Katarzyna Hasnik

Dec 29, 20194 min read

Mandatory changes in User Experience Service Design in Public Sector in Ireland.

Service Design for Citizens Advice.

For us, for the public, for citizens.

The best is to set out to step in. Distance brings a wider perspective and tangible solutions. Sometimes it is needed to go away from own country to see what can be done when the time will come to come back.

Improvement based on life learning lessons.

From New Zealand back to Europe.

Exploring the world to come back with a better approach as Citizen and as Service Designer.

Aidan O'Boyle's talk at the Dublin UX Meet Up Group in mid-November 2019, at NCAD, was highly presented with a good dosage of his personal, very indeed needed soft skills, which balanced this, I must admit, hard topic to take, which we all at some stage of our life can be exposed to.

Public Sector defects are obvious. We all see it and as much was improved over the years, still, there is a lot to be changed.

His talk "Top 5 Service Design Insights from Practice" opened my mind much wider as UI/UX Designer as it was taken from his own life examples which nowadays is so precious and necessary and unique.

We all need real-life scenarios and stories. The real content counts because individual stories matter more than any stats. Statistics are just numbers, we need them to raise them up, but they do not hold our hearts and do not squeeze them to actually make a change. They put us only in the thinking mode with quite often lack of immediate reaction to bring a necessary change, which has to be done here and now in the Republic of Ireland.

Enough is enough. If other countries, like New Zealand, as Aidan shared with the public, can do it, why we cannot? New Zealand in many aspects is similar to Ireland. Population. Partly Agriculture. Economics. In some parts even looks like Ireland. We have to learn from the better ones, not ignoring or denying the issues. Unfortunately, the common Irish tendencies are quite often happening even in the Public Sector, not just family homes. As much as I am grateful for Ireland, to be my chosen home and proudly said, I was accepted by the Irish Department of Justice and Equality to become Irish Citizen, I see, unfortunately, this negative seed taken from Irish homes and implemented into Irish Public Sectors Service.

We are in XXI and Service Design of the Public Sector and have stopped around the 1980s.

Is this visible truth to everyone, especially to those who hold the budget or just UX Designers can see it?

Each culture has own tendencies, none is perfect. We have to see that all those nationalities are mingled now in Ireland to become better. To improve and be above by leaving the old and dysfunctional comfort zone. This is scary but it brings a better life to our nations and the next generations, which we, now are responsible for by making today choices.

Problems are swept under a carpet by thinking if we leave them there none will be affected. But the reality is that dust and dirt always come out and leave a smell of mustiness.

Everything around us improves so rapidly,

but the Public Sector is way behind.

The Public Sector is the foundation of citizen lives. This has to be changed.

Creating positive solutions in Service Design is one of them.

Aidan's honesty was trustworthy and at the same time, he was relaxed, which I admired. Aidan presented the subject of the importance of changes in Service Design in the Public Sector and provided simple solutions. He spoke about issues he met as a citizen and as a designer as we would be his old friends and workmates. Making this connection as a public speaker was really a big value especially to those who are new to the field of Centred Human Design. This made the audience connected and engaged even better.

You as a reader, add now another good quality of Aidan as a speaker. His good sense of humour. You can hashtag this as # importance with an extra asterisk "humour*". Meaning you memorise the talk even better because it is fully engaging. Now you can ask yourself a question: How the presentation can be better than this?

Aidan was a winner at this event as discussed with my co-workers. Even if there was no actual prize given in the end, the prize was given by the value which Aidan brought to me and others. We UX Designers took from his talk a lot and actually applied to our work or studies.

Aidan's wise choice of bringing his own story into the light brought tangible importance to the audience. He really exposed the subject, what should be changed and gave a variety of examples from his own career path, life difficulties he met himself, new opportunities he was exposed too. Thank you for your worth listening, professional and personal life story, which highlighted the importance of family support in moment of life struggle, taken necessary risks, bravery of approaching new country New Zealand and final improvement in the Service Design in United Kingdom as the best outcome learned oversea.

Aidan as Service Design Lead and Strategic Design Lead for Citizen Advice definitely had brought a bigger perspective to Citizen Advice in London.

Designers are indeed the Creators of our lives.

Solutions represented by Aidan, what other countries are already applying to Service Design in the Public Sector were very valuable to my work as UI/UX Designer.

I would recommend Aidan as User Experience and Service Design Mentor and a great speaker, who motivated me to become a better UI/UX Designer.

Thank you, Aidan, for your professionalism, positive thinking, your openness and ability to smartly represent this necessary topic. By speaking loud and share the vision, we all would bring a good change to our country. We just have to be open and expose the issues instead of hiding them.

I wish you all the best in your professional and personal life,

Kind Regards,