U X A N D S U S T A I N A B I L I T Y I N G O V E R N M E N T

I N T H E H A B I T O F D E L I V E R I N G

Government does not prioritise sustainability in UX and Service Design,

but you can....

A familiar service story

“You have to fill in these three forms, get the first signed by your doctor, the second by your lawyer and the third by your parents, then attend a meeting at our office. If any of the forms are wrong you will have to get them signed again by each party then come back to our office.”

• One trip to pick up the forms from the office because they aren’t online

• Three forms, printed, stored and delivered to an office• Three trips to have parties sign the form• One trip to the meeting in the office• Repeat one form and one trip for 60% who get it

wrong the first time• Repeat one form and one trip for the 30% who get it

wrong the second time• Another trip into the office for the meeting.

Alternative

• Digital identity and certification• Online form completion on mobile a device• Distributed digital third party endorsement• Teleworking processessing staff

Challenges

• Throw-away economy• Unrealistic expectations (e.g. “I need my own car”)• Expectation of choice of service channels• Policy overload• Policy inertia

Observations of behavior

• Current behavioral patterns create massive inertia, both in citizen behavior and policy design, e.g. “We must have a wet signature so that we have a better chance of winning a prosecution if the applicant lies.”

• People don’t change to a new solution just because it is better or cheaper, but because it is easier. e.g. Streaming services and music piracy.

Observations of behavior

• A new service must often support unrealistic expectations based on previous experiences and behavioral inertia, e.g. “I won’t buy an electric car unless it charges in 5 minutes and has a 300km range”

• Loss aversion bias means people are unlikely to change for a benefit if there is any risk of loss.

Examples

Removal of Guarantor requirement will save $50m in deregulation savings and possibly up to

10,000 tonnes of C02 per year from reduced travel

Share economies can improve resource utilisation

Strong digital identity reduces face-to-face engagements and travel

Developing cars, autonomous control systems, solar cells and batteries that make electric cars easier that gas cars

Chill, this will take a

while...

A hard road

• Sustainability as a government priority will take some time to embed in design processes, in particular public policy

• Push for better adoption of Agile, UX and Service design first

• Canberra only works from the top down• Introducw the concept to the designers of tomorrow

Key target areas

• People• Office space• Equipment• Travel (200g/km CO2)• Do-overs• Printing, distribution and storage of forms

Key design techniques

1 Make it more attractive to choose a sustainable service or product as a policy-maker or member of the public.

Key design techniques

2 Minimise resource use in your new service: Pure digital channels Digital identity Zero or reduced face-to-face contact Automatic, risk-based processing Combine processes

Key design techniques

3 Piggy-back on the deregulation agenda and quantify the impact of your decisions in dollar terms. Make it about money and sustainability is a natural byproduct.

Question everything