You can’t create a people-centered service on your own. In this blog, you’ll learn why it matters who you involve in the design of government services—and why that goes beyond just “a design team.” You’ll also discover what you’re missing if lawyers and administrators aren’t involved.
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Stickers on the laptop
What perhaps surprises me most about the team I’m part of now is how different it feels from the design teams I’ve worked on before. Back then, I was surrounded by UX designers, researchers, content designers, and—okay, maybe the occasional business analyst. Everyone spoke the same language, used the same tools, and had the same stickers on their laptops. These were teams where we usually got along great—if only because we shared the frustration of not making more of an impact within our organization.
A year and a half ago, I began my field research for my doctoral dissertation with the Clustering Rijksincasso program. Here, I don’t find a traditional design team like the ones I’m used to. In fact, no one here calls themselves a designer. There is one colleague listed as a “researcher,” but who clearly also works as a UX designer. The rest are process coordinators, lawyers, analysts, project managers, and product owners—people who are very hands-on and “simply” building services.
Whenever I ask about people-centered design—or, to use the jargon, “human-centered design”—in interviews, I invariably get answers like:
“Yes, but once you realize that a citizen only has one repayment capacity, it makes perfect sense. So why not just do it that way?”
Starting from a simple idea, they challenge the internal structure of the government, create space for new ways of delivering services, and don’t get bogged down in fancy jargon. No one has stickers on their laptops. Yet I knew right from the start: this is a team that designs people-centered services.
What makes a good design team?
The ISO standard on human-centered design states that a design team must incorporate multidisciplinary skills and perspectives. A design team does not need to be large, as long as it is able to incorporate all relevant perspectives into the design so that it aligns well with the users, their context, and their needs.
One of the strengths of design-based work is that it not only gathers different perspectives but also brings them together. Design makes it possible to bring together interests that at first glance seem contradictory—such as simplicity versus precision or enforcement versus service—into a solution that works. It is precisely when you bring these perspectives together within your team that space is created to make better choices collectively. A good design team, therefore, is not a collection of experts, but a collective that can shift between perspectives.
The team’s boundaries
When we think of a team, we often picture a small group of people working together. A team can also consist of a structure with different layers and subteams, which in turn form a team together. For each team, you can pool your expertise and perspectives in a very focused way.
At CRI, this is reflected in how the program works with ad hoc teams focused on specific issues. For example, there is a “small group” working on the legal framework for data exchange so that the Tax and Customs Administration and the Benefits Service can connect to the Central Government Payment System (BRR). This team includes colleagues from all three organizations.
Another ad hoc team consists of colleagues from DUO to expand their participation in the BRR. Where there is overlap with issues that the Tax and Customs Administration and the Benefits Service also face, a call is scheduled to brainstorm how they are addressing them. All of these people are working together to build this payment service. Team boundaries are fluid.
In fact, there is a strong sense within the program that anyone who contributes to the service is part of “Team CRI,” whether they work at CJIB, the Tax and Customs Administration, UWV, or DUO.
Quiet Design
I’ve noticed that in this program, people from all kinds of fields and roles collaborate on the services they create, without calling themselves designers. They don’t work in a secluded lab, testing ground, or internal UX club, but right in the thick of things. Yet they are indeed designing human-centered services. In the literature, this is called “silent design”—designing without people actually calling it that.
The Forgotten Profession: The Lawyer
Interestingly, the ISO definition omits one profession that is indispensable within the government: the lawyer.
When it comes to public services, legislation is rarely absent. Sometimes, the only option is to reinterpret the law or explain it differently. Many design disciplines run into this challenge during implementation (let’s take a moment of silence for all the content editorial teams at municipalities and implementing organizations).
When you do succeed in changing policy and legislation, you significantly expand the scope for creating effective services. This is where the lawyers come in. They should not merely assess the situation but take the lead: regularly researching real-world case studies, outlining alternatives, actively exploring scenarios, and then bringing these into the political process.
Without lawyers who are open to the citizen’s perspective, you can’t design anything new. But with such lawyers, you can do things that were previously unthinkable.
Jasper van Kuijk previously referred to them as “can-do lawyers” in his column in *de Volkskrant*. For lawyers (and anyone interested) who would like to become that kind of lawyer, I recommend Mariette Lokin’s *Wendbaar Wetgeven*.
Directors are also part of the team
User-centered design requires flexibility. For example, it allows you to work iteratively and not know exactly what you’re creating in advance. Or to test with users even before everything has been fine-tuned down to the last detail.
This space is not only operational but also administrative. Especially in a government context, you have to deal with policy, politics, and public accountability. If administrators are not involved in the design and learning process, every step becomes a battle to reach consensus or a risk.
At CRI, I see how things can be done differently: decision-makers are involved from the start, receive ongoing insights, and see how users respond. This allows them to adapt, provide direction, and make adjustments based on facts, not just assumptions. Decision-makers are part of the learning system.
How do you begin?
- Take another look at your team. Who’s at the table right now? What discipline or perspective are you missing? Think beyond the usual suspects—maybe that lawyer, that supply chain partner, or that policy strategist really should be part of the team.
- Think of your team as a network. You don’t have to put everything into a single group. Work with ad-hoc teams, bring in partners at the right time, and dare to think in terms of flexible structures.
- Involve lawyers as designers. Not just to approve something, but to help design alternatives. Look for lawyers who are open to new ideas.
- Make room for leaders and ask them to make room for the team. Create opportunities for collective reflection and establish an accountability structure that strikes a balance between trust and guidance for the leaders and room for experimentation for the team. Not after the fact, but from the very beginning.
You create a people-centered service with people who complement and challenge one another and design together—even if they don’t call themselves designers.
Continue reading?
I also wrote these blog posts about the principles of human-centered design: