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
11 resources · Toolkit
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.
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.
The Ministry of Justice design system's introduction to ethical considerations for service teams, including harm, vulnerability, discrimination, trust and automated decisions.
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.
An open collection of communication tools and methods for designing services, started by Roberta Tassi and maintained as a shared 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.
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.