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Service

Service Design

Great services feel like they're on your side, helping you in ways you hadn't thought possible.

Designing them means understanding users, organisations and constraints - then weaving together people, processes and technology, to deliver that seamless and supportive experience.

Activities

Setting goals and KPIs

We start by understanding what you want to achieve as an organisation and how we’ll measure progress.

Researching user needs

Mixed methods research to create a shared understanding of user (and staff) needs.

Experience mapping

Mapping existing journeys, identifying positives, painpoints and opportunities.

Technical assessment

Researching the technical environment to understand solution constraints.

Service blueprinting

Mapping a new system of interactions, people and processes to deliver an improved service.

Touchpoint design

Designing the specific digital and non-digital touchpoints that make up the service experience.

Prototyping

Creating testable prototypes to explore ideas and gather feedback from users and staff.

Usability testing

Testing experience design with users. Making sure the new envisaged service meets their needs.

Delivery

Detailed design and technical development of systems and touchpoints.

Public sector

Better public services, more efficiently delivered

Our team brings a wealth of experience in public service transformation, in both local and central government – working to the GOV.UK Service Standard using user-centred and agile ways of working.

Discovery phase

In Discovery we seek to understand:

  • The aims of the organisation – what success looks like, and how progress will be measured.
  • The needs of the various actors in the service – those who use it, those who deliver it, and those who manage and/or judge its performance.
  • The hard constraints we’re working within – be they policy, technology, or resource-driven

Then, armed with this insight we can:

  • Define a new blueprint or vision for a digitally-optimised service
  • Articulate a series of solutions that combine to deliver that vision
  • Plan how to test these solutions, and the assumptions that underpin them, in Alpha.

Members of our team have delivered discovery work for Royal Navy, DoHSC, Cabinet Office, Bristol City Council, Public Health England, Dept of Transport amongst others.

Alpha phase

During Alpha we identify the most risky assumptions underpinning our ideas. Will this meet really user needs? Will they choose to use it? Can we use this technology? Can we store the data securely? How much time will it actually save?

Then we find ways to test them out, for example by:

  • prototyping front stage and backstage interactions and processes and testing our prototypes with users
  • building technical a proof of concept to test the end to end system.
  • researching and modelling time taken to complete tasks, comparing old to new.

Only if we’re confident our solutions pass the tests do we make the case for entering Beta.

We’ve done Alpha phases for Bath and Northeast Somerset Council, Torfaen Borough Council, Enterprise Europe Network and National Cyber Security Centre.

 

Beta and beyond

During Beta and Live phases we work with our technical partners or in-house development teams to continue to iterate the service design with feedback from users. Our role includes

  • Delivering detailed touch point and blueprint designs, covering all important journeys
  • Supporting or delivering content design
  • Supporting the service owner in managing the development of the technical build, for example in writing acceptance criteria for agile teams.
  • Creating and delivering an ongoing programme of usability testing and design iteration
  • Consulting on organisational changes, technology choices and wider service decisions.

Our team has delivered Beta phases for Bath and Northeast Somerset Council, Torfaen Borough Council, Enterprise Europe Network and National Cyber Security Centre.

Case study

Creating ‘one team’ was important to us and this formed very quickly. Care was taken by Panda throughout the project, to ensure that our in-house Service Designers benefited from invaluable knowledge and skills transfer. The resultant enthusiasm, commitment and trust cannot be underestimated.

Jonathan Cordier, Head of Service Design, Bath and Northeast Somerset Council

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