Sara Di Domenico, Lead Consultant & Hope Bristow, Senior Consultant, Informed Solutions
Over the years, our UCD teams have tackled the innovative transformation of citizen-facing services that have met a wide variety of needs; from understanding and reduction of NO2 pollution through national clean air zones, 通过国家火灾事故报告系统降低火灾风险, modern digital policing platform development, and enhanced democracy through advanced, effective digital engagement. Now more than ever, 通过我们在英国和澳大利亚与新南威尔士州政府的国内和国际合作，我们看到用户需求和需求的复杂组合应用于更智能的环境规划举措, The Crown Estate, and NatureScot.
Through all our rich experience in this space, 我们理解捕捉和理解用户需求为服务设计提供信息的价值. Who are the users? What problems must a service tackle as a priority? How do we validate if the service is meeting user need?
Keeping the user at the heart of the service is the ingredient for success. Empathy lies at the heart of quality design. Ultimately, there is only one user need, which is to achieve their end goal.
For example: Someone wants to develop on sensitive land, 或者他们希望获得补偿或赠款来支持他们的业务, or to make changes to land surrounding a property. Badly designed services can be a barrier to a user achieving success. 围绕用户需求设计的服务使他们能够以最小的干扰实现最终目标. 这最终将带来更高的整体用户满意度和用户粘性.
That being said - all too often business needs can play second fiddle, or indeed be overlooked when designing a service. How a business functions, and what it needs from the service, plays a critical role in effectively delivering to end users. 通过与组织及其内部用户密切合作，我们能够开发满足每个人需求的服务, thereby reducing the time, 努力, and resource to implement service design. From our experience, one of our key takeaways, and a cornerstone of our user-centred design approach, 了解组织的驱动因素和需求对最终帮助外部用户实现他们自己的目标是否很重要.
例如，我们与NatureScot合作，支持苏格兰政府保护苏格兰土地的目标，并成为可持续土地管理的全球领导者. At present, 希望开发或改变土地用途的公民必须向当地政府提交规划申请, 他的团队随后会向NatureScot咨询有关土地质量的数据来源, protection measures, 以及相关的风险来决定是否可以批准. Through taking a holistic user-centred design approach, 我们正在研究帮助NatureScot的专家团队做出快速准确决策所需的数据, thus better meeting the citizens’ needs.
Additionally, 通过对NatureScot内部数据收集流程的改进和改造, 分析, and local authority and citizen engagement, enhancements can be made to external facing services. This will help citizens gain faster, more effective, and accurate answers to their application, whilst helping meet Scottish Government’s aims to sustainably manage land.
By leveraging UCD principles, service designers can stay focused on creating optimal, 用户友好的服务包含了真正的服务设计艺术——平衡服务最终用户的需求.g.组织的需求(有效地为最终用户服务的要求和动力).
