<aside> 💡 See other units in the syllabus

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What is this page?

This is a detailed description of an assignment that David Eaves, a Lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, uses as part of Unit 3 of the open access syllabus developed by Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age. It is assigned after this class, and before this one.

The official designation of David's course at Harvard Kennedy School is "DPI-662 Digital Government: Technology, Policy, and Public Service Innovation." It is also taught in his Executive Education program - "Digital Transformation in Government."

Who is this page for?

This page was developed for university faculty who teach public administrators or master's levels students in public policy and public administration. This material may also be suitable for teaching to upper year undergraduates.

Learning Objectives

The main goal of this assignment is to provide students with a real experience of analyzing a product or service through the lens of both a user and a designer.

The secondary goals are:

• To internalize the value of user testing and experience as a way to get insights for future improvements
• To become familiar with the Value Proposition Design Canvas as a tool to evaluate and communicate about a product or service

The Assignment

<aside> 📖 Background notes on the assignment for the instructor David's class has 110 students from 35+ countries and a range of professional experiences. One pedagogical challenge is to enable students to write about a product with which they all have a shared experience. A shared context saves time by eliminating the need for students to explain the service or product in their assignment to their classmates and instead focus on the course ideas and concepts.

For this class KNET - the Harvard Kennedy Schools intranet used by students, staff and faculty provides that shared context. David finds that university-based examples level the playing field in terms of access and understanding. That said, courses with a more homogenous group (say public servants from a single ministry or country) can benefit from letting students choose actual government services confident the group has a shared understanding of the service.

This exercise works best with services that - like many government services - serve different user groups. KNET, for example, serves students, staff and faculty, who may have different needs. For this assignment the product manager and the key administrative user of KNET were generous enough to be interviewed about the strengths and weaknesses of the service, as well as the costs and constraints in updating the system or changing businesses processes around it. This is particularly useful in both providing students with more context and building empathy for those managing the system.

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Assignment Description, for Students

1) Complete a digital product or service tear-down. Experience the use of a digital product or service. In short, describe:

• what are the features of the product or service?
• who are the users and what their objectives might be?
• what are the parts of the user journey and what is the average time (or amount of clicks) to go through each step and how users feel throughout the process?
• what information is needed from users in each step?
• what is good and bad about it from a design thinking perspective?

Deliverable: One to five slides with screenshots and add "text bubbles" pointing to features or designs that you think help or hinder users.