Methods & practice
The working methods of service design, and the toolkits and service manuals that explain them well. We point to established explanations rather than rewriting the methods here.
Refine
26 resources
The UK government's manual for designing and running public services: the Service Standard, guidance on discovery, alpha, beta and live, and on user research and service design.
A method for mapping a service end to end, showing what the user experiences alongside the frontstage and backstage work that makes it happen. Explained clearly by Nielsen Norman Group.
Government Social Research guidance on making research more inclusive: recruitment, adapted methods and attention to under-represented groups.
Step-by-step guidance for eleven systems thinking tools, including systems mapping, feedback loops and leverage points.
A community-authored set of principles that put the people affected by design at the centre, foregrounding lived experience and community-controlled outcomes.
The Ministry of Justice design system's introduction to ethical considerations for service teams, including harm, vulnerability, discrimination, trust and automated decisions.
The Ministry of Justice's principles for ethical services, including minimising harm, balancing power, inclusion, honesty and responsibility.
GOV.UK Service Manual guidance on informed, voluntary participation: participant information, consent records and the right to withdraw.
Ten principles for designing government services, starting with 'start with user needs'. Short enough to read in five minutes and widely borrowed outside government.
Department for Education user research guidance on gathering, confirming and recording consent, including checking that people still agree as a session goes on.
Mapping what a person does, thinks and feels as they try to get something done across a service. Nielsen Norman Group's introduction covers the anatomy and the pitfalls.
GOV.UK Service Manual guidance on learning about user needs through existing evidence, interviews, observation and the people who support users.
Design principles, components and guidance for building health services in England, with a strong focus on accessibility and content.
A ServDes 2025 paper introducing a project-centred template for examining how social, political and ecological forces enable or constrain design work. A proposed tool whose evaluation is ongoing.
Department for Education guidance on the ethics of researching colleagues: pressure to take part, voluntary participation, authority and confidentiality.
Department for Education guidance on research across languages: working with interpreters, cultural sensitivities and accessible consent materials.
UKRI and ESRC research ethics guidance on contextual vulnerability and actively given, informed consent, including the problem of passive or gatekeeper assent.
GOV.UK Service Manual guidance on reconstructing a service experience by exploring what people did, thought and felt over time.
An open collection of communication tools and methods for designing services, started by Roberta Tassi and maintained as a shared library.
Identifying the people and organisations involved in a service and drawing out how they relate to it and to each other. Explained in the Service Design Tools library.
The Design Council's evolution of the Double Diamond for problems that span organisations and systems, with a set of design principles and roles.
The Government Office for Science's introduction to systems thinking for complex public sector problems, bringing together guidance, tools and case studies.
An applied guide connecting systems thinking principles to defining goals, understanding a system, designing collaboratively and evaluating change.
The Scottish Government's framework and community for designing public services with the people who use them, with a shared method bank.
The free online companion to the book: over fifty methods for research, ideation, prototyping and facilitation, each with a step-by-step description.
GOV.UK Service Manual guidance on planning and running interviews to understand people's circumstances, experiences, problems and needs.