“We created this new benefit for people with disabilities but only few of them were able to get it.”
Government representative said this at a conference recently. It’s a sentence remarkable by its honesty. It’s very typical otherwise.
I’m not sure how many times I’ve heard some version of this.
I’m sure I’ve used it myself.
It boils down to:
- Many policies / services / initiatives / … intended to help people fail because they ignore people.
- They ignore how people think and behave.
- They ignore the reality people live — what exhausts them, what they have to deal with before they even get to your policy.
What good is disability benefit where the process is so complicated only a select few can navigate it?
What’s the point of “policy” that details its purpose and objectives and justifications for a hundred pages but gives no consideration to how it will be implemented, by whom and in what context?
What to think of public policy consultations which rely on expert-sounding big words and complicated procedures to “gather feedback”?
I could go on, including by listing many things where I’ve gone wrong. (There’s plenty, and we’ll get there.)
But that’s not the point.
The point is:
- Those of us working on public policy, we need to spend less time thinking as “policy experts” and more as (good) product designers (or architects or other consumer-facing profession).
Because when they describe their process, they invariably start with: I asked this question… I spent time with the customer…
And in public policy, the “customer” is both the “end-user” and the “provider”. Both need to be able understand the policy / service, its purpose and functioning. Both need to be able to “access it”.
Indifference to them and their lived reality is a sure way for the policy to fail.
“Indifference towards people and the reality in which they live is actually the one and only cardinal sin in design” is a quote by Dieter Rams, legend of product design.
Replace “in design” with whatever your line of work is.
Think about it.
Think some more about what it means now.
Go do something about it.