Escaping the trap of analysis paralysis — When faced with a problem, do you analyze it or do something about it? My natural inclination is to jump headfirst into a deep analysis. When I’m dealing with a design problem I’ll attempt to look at it from different angles, present it in new forms, or zoom in and…

What I wish I knew as a service designer. — Service design covers a broad range of topics that don’t always fall within the traditional realms of a designer. My background in visual communication design and UX has provided me with a lot of knowledge for the work I do now, but service design brings its own set of challenges…

A Year in Review & Top Recommendations — Another year and another reading challenge complete! I surpassed my goal of reading 100 books with a total of 102. However, it’s not as much as the 112 books from 2019. At the start of the pandemic I thought my reading time would go up, but I found that my…

A simple guide for service designers to understand policy — The legislation is the service. The regulation is the service. The policy is the service. If you look at any public service and ask yourself, “Why is it like this?”, you can usually find most answers to that question in some form of a policy document. Bad design is less…

The most important rule to keep in mind if you want to introduce user research on your team or in your organization. — Asking for permission to do user research turns it into a decision point for managers and executives. When faced with a decision, decision-makers will work through their own mental models to evaluate the benefits and risks. The risks will often outweigh the benefits. They will think of every scary scenario…

A closure experience for product development — Working on a digital product is like being in a relationship. You go through an experience of growth, connection, and learning. You constantly think about it, day in and day out. It can be a frustrating and rewarding experience. For some people, they’ve devoted years to building, improving, and maintaining…

Over the last few months I’ve been talking to people across the public service in various roles, looking at how we can more effectively embed and operationalize design at scale. I’ve heard a recurring and fundamental issue across the board. No one knows what the hell we’re really talking about…

Let’s talk about business processes. When I talk about service design to clients, often time people default to thinking about processes. Processes are neat, linear (maybe with a fancy feedback loop), and provide us comfort in showing from how we get from point A to point B. They show us…