Monthly Archives: May 2014

In the last blog entry we discussed about academic writing on policy design in the form of books and journal articles. In this piece we would like to draw attention to another source of useful reference material available online in the form of pieces written by practitioners, ‘designers’ including academics in the form of design blogs such as this one and documentation of meet-ups that engage diverse stakeholders interested in or applying design thinking. A recent example of the former is the US-based Policy Lab. Policydesign.org is a blog and research portal developed and hosted by The Policy Lab “to bring new, important, and well-researched ideas to public knowledge in order to build a shared basis for cooperative and professional practice on designing policy, programs and projects”. The latest introductory piece in the blog focuses on ‘Why Policy Design’ (Miller and Rudnick, 2014)1 and describes policy design as “a means of crafting solutions to complex problems within or for administrative systems”. The authors argue that there is a need to move beyond simply studying policy decision-making to improving the practice of policy design.

Most of the Design Labs being set up by governments as well as autonomous entities consider exchange of ideas and collaboration as a pivotal element to the development of these Labs. An initiative called DesignMeets was launched in Canada in 2010 with a similar intention of bringing together Canadian designers “from all walks of life”. DesignMeets organizes regular meet-ups with the aim of fostering interdisciplinary collaboration between local designers, encouraging dialogue and sharing of perspectives on specific themes. These meet-ups are usually held once every few months in various cities with an attendance of 75-100 local designers from a [...]

In recent years many ‘Design Labs’ have been launched. While some of these Labs have been spearheaded by not-for-profit institutes, some have been government initiatives. Initiatives that fall in the latter category include the MindLab in Denmark, Helsinki Design Lab (Finland) and DesignGov (Australia). Initiated along similar lines, the U.K. Cabinet Office recently launched a new Policy Lab to “test how design principles and methods can improve the pace, quality and deliverability of policy in the Civil Service”1. Though efforts towards ‘design training’ were initiated in 2013 effective integration of learning in policy development were still lacking.  The development of the new policy lab also lends support to the Civil Service Reform Plan (2012) in the U.K. that aims to build efficiency, accountability, unity, transparency and collaborative working in the public sector.
The Design Council is an independent charity which is also the UK Government’s advisor on design issues and standards at a national level. The Design Council works in a collaborative mode with diverse stakeholders to work towards innovative solutions for pressing socio-economic issues. While recognizing the critical role of ‘design thinking’ in policy development, the Design Council emphasizes the need for empirical evidence of impact and to build the “knowledge of how and when design adds value to policy development”- a gap that the new Policy Lab aims to cover.
Perks (2013)2 in an article in the Design Week- a unique source of news and commentary on design issues- cautions that while considering the benefits of ‘good design’ for policymaking, the likelihood of unintended effects should not be ignored. For example in the process of promoting good design practice, designers and policymakers [...]