So we have been given the date of this Saturday February the 8th for the election. We will have the usual poster campaigns, knocks at the door and the Q&A sessions on TV. In the design community Graphic designers will talk about the kerning, layout and typeface choice of posters. 

The design of campaign posters is important, but in the grand scheme of what the elections represent, the importance is quite small. What I have noticed over my time living in Ireland for over 20 years is the lack of design in the creation of policies.  Now what I mean by design is the User Centre approach to problem solving. So for example if we are creating a policy are we as Politicians involving the user in the creation of these policies? 

If you think about it the current way of developing policies is the equivalent of somebody knocking at your door coming into your home and completely redecorating your home. So they haven't asked you what colour you would like on the walls or what type of Chest of drawers , floor tiles or carpet you would like! Now you would never let this happen, right, but this is how our policies are created. Now there may be some focus groups here and there but nothing on the scale that a Design led approach would do.

What are some of the policies being talked about:

• An extra 2 billion for healthcare  

• A new public childcare scheme

• Backing of first time buyers

• Investment in public transport

Now these are only some of the electoral promises and they are great and are areas of extremely importance. But what I seem to be hearing is more "what" then "How"

This 2 billion that is going to be invested, how exactly are they going to do it?

• What are you going to do on day one ?

• How long will it take to reach your short, medium and long term goals? 

• What processes are you or the people involved going to use?

• Will you change the processes and culture of places and organisations where you want to spend money?

• Is it the best use of money putting it into a system that dose not work?

One thing people want in healthcare is less delays; so talk of a five or ten year strategy will just rub people up the wrong way.People are looking for rapid action.
For example, would an option be to just take one small hospital recruit a team to develop/redesign Patient care delivery and use this as a case study for implementation at other hospitals? The culture and processes in a small hospital maybe easier to change.Change the systems and then add the money.

It’s the system

Ah system that is a word we often hear when something fails. The system is broken or it was a failure in the system. But what is a system? 

The Oxford defines a system as:
A set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network.
A set of principles or procedures according to which something is done,
an organised scheme or method.

We'll just take the short sentence of "things working together as part of a mechanism" if you were to use this in the context of healthcare you would have a system that does not work together as part of a mechanism! Now there are many issues that lead to the breakdown of the system. From my experience as a User of the system I would firmly say it is the lack of a User centred approach to healthcare delivery.

Constituent Centred Policy Design

If you are involved in any of the main political parties or you are an independent, a user centred approach to system change and policy development would be paramount. As an Independent or Party member what are the benefits of using design?

There are many benefits to using design as a method of creating and implementing government policy. One of the main benefits is that policies will be User or Constituent centred. Design is a collaborative process, so any policies created would stand a better chance of having a meaningful impact on peoples lives.

How others have done it

A key part to change or any type of innovative process is to see how others have done it! There are many examples, one of which is the UK Governments Policy Lab. This lab was set-up in 2014 as part of a civil service reform. The lab is a mix of Designers, Researchers, and Policy makers. They use Design, Data and Digital tools that act as  a testing ground for policy innovation. If the Independents and Political parties could adopt some of these methods then the lives and experiences of these policies will start to improve. 

Design as a framework will really help to create change both on a national and local level!

How Design was used to help in the redesign of a hospital in New Zealand after earthquake

To quote J.K. Rowling:

“We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.” 

– J.K. Rowling 

Need to chat about anything mentioned here then please give me a shout :)