Overview of this Unit

In Unit 4 students learn why public servants need to be focused on users and their needs. Instructors will help students understand when and why they will need to apply design methods to solve problems.

This material, developed by 'Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age', has been prepared to help university faculty to add digital era skills to the teaching of Masters in Public Policy and Masters in Public Administration programs. All these materials are based on our eight Digital Era Competencies - this unit corresponds closely to Competency 1.

This unit is one of eight units that make up a full semester course. The units have also been designed to be used by educators independently, without students taking the rest of the course. This unit can be taught in either one or two classes.

This Unit's Learning Outcomes

Learning Outcome 1

By the end of Unit 4 students will be able to explain what good design is, why it matters, and why bad design is costly and counterproductive. This includes the ideas that:

Government should value the public's time and experience.
Bad design in government policy and services disproportionately impacts minority, marginalized or disadvantaged communities.
The costs of failing to prioritise the needs of users are real, and can be substantial. These costs can be seen in the stories of unsuccessful government projects of many different types.
Traditional evaluation of government projects is centered on whether projects were delivered on budget, on time and to the original specification, not by an assessment of whether the project works or has the intended outcomes.

Learning Outcome 2

By the end of Unit 4 students will be able to describe the human-centered design (HCD) methodology (or framework), and related practices and techniques. This includes:

Design research
Synthesis
Ideation
Prototyping
Iteration