29 November,
Globally
*depending on location
On 29 November 2023, we’re running an all-day global event. We’ll have 24 sessions – so, at least 24 countries will participate, but not more than 1 contribution per country.
The aim is to bring together colleagues from all parts of the globe – not just the Global North, and co-create the most complete overview of the state of government innovation.
Each session is around 45 minutes; each session is different. Some people will present work; others will take a more interactive approach. Some sessions have multiple presenters with several short inputs, and others have a longer talk with time for questions.
The 24-hour remote conference is open and free to attend for any member of the International Design in Government community. The topic of the conference is broad: public sector service innovation.
We will use Hopin as the event platform. You get immediate access as a community member.
If you work in government and you’d like to join the community, the conference and monthly calls, you can apply to join the Slack group.
Email the community management team if you have any questions.
The agenda and session times are shown in your local time zone. Some sessions may start on 28 November or 30 November, depending on your time zone.
| New Zealand 🇳🇿 | |
| Australia 🇦🇺 | |
| Japan 🇯🇵 | |
| Taiwan 🇹🇼 | |
| Singapore 🇸🇬 | |
| Indonesia 🇮🇩 | |
| Georgia 🇬🇪 | |
| Rwanda 🇷🇼 | |
| Finland 🇫🇮 | |
| Ukraine 🇺🇦 | |
| Sweden 🇸🇪 | |
| Switzerland 🇨🇭 | |
| Italy 🇮🇹 | |
| Ireland 🇮🇪 | |
| Germany 🇩🇪 | |
| France 🇫🇷 | |
| United Kingdom 🇬🇧 | |
| Scotland 🏴 | |
| Iceland 🇮🇸 | |
| Mexico 🇲🇽 | |
| Brazil 🇧🇷, Chile 🇨🇱 + Mexico 🇲🇽 | |
| Canada 🇨🇦 | |
| Chile 🇨🇱 + Peru 🇵🇪 | |
| United States 🇺🇸 |
Doing it differently: Researching with communities to inform a personal health record
Te Whatu Ora — Health New Zealand are working on new ways for people to access their health information, bringing together information into a personal health record. Recognising the existing inequities in our current healthcare system with the aim of doing things better, this research is taking a different approach. This work is designed to work with communities from the start, in a bundled approach, giving communities choice in how they participate.
Dr Dani Chesson, Research Lead & Meg Douglas Howie, Principal Service Designer, Te Whatu Ora — Health New Zealand
Government Lead Innovation: Scale, Opportunity and Approach
A heuristic approach to scaling government lead innovation that maximises return on effort and investment.
Elias Wyber, Programme Director, Data and Reporting, Ministry for the Environment/Manatū mō te Taiao
Digital care in disaster recovery
Australia has been ravaged by repeated natural and other disasters in the last few years. Residents often find themselves recounting their stories multiple times to different relief staff and government agencies in the aftermath of disasters. Service NSW has pioneered Digital Care Plans, offering a unified perspective on impacted residents’ needs that can be seamlessly shared with relevant parties.
Peter Lofgren, Head of Design, Service NSW
Re-thinking financial assistance with vouchers
Designers of Service NSW will walk through our vouchers product that supports New South Wales citizens and businessess.
Kayhla Scholte, Senior Product Designer, Service NSW & Sasha Leong, Content Designer, Service NSW
Pulling the curtain back: how we work in Digital at Service NSW
Find out what happens behind the scenes – how we go about creating digital services at Service NSW.
Georgos Papanastasiou, Director, Digital Capability & Performance, Service NSW
(Title and description to follow)
Takashi Asanuma, Vice-Minister for Digital Transformation, Chief Officer, Digital Agency
Challenging for Global collaboration
Chikako Masuda, Head of Intelligence Research & Design community manager, Digital Agency
Designing Data dashboard for user centered policy making
Arata Shimizu, Product Designer, Digital Agency
Design System as Public Infrastructure
Mu-An Chiou, Head of Design Systems, PDIS
Applying behavioral model and motivation toolkit to improve accessibility
Jedi Lin, Head of Accessibility Design, PDIS
Transforming Singapore’s Digital Services: A Case Study on Modernising Work Pass Legacy Systems
How the Singapore Government drives transformation at scale and our takeaways from delivering reliable, adaptable and simple work pass digital services
Hefen Wong, Director, Customer Systems & Experience, Work Pass Division, Singapore Ministry of Manpower
Designing Digital Platforms to Engage Citizens on Retirement
How the Singapore Government uses design to engage citizens to plan and save for retirement, and the workforce transformation to make it happen.
Zhen Hong, Head of Design Excellence Centre, Central Provident Fund Board Singapore
Orchestrating Public Service Innovations with Sapawarga through User-Centered Design
Embark on a captivating exploration of West Java’s digital transformation journey led by Jabar Digital Service (JDS) and its flagship product, Sapawarga – Jabar Super Apps. Unveil how Sapawarga integrates public services, digital transactions, and public aspiration channels, driven by the core value of User-Centered Design (UCD) to elevate public services.
Ashri Nooraida Permana, UX Researcher Lead, Jabar Digital Service
Shifting focus from central to local government level
An overview of public sector innovation work supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Georgia
Khatuna Sandroshvili, Innovation Lead, UNDP Georgia
City Experimentation in the City of Rustavi
Revaz Barbakadze, Head of Rustavi City Innovation Hub
Changing Public service delivery in Rwanda
This presentation will explore the innovative strategies, technological advancements, and transformative initiatives that have reshaped how public services are designed, implemented, and experienced. Discover the success story, challenges, and future outlook as Rwanda continues its journey towards more efficient, accessible, and citizen-centric public service delivery.
Impacting lives
This part of the presentation will highlight the social and economic impact of the digitization of public services for Rwandan citizens. Advancing digital literacy and building confidence through innovative and unique approaches tailored to the needs and context of Rwanda.
Estelle Indriets, Senior Partnerships and Policy Manager, IremboGov
Introduction to design in government in Finland
our journey with photos
Anni Leppänen, Board of Finnish Government design community Julkis-muotoilijat
From phenomena to impact - how we leverage human-centred design to inform our strategy work
Case study talk
Janne Mattila, Lead Service Designer & Anni Ojajärvi, Senior Lead, Kela (Finnish Social insurance institution) – Innovation and growth unit
Duet: How to (and should we) integrate design into organisational structures and core functions
struggles, critical thoughts and experiences from design leads
Anni Leppänen, Lead Service Designer, City of Helsinki & Elina Piskonen, Customer Experience Manager, Finnish National Agency for Education
(Title and description to follow)
Mstyslav Banik, Head of Digital Services Development, Ministry of Digital Transformation
Introduction: The importance of being service designers
Henrik Åkesson & Eze Montenegro, Change leaders within digitalization, City of Malmö
How to use service design and experiential learning to increase pupils’ joyful learning in elementary school?
Case 1: Makerspace
Izabella Thedin Tirbal, IT educator, City of Malmö
Should the elderly get access to culture?
Case 2: Culture for elderly
Henrik Åkesson & Eze Montenegro, Change Leaders within digitalization, City of Malmö
Educating and coaching colleagues on service design: internal changes, external effects
Petter Mellander & Andreas Jensen, Strategic Change Leaders, City of Malmö
Car sharing to reach climate goals
One of the measures to achieve the City of Zurich’s net zero targets is to increase sharing and reduce the size of its internal car fleet. However, today most departments are not yet equipped to implement car sharing. We will show how we developed a solution, piloted it and what data and insights we brought to light alongside it.
Zahida Huber, Service Designer & Luis Schüller, Project Lead/Business Analyst, City of Zürich
Human-centered Design in the Swiss Federal Administration
A brief glance at things from a subjective perspective
Zoé Blanchard, Human Centered Design Coach & Facilitator, Federal Office of Information Technology, Systems and Telecommunication (BIT)
Sharing data stories
public data visualization tools cross projects and departments
Stefania Guerra, UI/UX Designer Expert, Dipartimento per la Trasformazione Digitale (Department for Digital Transformation)
Governing tools in the open
a design system by 22.000 public entities
Daniela Iozzo, Content Designer, Designers Italia
Evolving service delivery
harmonizing multiple layers of government in 1 mobile app
Agata Brilli, Senior Service Designer, pagoPA
The dawn of Design-led transformation in the Irish Public Service
In 2022, the Republic of Ireland initiated an ambitious design journey by introducing 10 design principles for government. Since then, significant strides have been made in integrating design into the fabric of Irish public service. In this talk, Trevor Vaugh, the newly appointed Public Service Design Lead, will provide an overview of the progress to date, focusing on the refinement of the design principles, the forthcoming Design Action Plan, and the cross-government Life Events programme. He will reflect on his initial tenure and delve into the transformative power of design in reshaping public services, addressing both the challenges and opportunities it presents to the design community
Trevor Vaugh, Public Service Design Lead, The Department of Public Expenditure, NPD, and Reform
How might we enable public service professionals to use plain language?
In Germany, the public sector is often criticized for its bureaucratic language, evident on websites, forms, and official letters, making public administration seem unapproachable, inaccessible, and overly complex. The lack of design in both layout and content results in negative experiences for citizens and unnecessary challenges for staff.
The City of Cologne wants to provide better public services and reduce the everyday challenges for public sector professionals by establishing plain language as the standard. In response, the city’s innovation lab has introduced a new initiative: the Form Labs. In a short period of time, an interdisciplinary team uses human-centred approaches.
Simone and Janina will offer insights into their overarching approach and showcase how they utilize their acquired knowledge to enhance the adoption of plain language within various departments.
Janina Rösch, Innovation Manager, City of Cologne & Simone Carrier, Simone Carrier, Senior Manager & Service Designer, PwC
Co-creating products with Federal court staff
Making information on laws and regulations accessible to everyone – that’s the goal of an effort by the Federal Ministry of Justice and DigitalService. It involves rebuilding the tools staff in German Federal courts use to keep track of thousands of documents on laws, regulations, and rulings. In a short talk, Jana and Sophia will share how they collaborate closely with court staff and subject matter experts in co-creative ways to make these tools work for them.
Jana Weidinger, Product Manager & Sophia Grote, UX/UI Designer, DigitalService
Digital-ready policy enabled by service design – and better public services through digital-ready policy
Good services and experiences with government need good laws. In the past, too many laws have been written narrowly, prescribing solutions for the present – making them unfit for an ever-evolving digital landscape. The Federal Ministry of the Interior and DigitalService have been working on a digital check for new laws. Guided by five core principles, policy drafters and legists are supported in making their laws future-proof and enabling good services from the start.
Sabrina Feuerherd, Senior Service Designer, DigitalService
Elevating designers to the C-suite
Good design is at the heart of better public services. But historically, few public organizations have placed designers in strategic or high-level roles, which means design is often an afterthought (or excluded altogether) in from decision-making when developing tools and services. In this talk, we'll share some best practices, successes, and learnings in our efforts to improve the placement of design, and designers, in government.
Marine Boudeau, Deputy Director of Digital Projects and Services, Social Ministries’ digital directorat
Incorporating users with disabilities into design and review processes
Accessibility auditing and user testing can help determine whether a public service is "truly" accessible. But how can we incorporate the people with disabilities that we serve in the design and iterative process? We discuss some of the ways the DINUM have developed, with a particular emphasis on building a community of users with diverse disabilities to test prototypes and provide feedback.
Jamshid Kohandel, Chargé de mission, DINUM’s Brigade d’Intervention Numérique (Digital intervention squad)
Scaling up: implementing the French Design System (DSFR) across all public services
France launched a design system for government websites and services in 2020. But how do you encourage organizations to adopt the system, and how do you make it responsive to the needs of thousands of stakeholders? We share learnings and best practices for scaling up a design system for a government serving 65 million people.
Jean Delpech, Deputy for Design System (DSFR), Service d’Information du Gouvernement
A new page in government design innovation
All too often, design innovation in government is conflated with digital innovation. As a result, some of the most vulnerable groups that may not have access to digital services are stuck with outdated and more complicated paper-based services. Aiming for parity between digital and non-digital users, this talk presents reflections on the design of the first end-to-end paper-based reformed appeal service for people held in UK Immigration Removal Centres and prisons.
Yemima Safra, Senior User Researcher, Transform/HM Courts & Tribunals Service
A bold new look for the GOV.UK homepage
The GOV.UK homepage was recently redesigned. In this talk, the designers and the comms manager from the team will talk about how they approached the work and reflected on how to deliver impactful, design-led work in the public sector.
Kuba Bartwicki, Lead Designer, Laura Stevens, Communications Manager & Monica Crusellas, Senior Interaction Designer, Government Digital Service
¹ The United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales) has a devolved government. While some services are run by the UK Government such as tax, immigration, and national security, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales have differing devolved powers for some areas such as education and health and social services.
Designing common platforms – the true effort of building solid foundations
A designer experience of building common platforms, including cloud, payments and identity services. Walking through our collaborative approach across five core service moments, with lessons learned around the pace and protocol of creating critical national infrastructure in the Scottish Government.
Fiona MacLellan, Service Design Lead, Scottish Government
Implementing Service Design in Local Government
A talk about implementing the Scottish Approach to Service Design (SAtSD) in local government. It will cover what our community has done so far and how we concluded that one solution does not fit all. It will explain why and how we are using the maturity assessment matrix from the SAtSD to guide our next steps.
Synnøve Frøiland, Service Designer, Digital Office for Scottish Local Government
The changing role of a service designer – Arm’s length co-design
The story of creating conditions, facilitating spaces and stepping back to enable people with lived experience and staff to co-design national services.
Anna Henderson, Service Design Lead, Scottish Government & Hazel Parkinson, Strategic Policy Manager – Getting It Right For Everyone, Scottish Government
101 Reykjavík
Scale and organisation of Reykjavík City and its digital journey.
Hot tub talks
A small story about the importance of talking to users in a nice setting.
Búi Bjarmar Aðalsteinsson, Digital Leader, Department of service and innovation, Reykjavík City
The smallest victories
Examples of hard-earned victories that might seem meaningless to others.
Björg Flygenring Finnbogadóttir, Service Designer & Búi Bjarmar Aðalsteinsson, Digital Leader, Department of service and innovation, Reykjavík City
Designing a Public Taxi App: Questioning Existing Processes and Proposing Alternative Protocols
In the summer of 2019, I supported Mexico City’s Digital Agency for Public Innovation in developing their new public taxi app, anchoring it in research, participatory processes, and user experience. This presentation explores the behind-the-scenes process of design research and service design work in the Mexican public sector, presenting design as an excuse to question processes, center underserved communities, and innovate bureaucratic procedural systems through rapid prototypes.
Sofía Bosch Gómez, Assistant Professor, Northeastern University
Designing and delivering the Cities and Digital Rights platform
The session will share the process of design and delivery of the Digital Helpdesk for Cities Platform. This is a multi-stakeholder collaboration platform to support the digital transformation of cities with a human rights perspective. This project was developed by Unit – a Chilean and UK-based consultancy of strategic service design– in partnership with CAF -Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean- and UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlements Programme). Once its installation period is over, the Cities Coalition for Digital Rights will manage the platform.
This service is the fruit of collaborative work with a community of public servants from multiple local governments in Latin America, who, together with specialists, members of civil society and private sector organisations, are promoting digital transformation processes in their cities, prioritising human rights-based approaches.
Nicolás Rebolledo Bustamante, Design & Strategy Director, UNIT
Hopeful conversations: Service design during the climate crisis
What makes you hopeful for the future? Exploring the potential of optimistic dialogue in designing sustainable services and inspiring hope for a better future.
Sarah Gray, Design Lead, British Columbia Public Service
The value of design by delivering things
Enabling your organization to deliver is the key to creating value. Transformation requires designing how you deliver and allows you to show positive impacts for citizens and improve government service delivery.
Fouad Jallouli, Director of Service Design, Government of Alberta
The disillusioned civic designer
“As a designer in the public service, I’m exhausted. And it’s okay if you are too.” — Why self and collective care as a practice is essential for designers in government.
Joanne Li, Head of UX, Canada School of Public Service (CSPS) / École de la fonction publique du Canada (EFPC)
Transforming Public Services in Peru: Innovation Training Program – Idea Peru
Exploring the Impact and Strategies of the 2023 Idea Peru Program: A Deep Dive into Transforming Public Services through Innovative Training Initiatives
Juan Felipe Lopez, Partner & Transformation Director & Beatriz Hasbun, Lead Learning Designer, UNIT
Using Citizens Voices to Power Change
Two years ago, Utah elected a new governor and began listening to citizen’s feedback, promising to improve public services statewide. We’ve built a team of four, procured some nifty software, and gathered a hundred thousand survey responses. Now, we’re learning to use those voices to affect change across the state’s 24 independently-managed agencies and 1200+ services. We’re a work in progress, and this talk will be a glance at the inner workings of how we’ve structured the program and how that’s changing as we go.
Louise Schenk, Customer Experience Manager, State of Utah
Designing inclusive forms: patterns from the U.S. Web Design System
Enable better access to government by designing inclusive forms. The U.S. Web Design System provides patterns and guidance from our U.S.-focused research for anyone to use.
Anne Petersen, Experience Design Lead, General Services Administration, U.S. federal government
The International Design in Government community is a group of design-minded people from governments all over the world. The purpose is to learn from each other, share best practice and design patterns, and discuss shared challenges so that we can try and work on them together.
If you work in government and you’d like to join the community, the conference and monthly calls, you can apply to join the Slack group.
The community is open to designers, user researchers, content designers, accessibility experts and other design-minded people. In order to join, you must be working embedded in government at any level: national, state or city — this includes consultancies that contract solely for government.
Email the community management team if you have any questions.
