Service design at the Singapore Government

Jacqueline Poh, CEO of Singapore’s GovTech agency, spoke about the importance of a service design approach at the Innovation by Design Conference 2017, held from 7-8 March as part of Singapore Design Week.

Whether or not the public thinks that a policy, process or service has been designed with empathy, and with the user’s needs and feelings in mind, has a lot to do with how well it was designed.

GovTech takes a multidisciplinary approach to problem solving, bringing together areas as diverse as design, data science, prototyping and behavioral economics to help government agencies better address the needs of citizens.

She continued:

When it comes to designing policies, processes and services, governments have often adopted an inside-out approach, taking what they consider to be the most important elements and pushing it out to the citizen.

While this has benefits for citizens, it also “has some flaws — the citizen’s views are not necessarily taken into account from the beginning.

Design, when done upfront, can actually bridge citizen needs and policy objectives.

Also check Experientia’s service design project for the elderly, conducted last year for the DesignSingapore Council and the Singapore Government.