Jobsian principles
While I think Richard Pope’s Platformland is essential reading, I disagreed with some of his criticism of user-centred design.
The book critiques the influence of what are described as Jobsian (Steve Jobs-inspired) principles. It argues that while making services simple seems appealing, this approach is problematic. How designing services to “just work,” like an iPad, means that people don’t understand or have control over how they work. And how that reflects the perspective of more privileged users who rarely interact with government for relatively low-stakes things.
As a result, the design movement that emerged in the UK from the 2010s is described as “fundamentally incomplete at inception. A Jobsian view had won out: that public services should work seamlessly, the instinct of the designer should be to simplify, and users should have minimal opportunities to understand the workings of services.”
Richard goes on to describe user-centred design in the UK public sector as sometimes “utilitarian” – focused on “getting the immediate task done and within the bounds of the service.”
A different perspective
I don’t think there is anything wrong with Jobsian principles.
You can hear me exploring this in the context of government services in my 2014 NUX conference talk, in which I reframed the gov.uk design principle of ‘do less’ around the importance of simplicity in design – what could probably be described as a Jobsian principle.
I describe seamlessness as the ability someone has to do something with the minimum amount of effort required.
Design should get out of the way when it needs to.
For context. Life is hard, and people are often stretched and overwhelmed. So when dealing with a government service, you don’t always have to know how it works, the system configurations, or the rules defined by the underlying policy. But you do just need it to work. Sometimes in the worst of situations or circumstances.
This is the cognitive dissonance that we all carry when dealing with difficult life events. I’m not just talking about typical transactional parts of government like getting your driver’s license. It’s more what happens if I need to apply for something like bereavement support – it’s why user research, and the time and focus government teams spend designing, testing and improving even the most seemingly straightforward interface, tasks or content, is so important.
Often, the simplest tasks can become difficult because of context. This also includes the more regular interactions people have with government services like welfare.
Good design at the interface and transactional level of services (within the immediate task and bounds of the service) really does help here. I’ve sat in many research sessions where I’ve seen someone who is clearly impacted by the cognitive load and distraction that comes with the context of living through a real-life situation.
The interface can and should be seamless. It should be as simple as possible. I then think of it more as having layers of accountability underneath that. That’s not for everyone, but it should be possible to understand the service and how the underlying policy works – especially for accountability with what happens when something goes wrong, when someone gets stuck, or doesn’t get the decision they expected or needed.
This in itself is a design challenge and is about how we best support people step-by-step without creating additional burden – Platformland has a great focus on ‘removing administrative burden’ throughout, which I strongly agree with.
Finally, we should always see good design as more than just design for the interface, or something at the point of transaction. I define this as connectedness. How things become joined-up in meaningful ways, but with more of a focus on relationships and patterns in a system.
We shouldn’t lose sight of the impact of user-centred design in transforming public services and ways of working since the 2010s.
Good designers do understand the need to create the right amount of friction in an interface and user journey. For example, where someone needs to comprehend a key decision point or the next step in a process. Many services have also spent considerable time on eligibility checking flows, helping people understand what they may be entitled to, before completing an application at all. They also think about appeals, and types of support that mean designing the seams (the concept Richard later describes in the book).
In summary, I think there’s a strong argument that many people want (and need) parts of the public sector to work more seamlessly like an iPad… But we can still focus on designing the seams alongside Jobsian principles as I recognise them.
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