful
treatment

Problem areas
Highlight the
problem areas from
touchpoints to more
structural challenges

Defining ‘how might
we’
Asking questions to take on
challenge areas like
‘How might we encourage
people to show up to
appointments’

What do people
need?
Reduce anxiety
Clarify waiting times
Encourage online
bookings

Creating prototypes
We tested changes to the
website, text appointment
message copy, implementing
a new booking system…

Using our DNV
framework
Deliver now
Do Next
Visionary roadmap

30% increase in appointments
booked
700-800 people are entering
treatment each month
The percentage of people who
are discharged and never book
an appointment has decreased
from 43% to 18%.
NHS England and NHS
Improvement recognise as best
practice

“We’re not finished and
there’s a lot more we
need to do. But this
process has taught us
that sometimes the
biggest, most
revolutionary changes
are achieved by altering
just one small thing at a
time.”
- Hannah, Service Manager, IAPT

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

Build the design literacy and
user centred capabilities of
Cork County Council

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

What makes a good project?
Feasibility
Is it technically, operationally and financially feasible?
Measurable impact
Can we achieve easy to measure impact in a short
period?
Capability building
Will this support the building of design capabilities and
skills?
Good news
Will it be a good news story to win hearts and minds in
the organisation?
Building a movement
Will it build momentum and bring others on board
across other departments?
Political and strategic persuasion
Does it fit a strategic stream of work we can attach it to?
User experience
Does it make an obvious improvement to the user
experience?
Under the radar
Do we need to work under the radar to give ourselves
space to experiment?

We ran two ‘design in practice’
projects
Community Funding
Housing representations

Representations are made by
elected members on behalf of
residents to highlight issues
with housing

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

Discovery Workshop
Bringing together everyone we
thought was involved in the
service into one room

Discovery Research
 
User interviews
Shadowing Staff
Observation

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 on what to submit
- 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
“We didn’t realise how important the
language was until we were walked
through the service stage by stage”

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

Prototyping straight into live
Prototyping on our customer
experience platform allowed us to
tweak continuously and then go
immediately 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.
86%Decrease in time spent processing

100%Decrease in time spent waiting for
acknowledgement
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.

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 
½Day a month saving in
preparing data

€1Saving 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

2Days a week for staff
members now free
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.

Building the business case
We built a business case to highlight
the value at scale of this approach
across all of Cork’s services with a
variance of 20% per annum
Saving at +(20%)
€15,120,000
Saving at - (20%)
€10,080,000

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 hooked housing
Our short intervention created an appetite for more
Service Design. CCC are now looking at repairs, enquiries
and grants.

Learning Lunches
We opened up our process
which brought more people
onboard throughout the process

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

The team are now
analysing data on
what works and
providing this to senior
management team
CCC can follow transactions by
service users to continuously
tweak their services and be in
control.
Data is their new material.

They are creating the
business case to feed
upstream.
CCC are analysing their
performance against
Government digital standards,
and producing reports
contrasting service performance
and maintenance possibility pre
and post design.

If we’re teaching
everybody to design,
what does this mean
for designers?

We still need designers
You can’t execute a good user
experience without design
mastery

Designers don’t need to work
in traditional roles
Policy, HR, finance, business
development needs us

Services don’t exist in a
vacuum
Look at the impact your
design decisions have

Break down silos and
network across them
Use design to build
collaboration across systems

Don’t build toolkits at the
outset
Fix what’s broken, make the
case for value and scale what
worked
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).

Exemplify and promote good
design
Champion accessible and
inclusive design

Open up your process
Use show and tells to
network your insights
and design across
business and wider
sector

Go beyond the user interface
Learn the materials of your
organisations and how to bend,
mould and shape them

Designers ≠ user centered
organisation
We need to design how design
decisions get made and look
more upstream

We all have a role in consciously
designing better user
experiences, not just at the
point of the interface

Thanks Budapest!
Sarah Drummond
@rufflemuffin
@wearesnook
wearesnook.com

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Sarah Drummond's Keynote at Doers Conference - Budapest