Getting started with service design

At the heart of delivering effective government services is the practice of civic service design. Service design strategies aim to understand the needs of residents and craft policies, processes, and services that are tailored to meet those needs. This can include how people find or apply to services, how they interact with programs through in-person staff or digital tools, what programs require from residents throughout the application process, and operational practices such as providing applicant support and reporting on program outcomes.

CiviForm is designed to make it easy to implement key best practices in civic service design, such as making program information and applications accessible to residents, supporting workflows for community organizations, notifying applicants of their progress, enabling operational insights through data reporting, and integrating with existing administrative systems and processes. As you work to improve service delivery in your community, service design can help guide how you implement CiviForm to support your specific programs.

Service design is grounded in understanding the resident experience as it currently is, and identifying improvements to better meet the needs of residents and better fulfill the mission of each program. The remainder of this guide will focus on how CiviForm can best enable such efforts through the lens of civic service design.

Here are excellent resources on service design to read and reference as you work:

• NYC Civic Service Design Tools + Tactics: A comprehensive overview of civic service design practices, including understanding resident needs, mapping processes, and ideating on solutions. Each section includes useful templates and resources for different research and engagement practices.

• Preparing for Human-Centered Redesign

  • Starting Small with Human-Centered Redesign (PDF)

  • Going Big with Human-Centered Redesign (PDF)

• 18F Human-Centered Design Methods

• The Good Services Scale

• Mapping the applicant experience of benefit enrollment

• Civilla Practica

  • Foundations

  • Design Principles

  • Qualitiative User Research

  • Applications