The last decades the public sector has been looking for ways of developing citizen-centric approaches, and design has been proven effective, bridging the logics of public policies, services, and the citizens’ needs by providing a user centric perspective (Sangiorgi, 2015; Pirinen et al., 2022). However, design has mainly been employed by consultants in policy experiments, e-services, living labs or innovation hubs (Gascó, 2017) and numerous failures related to servitization and participation demonstrate the inherent complexity of such initiatives (Anthopoulos et al., 2016). We argue that the public sector needs to embrace user-centricity to provide relevant services and opportunities for participation, problem-solving, and co-creation and that this requires integrating design competence and to learn how to apply design methods in the everyday work of civil servants. Therefore, we ask; How can design methods be introduced into the daily work of civil servants to promote a citizen-centred approach?

To understand and analyse the perception of design methods and tools we organised a four-hour introduction to design in a municipality. We then conducted semi-structured interviews (N=25) with the participants. This way we could investigate the initial perceptions of civil servants, towards using design methods in their daily work. We discuss their initial ideas of what they see as enablers and challenges and the application, enforcement, and prerequisites for the use of design methods in creating a citizen-centred organization.

The conceptual foundation for the research is based on previous knowledge on design and organisation change, such as design-led initiatives in the public sector (Hermus et al., 2020; Sangiorgi, 2015; Pirinen et al., 2022), and initiatives focusing on service- and policy design (Kimbell et al., 2022; Pirinen et al., 2022). Drawing on the data and previous research the study provides insights on first impression when introducing civil servants to design methods related to their daily work and report findings of enablers, challenges, application and enforcement and prerequisites needed to create a user-centred organization. Thus, contributing to the field and providing pathways for future studies on design methods in the public sector and practical guidance for establishing user-centric organizations.

References

Anthopoulos, L., Reddick, C.G., Giannakidou, I., & Mavridis, N. (2016). Why e-government projects fail? An analysis of the Healthcare. gov website. Government Information Quarterly, 33(1), 161-173.

Gascó, M. (2017). Living labs: Implementing open innovation in the public sector. Government Information Quarterly, 34(1), 90-98.

Hermus, M., van Buuren, A., & Bekkers, V. (2020). Applying design in public administration: a literature review to explore the state of the art. Policy & Politics, 48(1), 21–48.

Kimbell, L., Richardson, L., Mazé, R., & Durose, C. (2022). Design for public policy: Embracing uncertainty and hybridity in mapping future research. In D. Lockton, et al., (Eds.), Proceedings of Design Research Society.

Pirinen, A., Savolainen, K., Hyysalo, S., & Mattelmäki, T. (2022). Design enters the city: Requisites and points of friction in deepening public sector design. Int. Journal of Design, 16(3), 1-19.

Sangiorgi, D. (2015). Designing for public sector innovation in the UK: design strategies for paradigm shifts. Foresight, 17(4), 332–348.