An evolving set of prototyping principles to help people use prototypes to learn and improve their products or services. These principles were contributed to by people across government during Services Week 2026.
We’ve talked lot about service patterns. Time to show one. This is a pattern we’re calling check before you start. The pattern is for users to check whether they can and should use a service. It could be used in services …
...with pretty sore arms. But it was worth it. As well as making the unmissable window wrap, we also wanted to help share the feelings and opinions of LGBT+ people...
I don’t talk a lot about myself on this blog. For obvious reasons - the work of a head of design is done in the background. The work is more important than you are. However, this week I had the …
Working on prototypes, a lot can change quickly. It’s good to have a record of previous iterations so you can revisit the changes and decisions you made in the past. I like to keep a running log for each round …
Charlotte Moore from Home Office said something really interesting at the cross government design meeting two weeks ago: "Aim for simple comprehension, not just plain English." She was talking together with Ed Horsford. They explained how they tested the Renew Passport service with users …
It’s easy to spot when a service isn’t working, it’s not always easy to spot why it isn’t working. That said, we’re gradually finding common issues which lead to problems in services across government. Many of them hinge on two …
We’ve already outlined a definition of what service design is, and why matters. In this post, I’ll sketch out some of the ways in which we identify whether or not a service is a good one. This is by no …
There’s a big demand for designers in government. In this post, I’ll explain a few of the ways we work and the different types of design we do in government. Over the years we’ve developed some ways of working that we …
We explained in a previous post how useful it can be to make a user journey map of a service. In this post I’ll give some tips on how to create them. What to include in user journeys maps: The …
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