public sector design index
A service design research developed by Parsons DESIS Lab to better understand how design has been applied in the public sector.
Role | Parsons DESIS Lab team under the guidance of Prof. Mariana Amatullo, PhD and Prof. Eduardo Staszowski, PhD, the team composed by the Visiting Scholar Camilla Buchanan and research assistants, Isabella Poeschl and Paula Kawakami.
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In 2018 Parsons School for Design ran a four month research project to understand the kinds of data, tools and information that would would help the public sector design field to mature and practitioners to advance their work. This paper sets out the research approach and links to resources created as part of the work.
More information to come.
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2018
workshop
research process
Research started with an initial scoping exercise in the form of comparative analysis of tools from a wide range of sectors that are used to assess, monitor and define different fields or issues e.g. indexes, impact metrics frameworks, design process frameworks. These examples were used as prompts to question what sector level tools and data would benefit the public sector design field.
This initial phase was followed by interviews with 13 expert practitioners from government labs, civic-design focused CSO’s, individual consultants and design teams.
These conversations resulted in the development of a pilot survey using Qualtrics which was shared with close project partners. The pilot survey comprised 50 quantitative and qualitative questions covering a wide range of issues about how and where public sector design teams work. In total there were 16 responses from practitioners inside and outside of government.
Survey findings were shared and further developed at a workshop with 20+ design practitioners in New York in May 2018.