Friday, 28th of October, will hopefully go down as a big day for the people-centered design of public services in Ireland. ‘Design in Government — Impact for All’ a conference supported by Creative Ireland, delivered by Institute of Designers in Ireland, and in partnership with Department of Public Expenditure and…

(I’ve been asking some folks here in Ireland what’s the key things they’d like to understand about Service Design. This is the first of a few posts to help answer some of those questions.) If you own or run an SME, it’s likely that your business occupies your every spare…

Earlier this year, I wrote “It’s Ireland’s time for Service Design”, to help highlight the opportunity Service Design offers to our modern, thriving economy. Of course, a lot has changed since then, but it is arguable that Service Design has more to offer than ever in this era of new…

In short form, Service Design is the practice of improving “the experiences of both the user and employee by designing, aligning, and optimizing an organisation’s operations to better support customer journeys.” (definition from the Nielsen Norman group website). In the UK, Service Design is pervasive in both the private and…

More than six months ago I picked up “Reclaiming Conversation” by Sherry Turkle and devoured it over the Christmas break. Just a little later, through a random quote on Twitter I picked up “Linchpin” by Seth Godin on Kindle and got through that. The random juxtaposition of these books provided…

Transitioning from designer to design lead ain’t easy. You love your craft but now you need to think ever more holistically. — You’ve been driven by content but now must consider the team foremost. You’re suddenly the barrier between the design work, and all the spreadsheets, the phone calls, the crafted emails and the reporting hell that allows design to happen. From my experience over the past year, this post will cover…

Back in November 2014, I left Copenhagen for London. Having spent 4 years in the Danish capital I considered it home. After almost 8 months I’ve captured here some of my first impressions of London, and compared it with the place I left behind in Denmark. — In my first weeks, I was taken aback, pleasantly surprised by a city which was infinitely more accessible than I had expected. Sure, I had not started to work (read: deal with rush hour) but I was astounded by the frequency of bus services, the ease of use of the…

Teams are the only way we can deliver complex design projects. Teams are key to the creation of something new through the combination of different skills and knowledge — across the silos of discipline. — Over the years I’ve worked in a lot of design teams. In fact, I don’t believe there is a single project I’ve ever worked on, outside of academia, that was not created by a team of some kind. But teams are hard.