To design good services, I…
have a little fun
community engagement | event planning | participatory design
The lesson: It’s easier to design for humans when you act like the likable human you are.
Work product: inFORMed: A guide to redesigning government forms
This guide is something that I played a significant role in producing, but the final product is the result of collaboration with colleagues because service design is a team sport.
The backstory: In 2017 I led the creation of The Lab’s first Form-a-Palooza. This public event brought together DC residents, DC employees, and experts in user user-centered design for a day-long workshop to overhaul five government forms through guided activities.
Our team finalized the user-driven redesigns with our agency partners, and residents helped us by user testing them.
And when the redesigns were complete we didn’t just put them quietly into use. We celebrated with a gallery opening! We enlarged the old forms and their new redesigns and hung them around our event space. We welcomed the public and government staff with cake, played some jazz music as a backdrop, and poured sparkling cider into champagne flutes. We had props for fun photo ops.
The City Administrator toasted by name each of the agency staff who put months of work into these form evolutions with my team. Staff felt valued and celebrated for their efforts.
And the week after, I got several calls from other agencies who wanted to know how they could be part of the next Form-a-Palooza. Our team established a reputation of not just producing good results, but being fun to work with.