Service design identifies what processes, people, and tools are needed to reach the desired state of customer experience. Rooted in a deep understanding of the user, service design practices take a holistic approach by understanding and synchronizing the employee experience and the customer experience. Service design is a growing skill set within government shaping the way people interact with the government and bolstering all aspects needed to support those experiences.
We create safe and experimental spaces for service designers to learn, network, and evolve. This is a free community open to any public sector service designers that are curious and want to grow. In addition to supporting government service designers, we present and share many different methodologies, including Liberating Structures, Game Storming, Participatory Design, Behavioral Design, Equity-centered Design, Design Futures, Inclusive Design, Systemic Design, and much more.
The Service Design in Government group brings together practitioners to learn and share as a community of practice. This group will bring together all levels of service design talent from federal, state, county, and municipal governments.
I’ll be discussing a 6-month professional development experience I’ve led with teams at federal, state, and local levels, and sharing some of the results. Together, we’ll be exploring both the opportunities and challenges of trying to build capacity in HCD through learning programs.
About: Aaron Wilson-Ahlstrom designs and leads learning programs that help organizations develop capacity for more human-centered ways of working. Much of his current work focuses on helping teams in public-serving institutions learn and practice human-centered design. He leads learning programs at Civilla (a non-profit design studio in Detroit that partners with agencies to make government services more accessible and user-friendly), and runs Equity by Design, a small consultancy working at the intersections of equity and HCD.
Government teams at all levels face mandates to improve customer experience for residents, but often lack the concrete tools and ways of working necessary to make that happen. Aaron designs programs that help teams learn, practice and apply human-centered design tools and mindsets (e.g. conducting user interviews; synthesizing and developing insights from research data; using storytelling to build engagement among key stakeholders; and practicing iterative prototyping and testing) while applying those tools to concrete CX challenges.
We meet twice a month--one time for a speaker/training and one small group discussion as part of the Lab Series. Each month The Lab Series provides a space for an inclusive community of service designers to openly ideate, troubleshoot, and experiment with old and new activities and methods. Check out our upcoming meetings below.
January 28 [LAB]: Intentional Gathering with Susanne Wiggins
March 11 [LAB] Atlanta Government with Mariama Ndiaye
Mark 25 [TALK] German Digital Service with Anja Alburg and Sonja Wilczek
April 15 [LAB] Small group discussion
April 29 [TALK] Bring Clarity to Complex Services (Without Service Mapping) with Ayesha Moarif
May 13 [LAB] Ontario Innovation and Service Design Group
June 10 [WORKSHOP] When words are not enough: Drawing complexity with Patricia “Patsy” Kambitsch
June 17 [BOOK TALK] Designing for (and from) Relationality with Michal Osterweil
June 24 [WORKSHOP] Designing for (and from) Relationality with Michal Osterweil
July 15 [TALK] Small group discussion
July 29 [TALK] How AI is showing up in service design conversations with Lisette Baylor
August 12 [LAB] A Case Study: HCD AI Workflow with Nate Byrnes
September 16 [LAB] Expert's Blindspot: Integrating behavioral science into the design process (Case Study from Estonia) with Heleyn Tammsaar
October 7 [LAB] Building capacity for HCD with public-serving institutions with Aaron Wilson-Ahlstrom
October 21 [TALK] Co-creation methods for service design with Danielle Agnello
November 4 [LAB] Thinking like a coalition designer (with an org design lens) with Lucy Ellis
November 18 [TALK] [TALK] Futures with KARLA Paniagua
December 2 [LAB] TBD
December 16 [TALK] TBD
Check out our speakers page to view a full list of past speakers/facilitators from 2021-2025.