Summary
The speaker describes their role working for the New York City government and the transformative work done on Homestat, a program introduced by Mayor de Blasio in 2016 to address street homelessness. They emphasized the importance of empathy and dignity in service design, detailing their process of conducting field research with outreach teams and homeless residents, including those struggling with mental illness and substance use. With input from stakeholders across policy, management, and frontline services, they created detailed journey maps—from initial sticky-note versions to comprehensive digital documents—that unveiled the complexity of the service. A pivotal workshop brought everyone together to reflect and improve the shared understanding, leading to valuable design insights. These efforts influenced the design of public-facing dashboards, a new case management system built on trust and collaboration, and even a city-wide homelessness policy report called Turning the Tide. The team also supports cross-agency case conferences to foster coordination. Beyond homelessness, their small design team is building capacity across NYC's vast government structure of 325,000 public servants and 70+ agencies by creating design toolkits, training public servants, and partnering with private design firms. The speaker stresses setting a clear mission, principles, tactics, and goals to embed design culture in government, demonstrating direct impact by moving 690 people into housing through Homestat last year.
Key Insights
-
•
Building trust takes hundreds of repeated contacts with vulnerable homeless individuals before they accept help.
-
•
Empathy and dignity can be introduced into large government services by actively involving frontline workers and clients in research.
-
•
Journey mapping complex public services reveals the many steps and people involved, helping break down silos across agencies.
-
•
Digital journey maps increase accessibility and sharing among distributed teams compared to sticky notes.
-
•
Hosting inclusive workshops enables diverse stakeholders to build a shared understanding and identify gaps and improvements.
-
•
Design-led research can directly inform technology development such as public dashboards and case management systems.
-
•
Strong relationships and trust between design teams and service providers ease technology adoption and empower providers.
-
•
Embedding design in policy documents can amplify clients’ voices and guide comprehensive program reform.
-
•
Scaling design culture in a large city government requires clear mission, principles, tactics, toolkits, and measurable goals.
-
•
Collaborating with private sector design firms while coaching agency staff reduces risk and accelerates design adoption.
Notable Quotes
"It can take hundreds of these contacts before they start to trust."
"We must put our citizens at the center of every service."
"People didn't understand the service end to end. They were experts at their piece of the service."
"Sticky notes are really hard to share across offices and locations."
"This was a transformational day where everyone got to join together and reflect."
"The relationship has changed the dynamic. Technology isn’t just shoved at them anymore."
"I found myself tearing up. It was the voices of the many people we had talked to come to life in this official policy document."
"We still participate in co-chipping particular moments but mostly we have handed off the project to colleagues."
"We’re only going to be able to do so many things. We have to start spreading our methods and mindsets."
"What is your design mission? What are the principles? What are the tactics and tools? What are the goals?"
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"We are witnessing the most rapid loss of biodiversity in human history."
Alex Hurworth Bonnie John Fahd Arshad Antoine MarinDesigning a Contact Tracing App for Universal Access
October 23, 2020
"We wanted to actively promote the Design Ops discipline to more people, especially those not familiar with our craft."
Laine Riley Prokay Lisa GordonCarving a Path for Early Career DesignOps Practitioners
September 9, 2022
"People were very adverse to changes because a small 0.5% conversion increase meant millions in revenue."
Eniola OluwoleLessons From the DesignOps Journey of the World's Largest Travel Site
October 24, 2019
"The most important value delivered to customers is always the qualitative value—the emotional and experiential impact."
Nathan ShedroffDouble Your Mileage: Use Your Research Strategically
March 31, 2020
"Mobile devices not only have built-in screen readers but also pitch-to-zoom and magnification settings out of the box."
Sam ProulxMobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World
November 17, 2022
"At LinkedIn, rapid research uncovered trends across products that helped reduce duplicate work."
Feleesha SterlingBuilding a Rapid Research Program (Videoconference)
May 18, 2023
"Brand and product become two sides of the same coin when user insights have a seat at the top table."
Neil BarrieWidening the Aperture: The Case for Taking a Broader Lens to the Dialogue between Products and Culture
March 25, 2024
"Design systems help bridge the gap between design and development, but collaboration remains key."
John DevanneyThe Design Management Office
November 6, 2017
"You need to understand stakeholders’ fears, motivations, and incentives to change hearts and minds."
Katy MogalBut Do Your Insights Scale?
March 12, 2021