3.1 Designing and delivering public services: what does good look like?

Estimated read time: 8 minutes

A modern digital government places citizens at the heart of service design and delivery, ensuring that services are accessible, efficient, and responsive to the diverse needs of the population. According to the OECD, the following principles and practices describe the aspiration for achieving maturity in service design and delivery:

User-centred design and inclusive access

Leading governments prioritise a user-centred approach, actively involving citizens in the design and testing of services to ensure they meet real needs.

Engaging citizens in design: Conduct comprehensive user research to understand the needs, expectations, and challenges of different demographic groups. This includes usability testing, surveys, and focus groups that reflect the diversity of the population. By incorporating feedback directly from users, services are more likely to be effective and widely adopted.
Implementing inclusive design principles: Ensure services are designed to be accessible to all citizens, regardless of ability, location, or socioeconomic status. This involves:
- Adhering to accessibility standards: Follow international standards like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure services are usable by people with disabilities.
- Optimising for mobile devices: Recognise that many users access services via mobile devices, and optimise services for mobile responsiveness.
- Using plain language and multilingual options: Provide clear, jargon-free language and provide services in multiple languages to accommodate non-native speakers.

Omni-channel service delivery

Modern governments understand that access to services varies widely among citizens and are committed to providing a consistent and seamless user experience across multiple channels.

Offering digital and non-digital options: While designing brilliant digital services, provide alternatives such as in-person assistance, telephone support, and postal services to ensure inclusivity.
Ensuring seamless integration across channels: Create a cohesive experience across channels, allowing citizens to start an interaction on one channel (e.g., online) and complete it on another (e.g., in person). This flexibility enhances user convenience and ensures inclusivity.

Proactive citizen engagement and co-design

Effective service design goes beyond simple user feedback, with governments actively involving citizens in the development and continuous improvement of services.

Facilitating co-design workshops and consultations: Engage citizens directly through workshops, surveys, and advisory boards, governments to foster a sense of partnership and co-create services that reflect public expectations.
Ensuring inclusive participation: Prioritise input from underrepresented communities, vulnerable populations, and non-digital natives to ensure services are equitable and address the needs of all societal groups.

Commitment to reducing digital divides

Ensuring equitable access to digital services requires targeted strategies to close gaps in digital literacy, connectivity, and affordability.

Implementing digital inclusion strategies: Comprehensively address barriers to digital access, such as affordability, connectivity, and digital literacy.
Build partnerships for digital skills development: Collaborate with community organisations, educational institutions, and the private sector enable targeted digital literacy programs and resources for underserved populations.
Target support for underserved communities: Through regular assessments identify challenges specific to remote areas, low-income households, or users with limited digital proficiency, informing targeted interventions to reduce digital divides.

Agile and iterative service delivery

Leading digital governments embrace agile methodologies, allowing them to respond quickly to changing citizen needs and improve services continuously.

Using iterative development processes: Agile frameworks allow for rapid development cycles, frequent releases, and the ability to adapt based on user feedback.
Conduct pilot projects and prototyping: Test new services or features on a small scale before full implementation to minimise risks and allow for refinement.

Collaborative partnerships and open innovation

Collaboration with external partners enhances innovation, efficiency, and responsiveness in service delivery.

Engaging with the ecosystem: Partner with the private sector, academia, and non-profits to leverage expertise, gather diverse perspectives, and explore innovative solutions to complex challenges.
Hosting open innovation initiatives: Through hackathons, public challenges, and innovation labs, create opportunities for citizens and organisations to contribute directly to digital transformation efforts, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

Continuous improvement through feedback and measurement

Governments use quantitative and qualitative data to optimise service design and delivery, inviting user feedback and performance measures to inform decision-making and better understand the needs and circumstances of users.

Monitoring performance: Define overarching key performance indicators (KPIs) and expect public reporting in ways that allow for national insights about the health of the government as a whole, related to service usage, satisfaction, and efficiency. Ensure these KPIs are a by-product of effective measurement by individual teams conducting quantitative work that informs their ongoing delivery and ability to understand whether they have understood their users and met their needs.
Collecting feedback: Complement quantitative work by seeking qualitative input from users through surveys and feedback forms as well as being proactive and bold in seeking out users to gather insights from them through more relational exercises in order to identify areas for improvement.
Balancing data use with privacy: Balance data use with privacy by implementing robust data governance policies, protecting citizens’ personal information while using anonymised data for service optimisation.

Proactive and seamless service delivery

Governments should aspire to a proactive service model that fulfils the ambitions of user-centred design by fully integrating services across departments and leveraging technology to address citizen needs comprehensively. This approach ensures citizens are not passed from agency to agency but instead are understood in their entirety and supported with seamless, joined-up solutions.

Designing for holistic service integration: Shift from fragmented service delivery to systems that connect government services across departments and agencies. Citizens should experience government as a seamless entity, with services designed to address their needs comprehensively
Anticipating and responding to needs proactively: Leverage data responsibly to identify opportunities to meet citizens’ needs before they seek assistance. This could mean anticipating eligibility for benefits, notifying individuals of changes impacting them, or delivering essential services without requiring user intervention.
Delivering outcomes, not just information: Aspire to deliver not just information or access to services, but complete, end-to-end outcomes. Citizens should not have to act as coordinators between agencies; instead, government systems should collaborate to ensure their needs are met efficiently and equitably.
Embedding flexibility and inclusivity: Recognise that citizens’ needs rarely fit into neat categories. Build systems that adapt to the complexity of real lives, particularly for marginalised or vulnerable groups, ensuring that proactive service delivery works for everyone.

Standardised, common components to move at scale and with pace

Successful digital governments prioritise standardised, common components that equip teams to achieve greater impact at pace by reducing the overheads of design, development and maintenance while building a cohesive, quality assured, user experience at scale. This approach supports interoperability, reduces duplication, and allows for greater adaptability.

Shared services and common enablers: Create common components—like hosting, notifications, and payment processing—that can be reused across departments. Such services reduce duplication and simplify maintenance, allowing teams, especially those in the long tail, to focus on the needs of their users.
Implementing digital identity frameworks: Provide secure, single authentication and identity verification solutions for citizens to allow them access to multiple services in both the public and private sectors with one login. Adopt open standards and interoperability frameworks to support a consistent experience, build trust and make systems more resilient to change.
Ensuring interoperability by design: Build systems and data formats to communicate seamlessly. This ensures flexibility and future-proofing, enabling integration with new technologies and simplifying cross-department collaboration.

Scalable, cloud-based infrastructure for flexibility and agility

A cloud-first strategy provides governments with flexibility, scalability, and enhanced security, enabling rapid response to user needs and efficient resource management.

Adopting a “cloud-first” policy: Use cloud infrastructure to scale efficiently, adapt to changes in demand, and reduce reliance on legacy systems and hosting. This supports faster updates and enhancements through continuous integration and deployment.
Employing modular and microservices architecture: Use modular architectures, where independent microservices can be developed, updated, and deployed without disrupting the entire system. This structure supports iterative development and rapid response to user feedback.
Modernising legacy systems: Migrate from legacy systems to cloud-based solutions to enhance service security, reduce maintenance costs, and improve overall system performance.

Building trust through accessibility, security and transparency

Trust is the cornerstone of digital government. Citizens need to feel confident that their data is secure, services are accessible, and operations are transparent. Here’s how governments can foster that trust:

Integrating comprehensive cybersecurity measures: Implement robust security protocols, including proactive monitoring, regular updates, and vulnerability assessments, to protect sensitive information and ensure service integrity.
Designing with accessibility standards: Ensure all services comply with international accessibility guidelines, such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), to guarantee equal access for citizens of all abilities.
Providing inclusive access points: While prioritizing digital services, maintain alternative options such as in-person, telephone, or assisted channels to serve those who may face digital exclusion.
Ensuring compliance with legal and ethical standards: Adhere to all relevant laws and embed ethical considerations into the design and delivery of digital services to maintain public confidence.
Maintaining transparency in operations and data usage: Clearly communicate how services operate, including the use and protection of data, to foster accountability and empower citizens.
Embedding trust-building practices in design: Integrate transparency and security considerations into service development processes, ensuring citizens’ trust is upheld through every interaction.