Explosive Websites - how digital damages service experence
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Originally presented at London's Service Design Thinks on Thursday 3rd September 2009, this deck explains my theory of how digital, in the wrong hands, does more damage that good. I do this using the example of UK government service transformation policy from 2000 to 2009, dropping in my own learnings and anecdotes.
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Explosive Websites - how digital damages service experence
- 1. EXPLOSIVE WEBSITES - How digital damages service experience
- 2. WHAT I WANT TO TALK ABOUT
- 3. … AND HOW Learnings will show up here!
- 4. ABOUT ME 1. Don‘t be precious
- 5. EXPLOSION #1 2000 to 2005 2. Service design that’s driven by tech fails
- 6. A BEREAVEMENT EXPERIENCE 3. Build emotion into the bottom line
- 7. GUERILLA WAR 4. Don’t be ashamed of cosmetic improvements
- 8. EXPLOSION #2 2005 to 2011 5. Always insist on a service strategy … or make one up!
- 9. Example: INTERNATIONAL TRADE 6. Service design projects make for great PR
- 10. PEOPLE ARE DANGEROUS 7. Fight your way to the coalface
- 11. DIGITAL DOESN’T HAVE TO MEAN QUICK 8. Don’t leave the offline behind, they hate running
- 12. EXPLOSION #3 A NATIONAL SERVICE
- 17. EXPLOSION #3 A NATIONAL SERVICE 9. Lose battles to win wars 10. Don’t be ashamed of ugly
- 19. Vote for me to talk at SXSW interactive The only service design presentation being proposed http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/index/interactive
- 20. CONTACT ME plateandserve.wordpress.com joelbailey@ theteam.co.uk joelbaileyuk
Editor's Notes
- In wrong hands , digital damages service experience Not “ silver bullet ” zeitgeist “How many are familiar with service transformation?” New labour - good aim – failed due to fixation on tech Past 10 years = lesson in how not to use websites to improve services – UK government 2000 to 2005 – chuck it all online 2005 to 2008 – put it all in one place online 2008 to 2011 – one online place for the whole UK Overall message is – without a clear service strategy – without the user truly at centre – digital does more damage than good
- Tonight = SD “in practice” – so I’ll Illustrate through scars – things that went wrong and lessons learnt. Me and history of service transformation in government Mixture of SD learnings + digital learnings + points to prove my argument about the explosive website
- Our young industry - great diversity of backgrounds My journey. Unknowingly doing service design for a few years TV > Web Producer/IA > Dotcom crash > Contractor in government PM, Content, strategy > serco > the Team Am I a service designer? Don’t be precious about terms. For me = what I wanted to do, that the client was willing to pay for! That sweet spot – didn’t matter what it was called! In fact - would still have avoided “design” term – not about “appearance”. I was re-engineering the service
- First big explosion in 2000 Future of service is online – “96% of government services will be “e-enabled” by the end of 2005” cynical cost cutting - £8.50 phone fulfilment, 17p online fulfilment Era of FAQ! No orchestration – led to degraded experience Service improvement based on tech, and not on users / providers, isn’t worth doing… Millions wasted by govt - I spent next few years unravelling
- 41 touchpoints complex service design – organic evolution Silo’d operations – with different scripts – gaps between No recognition of emotional aspects If you have to do it, why make it pleasant? pleasant = expensive build emotion into the bottom line EG find an emotional stat they could be proud of and show positive impact eg customers liked the “book online for training” = reduced error rates apply same logic to bad ones eg customer loathe transactional interface = increased error rates
- 2000 – joined a small site - Businesslink.org – Anyone know? Website run by SBS to serve business needs – largely hated or dismissed Meta research, intro user-centred design, then project and programme manager Early ambition – “ a one stop shop for businesses ” Guerilla methods Started to involve users and providers ! can’t change back-end so lipstick on pig One of early wins = converted a 200 page VAT document into a 3 minute tool. Still complex, but presented as simpler cosmetic improvements to poor journeys go a long way, and are nothing to be ashamed of.
- 2005 “ service transformation ” agenda – not just stick it all online, but focus on the customer service had sponsor for service transformation! though not yet service design Tony - “ The future of public services has to use technology to give citizens choice, with personalised services designed around their needs not the needs of the provider.” BUT Led to Second big explosion – use technology to go from 4,500 sites to just three , in six years BUT this = service vision, without service strategy or service methodology – technology as the end, not the means Govt – like other orgs - structure multiple offers as separate business units with separate service scripts, in separate locations too. Makes sense to provider (and is easy) – makes no sense to user (and is hard) Consumers are trying to participate in a single relationship - not multiple discrete offers. IDEO – Amsterdam 2009? Metascript holds your hand in the gaps, and delivers a brand touch regardless of which individual offer or script you engage with. always insist on a metascript or service strategy – and don’t accept one that’s only digital – unless the service is truly all digital. If can’t find, make it up! Use the brand strategy – just look upwards to something to enable! You can prove your argument in retrospect!
- One of the first service redesigns we tackled was International Trade More than lipstick on a pig – went upstream into business change ! If you trade in anything - UK government needs lots of information. Heavy burden on user: printed eg 3.5 foot of paper – replacing pages Post it notes – to identify relevant bits Fax machines – to manage submissions and retrievals Met with the companies that use paper service and the staff that run the services – everyone hated it Turned it into a single online interface, with email reminders Enormous project – £5m – 3 govt depts – HMRC, DEFRA and BIS – 5 years in, still going Open government that listens = PR! Paved way for future projects
- In govt – staff and customer involvement = risk they might have better ideas than us! They might feel empowered ! They might expect us to do it! Civil servants don’t like to be a hostage to anything So in govt – staff and customers are represented by proxy – by manager Took months to get to them Fight to the coalface Eg I wanted to speak to Companies House helpline staff to understand what the main problems were so I could design a tool that resolved 90% of those issues online. No way. All I could get were cryptic documents that I needed the manager to interpret! Sheer strength of will! Helps to have an advocate
- Rush to digital 6 years to converge 4,500 websites into 3 – not much time! Took two years to get out of committee Speed of change meant the offline service providers couldn’t get up to speed in time material went out with a promise that the offline people weren’t aware of and therefore couldn’t help with Helplines weren’t properly joined up so when metascript broke – it really broke! DWP – great thing - back to the floor – pace it with the service providers
- Persuaded to get title - Service Design Leader ! New challenge – England online service to a UK online and offline service 31 business link operators – 31 face to face services, 31 websites 3 devolved admins (NI, Wales, Scotland) – 3 different services, 3 different languages! Goal was to integrate all their offers via a single national dataset. Took six years to reach First concept of the service identity – how do you manage metascript across multiple providers? Franchise learnings Co-design approach with early adopter operators and their users Led to…
- decided not to balance the needs of users with providers “ Let the wooky win” – my politically expedient motto to get them on board, then improve their service! We lost many battles to win the long game – this is happening with convergence now Don’t be ashamed of ugly – sites are not pretty but businesslink.gov.uk has a user satisfaction rating of 95% - ranked next to Amazon and Heinz in the US. Ugly is okay
- So… a brief history of service transformation to illustrate how doing it badly damaged service experience. Silver bullet still happening in private sector and public sector Don’t focus on the enabling tech, focus on the user and how you as a provider want to engage For me I was doing more engineering than designing – the client called it transforming – whatever! I was keen to avoid the web design pigeon hole All too often tech drives innovation – “we have X means so let’s do Y” – should be “we need to reach Y, so what do we do?” – tech is a means to serve a service end Emotion isn’t woolly – it’s the difference between good and great. Find a way to talk about that in a business case! Lipstick on a pig is good enough if it helps the service user or service provider If no service strategy exists – make one up! Refer to brand, refer to comms objectives – covertly create one that is firmly fixed on the user and justify it in retrospect. If you succeed people will think you are a trailblazer. But if you fail you will be seen as maverick, but you can blame the user! “ Open government” is the new zietgeist. If you have a story about how you ran an inclusive, collabotaritve change programme – ie service design – you will get column inches Civil servants will step in between you to avoid being a hostage to fortune – fight back! Okay – you can do smart stuff online – but don’t launch it until the offline is up to speed and comfortable. The user won’t thank you “ Let the wooky win” – sometimes the service can be imbalanced to the provider – that’s okay if it moves you forward! BUT beware death by a 1000 cuts. Businesslink.gov.uk is not a sexy service – it looks dull. Service design doesn’t have to = pretty.