Discipline Or Practice: Design

The Design Process Mini-Guide is five-page document outlining a design process taught at the Stanford d.school. The school gives this resource to students after a short design experience, to help solidify the takeaways and abstract the experience to useful framework. The publishers suggest using the document in conjunction with an action-oriented design experience, such as their related Gift Giving Project and Wallet Project. This resource is on an older archive version of the d.school website.…

Features: Associated curriculum

The Gift-Giving Project is 90-minute (plus debrief) fast-paced project though a full design cycle, intended to give learners a tangible experience with design thinking. It is intended as a group activity (from 2 to 100+ participants) with a facilitator. Learners pair up to interview each other, come to a point-of-view of how they might design for their partner, ideate, and prototype a new solution to "redesign the gift-giving experience" for their partner. The resource includes a handout, a…

Features: Associated curriculum, Facilitators guide, Video guidance

[Now defunct. Link goes to internet archive from 2018, when MindLab closed]. One of the pioneers of public sector design, Mindlab, developed a set of tools to find and define problems as well as new approaches to solving them. This toolset contains some of the most commonly used in the design practice (user journey, pattern recognition, etc).

Features: Techniques

This resource focuses on inclusive design, a methodology that enables and draws on the full range of human diversity, including those with limited abilities. The resource includes a guide on inclusive design, multiple short-films and a 20-minute documentary, as well as activity cards that follow 5 phases of a design process.

Features: Examples or Cases, Techniques, Video guidance

This playbook has been created for innovation practitioners who want to spread innovation skills, methods and tools or build an innovation capacity. It covers the design of effective learning experiences, identification and articulation of learning needs, pitching a learning offer at the right level, and connection of a team or innovation strategy with learning and development. It contains overview of 35 methods that Nesta regularly uses in its practice. Each method description includes a short…

Features: Guiding framework, Techniques

The Experiment Co-Creation Platform (ECP) is a model for collaboration and experimenting dedicated in delivering sustainable solutions to wicked urban problems. The ECP model was developed and prototyped by Demos Helsinki. In the model, cities, higher education institutions and non-academic collaborators such as companies and foundations together define a desirable shared vision to work towards to as well as identify the challenges preventing the vision from happening. Research-based teams…

Features: Guiding framework

Public Design Vault is a curated directory of 500+ design tools & resources for public good. These resources are intended for those working at the intersection of human-centered design, innovation and public/social impact. The resource also contains "collections," or bundles of tools each categorized according to a use case (e.g. brainstorming) or a specific topic (e.g. leadership).

Features: Examples or Cases, Techniques

This is one of the first collections of user experience methods. It describes and analyses user experience design methods by costs expended, time required, resources required, expertise required, and quality of data.

Features: Guiding framework

This toolkit provides guidance for public servants on how to communicate with the public using the simplest and clearest language possible and to ensure that all services are accessible, and meets the diverse needs of all our customers. The guidance is based on Universal Design principles. The toolkit contains advice on general writing style principles, verbal and non-verbal communications, design of forms and documents, web and social media content and how to display signage. It features a…

Features: Checklist, Tactics, Techniques, Tips&Tricks

Designed with the assistance of the CNFPT and the DGAFP, this game is inspired by "Chutes & Ladders": a board game where the team must realize the major stages of their project, and sometimes encounters ladders (these "little miracles" that win several boxes at once) and chutes (these pitfalls that push back the project carrier). The resource is in French.

Features: Checklist, Interactive diagnostic