Search Toolkits

This resource describes a comprehensive method for the BC Public Service (BCPS) to design services for British Columbians, although it is also applicable to other governments.
The Playbook is intended to help ensure public service designers have the necessary tools and corporate support to make change.
It includes an overview of service design, a discussion of when and how to use it, as well as detailed guidance and tools for the various methods used in service design. The methods are organised according to the publisher's model: Alignment, Discovery, Opportunity, Prototype & Test, Roadmap, and Implement.
The resource also compares service design with other public service approaches, like behavioural insights, lean, etc.
The appendix includes research planning templates, template partnership agreements for service design projects, and sample matrices for evaluating opportunities.

This toolkit outlines Bridgeable’s approach to harnessing behavioural economics (BE) to design better products and services that nudge user behaviour. It combines a service design approach with a BE approach, with the caveat that BE helps identify and tweak pivotal moments of decision making but not overall user experience or strategies.
The toolkit includes an overview of BE as well as an ideation and testing framework incorporating BE principles to move from a current state to an idea future state. A basic knowledge of service design is helpful for approaching this toolkit.

A series of 16 individual templates for different service design methods and techniques, plus posters with a guiding methodology for use in your own workshops. The posters do not include much step-by-step guidance so these are best used by people who have used these methods and techniques previously. The publisher's website also includes some case studies. Available in English and Dutch.

The toolkit provides an approach and methods those looking for a new way to tackle social and policy issues by making services more valuable to customers and users, easier to use, with fewer resources wasted on implementing the right ideas in the wrong way (or on the wrong ideas entirely).
This approach involves spending time understanding people’s experiences and resources on their own terms, taking methodical steps to analyse and address these with their active participation, and pushing for more effective cross-team and cross-organisational working.
The included Social Design Methods Menu focuses on the difficult early phases when uncertainty is high. It provides background, modes, methods and "recipes" for different situations and contexts, but the publisher suggests that these be further adapted and configured based on your needs.
A basic understanding of service design is helpful for exploring this toolkit.

This online interactive playbook is intended for teams to work better together in order to get things done. It is organised into Health Monitor (checks and activities for building team health), individual plays (filterable standalone activities), and game plans (series of plays for common use cases). The playbook organises the materials by project, service, and leadership team type, provides detailed instructions on how to run the plays and offers downloads of materials. Since many plays are adapted versions of other tools, licensing varies. However, many are licensed for reuse and further adaptation.

14 methods and 3 recipes suggesting how to combine them, associated with a guide book available for sale by the toolkit publisher.
Accompanying each method: Purpose, Outcomes, How to do it, and Tips as well as a worked example, to help readers understand how the method and associated template can be used at the early stage of designing an innovative service.

The resource is both an online catalog of resources as well as a publication. Combined, they comprise a basic but comprehensive introduction to service design and a selection of service design tools. The resources include the fundamentals of service design, an explanation of the Double Diamond design process and how it is used in service design, what to expect when working with a designer, and tools and methods that service designers use in the creative process. The publisher is considered the creator of the Double Diamond design process, which is ubiquitous in the design world.

A front-end framework for building websites that are accessible, usable, interoperable, mobile friendly and multilingual for the Government of Canada and beyond, the resource includes a collection of of flexible and themeable templates and reusable components and related guidance. Content is also available in French.

The IoT Service Kit is a board game that brings domain experts out of their silos to co-create user-centric IoT experiences. The Kit consists of three major components: maps, tokens and cards, which can be downloaded and printed/3D printed. It includes source content on GitHub as well. Its stated goals: achieve mutual understanding, stay tangible, and make complex simple. It is best for those who have some understanding of service design processes and principles as well as IoT technologies.

Guide to service blueprinting. The reader analyses their own interaction with service users. Through the tools of personas, scenarios, and the decomposition of a scenario into a blueprint of its elements, the reader can understand and improve their services from a Human-Centred design person

“Scenes” is a tool and a method to create visual stories about products and services fast, collaboratively and iteratively. It is intended for leaders and professionals of all industries to shape their ideas and scenarios in the form of fun illustrative storyboards without the need of refined drawing skills. It uses storytelling instead of long functional specifications for new or redesigned services or concepts.
It contains free, downloadable and printable templates for professionals to construct scenes for prototyping products and services. There are also "add-on" scenes for specific situations or topics.
The toolkit contains editable and printable scenes components as well as a how-to guide.

The purpose of the standard is to provide guidance for those in the New Zealand government or anyone who designs or provides government services regarding the provision of accessible, integrated, inclusive public services. It includes principles, rationale, information on how to meet the standard, related implementation guidance and resources, and a glossary.

A guided introduction to 14 common service design tools, such as empathy maps, personas, and customer journeys. They are organised by the publisher's methodology: Define, Learn, Solve, Test. Toolkit. The publisher offers a suggested path through the tools but the publisher suggests that each can be used on their own. The toolkit is available via website in exchange for your email address.

This resource is a method library containing 54 method descriptions for using the key methods in service design. These methods include instructions, guidelines, and-tips-and tricks for activities within research, ideation, prototyping, and facilitation. This collection only contains building blocks. It doesn’t detail how to assemble them into a cohesive design process or how to plan or manage it. The associated (paid) book and curriculum offers this context.

This field guide introduces human-centred design as an approach to addressing challenges related to community demand for services (specifically immunization services, but it could be applied to others). This Field Guide exists to help investigate, understand and respond to challenges of demand. It draws on insights from behavioural science and employs human-centred methods to improve immunization outcomes. Includes a 170 page field manual, process map, and workbook with tools. Its process overview poster provides guidance on who to involve and expected time investment for each method in the process.

This playbook shares lessons the publisher has learned while working with vulnerable populations as they access digital services, with the aim of improving access and awareness to those services.
This playbook is for nonprofits, community-based organizations, and governments who serve people who are eligible for government safety-net and criminal justice services, people with low incomes, and people in contact with the justice system.
It includes guidance in the form of principles and best practices for digital outreach to vulnerable populations.

In this booklet you will find tools to implement the CO-CRE-AR methodology in its three phases: Understanding, Creating and Arming.
CO-CRE-AR moves in spaces of divergence and convergence. The first part invites you to UNDERSTAND in detail the challenge you want to face; the second to CREATE with openness and generate ideas without many restrictions, to then land them and make them concrete in work plans, including the necessary communication elements to "sell" the solution in the organization.

The purpose of the standard is to provide guidance for those in the Australian government or anyone who designs or provides government digital services regarding the provision of simple, clear and fast services. It includes 13 criteria, rationale, information about meeting the standard, design principles, service design and delivery process, related training and guides, and a glossary.
The resource also includes downloadable posters.

An collection of communication tools used in service design processes that deal with complex systems, organised by design activities, representations, recipients, and contents. The website is the result of the research activity done by Roberta Tassi during her graduation thesis investigating the relation between communication design and service design, starting from the observation of the existing practices in the field of service design.
Each tool contains a description, how-to instructions, and case studies of its use.

An introduction to service design for public servants, and a set of practical ways to include design methods in your work. This resource was developed for the City of New York but is relevant to other cities, governments, and innovation labs as well.

The Shift Surrey guide provides an overview of Surrey's design approach to date, including a summary of projects and suggestions for building an internal community of practice inside government. At the end of the guide, there are several typical design tools, tips and tricks learned through Surrey's experience and suggestions for related design resources.

This set of service design resources includes a downloadable zip file of resources created by MrThinkr, such as templates, examples, and guidance on personas, journey mapping, and stakeholder mapping. The website contains video guidance on how to use these methods. In order to download the zip file, you must enter your email. The publisher is also marketing some paid software on their website.

The stated aim of the resource is to enable public sector organisations to use design management thinking and methods currently used by leading companies in the private sector. There is a library tools that are available for free (one must subscribe to access the case studies.) Many of these are commonly-used design methods which have been tweaked and re-branded as Shape Better Services resources. The library content is free to view but using their online guidance requires a paid subscription.

Principles and guidance for developing digital services in Argentina and beyond. The resource is available in a Github repository and includes 9 principles, indicators, and standards for API's, website, mobile applications, and others.

The Service Sandbox is a visual, playful, co-creation tool that allows individuals to explore digital services in a tangible and interactive way. The sandbox can be used to test an existing service or to create new ones. The resource is oriented toward designing interior environments, especially digitalising environments, but could be used more broadly. The tool consists of three phases (build, ideate and define), plus a pitch template for taking the process one step further. According to the authors, the tool can be used when design professionals and other professions want to work and co-create together in order to achieve alignment and create a common language between them. The Service Sandbox can be used anywhere between 3 hours to a 2-day workshop depending on the requirements and goals.

The Servitization Mapping canvas is a practical tool intended for business-to-business manufacturers to explore strategic directions in a servitization shift, that is shifting from a product focus to a service focus. While this resource is oriented toward the private sector, public sector organisations, being primarily service organisations, may find it helpful for refining their service portfolios and being more service user-focused. The canvas is a template to map an existing product and service offering portfolio as well as clients and competitors in the ecosystem to explore the solutions space in which new service offerings can be developed. This resource includes a short guide as well as the canvas itself.

This resource is for creating equitable change in schools and learning environments. It helps build the capacity of school communities and learning coordinators to set and pursue equity aspirations, so that every student is future-ready, no matter their background, circumstances, or learning preferences. The resource is based on a design thinking process and includes an overview, methods, and instructions that are specifically tailored to learning environments. The resource includes sections: build your team, define your aspiration, know your students, start hacking, understand impact, and showcase. The resource is web-based and includes links to several tools as well as guidance materials. The entire toolkit is available for download for free with email registration. The web-based resource also features an online community.

This resource was designed to empower everyone to take a human-centred design approach. It was designed specifically for the Queensland Government in Australia but is valuable for anyone interested building an understanding of human centred design and how they can use it. The resource includes sections What is BCD, Why do HCD, and How to do HCD, each with detailed guidance and instructions. The website also includes detailed operational support guidance for procuring human-centred design work, checklists, interview and participant recruitment resources, and interactive templates.

The Venture Design Process offers set of templates, tutorials, and templates for systematic execution of continuous design and delivery. It covers the phases: Personas, Problem Scenarios & Alternatives, Value Propositions, Assumptions & Experiments, Customer Discovery & Experiments, User Stories & Prototypes, Product & Promotion, as well as modules covering agile management and business model generation. The resource is targeted at private sector entrepreneurs and focuses on digital products and services, but its principles and methods can be adapted to the public sector context. Some of of the templates are available as Google documents which can be copied and used interactively.