Designing for the end

Themes: Design principles for public services | Trust in public services | Transparency and accountability | Inclusive and accessible services | Place-based and relational services

All services eventually and inevitably come to an end - whether due to limited resources, funding and time constraints, or simply because the service has fulfilled its purpose. 

Yet, despite this inevitability, efforts and resources are primarily directed towards designing the onboarding and usage experience of services, while the experience of “the end” - when users are offboarded or their relationship with the service is closed - is often overlooked.

The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham (LBBD) is exploring the role of service design in designing end of service experiences for public services. 

Through a series of facilitated design thinking activities and using early insights from LBBD’s work as a starting point, this workshop invites participants to explore, ideate and reflect on what better endings could look like in their own contexts and organisations.

Participant takeaways: 

• a clearer understanding of different types of service endings, and why endings are a critical part of service design
• hands-on experience in co-designing and prototyping alternative end of service experiences
• reflections and emerging principles for designing intentional and meaningful endings in high-pressure and resource-constrained environments
• a set of adaptable design thinking exercises to take back and apply within your own organisation

This session:

• includes interaction 
• has a cap of 25 participants