Supporting user-centered administrative modernization with communication design
Design helps us to improve management on various levels. “To design" means to give things a conscious form with a specific intention. This involves intervening in the environment to reshape or redesign it – a process that also takes place time and again in administrative modernization. The design of political guidelines and concepts (policy design), the design of administrative services (service design) and the design of human-machine interfaces (interaction design) play a key role here. However, communication design, which is rarely considered and named in this context, is also a powerful tool.
To communicate the new ways of thinking, working and methods associated with digital transformation, communication with clear messages is required. Communication design translates these specific messages concisely using fonts, colors and images and gives them a concrete appearance. This helps us at DigitalService to get to the point more quickly and convey content clearly – both in internal and external communication and in dialog with the administration.
As our teams and our tasks have grown in recent months, we have seen three functions in particular that the designed media fulfill. We illustrate these with examples below.
Martin Jordan
works as Head of Design at DigitalService. Previously, he was Head of Service Design at the Cabinet Office in London for over six years. There, at the Government Digital Service, he pushed forward the digital transformation of the British administration and its administrative services. In his private life, he loves porridge. His goal is to compete in the Porridge World Cup at some point and win the Golden Spurtle, the Scottish stirring spoon.
Daphne Braun
is a Communication Designer at DigitalService. After her design studies, she worked in the field of graphic and editorial design. In 2018, she began a master's degree in Potsdam. With her multiple award-winning thesis on the effect of gender in design she dealt with the topic of equal opportunities. She now brings her knowledge to DigitalService. On weekends, she likes to escape from her computer work by making pottery at the turntable or discussing the end of patriarchy in Berlin's pubs.