Balancing Human-Centred Design with Product Management

Public services affect the lives of nearly everyone, from getting a birth certificate to renewing a driver’s license to accessing retirement benefits. Despite their importance and ubiquity, however, public services can be exhausting to navigate. This is a challenge we tackle at the Public Policy Lab (PPL), a New York City-based nonprofit organisation that partners with US government agencies to improve public services. While our work applies service design to policymaking to improve users’ experiences, we also design the tools and products – from paper forms to digital platforms – that governments use to better deliver services to the public.