Prototyping a tool for co-designing policy interventions

MargaretDesign Tools, Legal Product Design, Prototyping for PolicyLeave a Comment

Simon Rafferty has a piece Prototyping a tool for co-designing policy interventions,  The piece explores how to prototype new policies. He looked at system mapping, but found it wasn’t strong at figuring out the why about intervening, or what could be done. He drafted this canvas to start a new prototyping tool vision: Because of this limitation of the existing tools, I want to … Read More

Delivering Public Service for the Future

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The European Centre for Government Transformation launches Delivering Public Service for the Future: How Europe Can Lead Public-Sector Transformation, a collection of 12 thoughtful essays on the future of public-sector reform and state modernisation. Written by 12 of Europe’s leading thinkers and policymakers, the essays explore a wide range of best practice in the field of state transformation, setting out the … Read More

Lessons Learned: Lean Impact : Innovating for Social Good

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The upcoming book, from Ann Mei Chang, Lessons Learned: Lean Impact : Innovating for Social Good, promises to hold many lessons for design work for policy and systems. This article on the Lean Startup blog, Startup Lessons Learned, begins to profile what the book will share about how to innovate in the social sector using lean and human-centered methods. The author, Ann … Read More

On prototyping and putting something out there… notes from the UK Policy Lab

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Vasant Chari, writing on the UK Policy Lab blog, documents how prototyping is being used in the government: On prototyping and putting something out there… – Policy Lab I believe we should embrace a ‘prototyping mindset’ whenever we are making policy.  I’d like to leave you with three reasons: First, prototyping is an acknowledgment that even after doing the research and … Read More

Prototyping and the new spirit of policy-making

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This article, by Lucy Kimbell and Jocelyn Bailey, describes how prototyping methods can be brought into the policy process: Prototyping and the new spirit of policy-making: CoDesign: Vol 13, No 3 This conceptual paper discusses the use of Co-Design approaches in the public realm by examining the emergence of a design practice, prototyping, in public policy-making. We argue that changes … Read More

Card Sorting outside in-person design research

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This article from Rick More, Card Sorting outside UX: How I use online card sorting for in-person sociological research, describes ways to use survey instruments like Qualtrics to understand people’s mental models and preferences. Card-sorting means putting different concepts, images, or words on separate cards (virtual or real) and then having users arrange them into clusters that you’ve pre-defined or … Read More

Intro to Design Thinking packet

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This month here at the Lab, we are making more of our internal design resources public — including this Intro to Design Thinking workbook. We use this workbook in conjunction with a more detailed presentation and facilitation plan — so it is not the ideal workbook to do on your own. But it is great as an adaptable set of … Read More

Visualise Data Options from Better Evaluation

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The excellent site Better Evaluation has an enormous collection of data visualization tools & advice. It is a rich description of possible visual techniques to use to convey your data more effectively. Data visualisation is the process of representing data graphically in order to identify trends and patterns that would otherwise be unclear or difficult to discern. Data visualisation serves … Read More

Creating Animations and Transitions With D3

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For the ambitious, this is a great intro to creating your own animations and transitions in d3.js. In interactive visualisation, there is the word reactive. Well, maybe not literally, but close enough. The fact is that reactivity, or the propension of a visualisation to respond to user actions, can really help engage the user in a visualisation, and help them … Read More

Using D3 to Make Data-Driven Visualizations

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D3 is a new tool for designers and programmers working on creating interactive visualizations out of large data sets. We recently told you how to create choropleth maps in D3 with an easy, step-by-step tutorial. In this short video, we’ll go over the basics of using selections with d3.js to make data-driven visualizations. Source: Using Selections in D3 to Make … Read More

Guides & lectures on user-led innovation

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I found a wealth of materials on leading innovation exercises inside organizations — and fostering users to innovate themselves at the homepage of MIT/Sloan professor Eric von Hippel. Four Basic Lectures These videos are posted on YouTube by MIT OpenCourseWare.  You are free to use and download them as you like  under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. I hope you find … Read More

Userfocus’ web usability checklist guide

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The design consultancy Userfocus has an amazing resource for anyone who wants to conduct a design review of an existing website (or even an app), with its 247 web usability guidelines. Guidelines for home page usability, task orientation, navigation and IA, forms and data entry, trust and credibility, writing and content quality, page layout and visual design, search usability, and … Read More

Is Your Website Usable: 10 Heuristics for User Interface Design from Jakob Nielsen

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The article 10 Heuristics for User Interface Design by Jakob Nielsen provides a convenient checklist of 10 key things/features/factors that any usable website should have. It is worth running through this as a design review for any user-facing project that you are composing, or that you are reviewing from others. Visibility of system status The system should always keep users … Read More

Use Your Interface: UI Interaction Library

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UYI, Use Your Interface, is a library full of gestures, movements, transitions, and small animations for digital designs. It is a growing library of transitional interface and interaction design patterns to help you inspire and communicate your UI ideas with people. You can browse through inspiration to make your prototypes more lively & responsive. Borrow from these interactions & reference … Read More

10 Essential User Experience Methods

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10 Essential User Experience Methods: MeasuringU: UX researchers have developed many techniques over the years for testing and validating their ideas. Here are ten essential methods to learn and employ on your next project. Moderated In-Person Usability Testing: This fundamental technique is used by usability professionals for obtaining feedback from live users interacting with everything from paper prototypes to fully … Read More

Creating Fillable PDF Forms With InDesign and Acrobat

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Do you want to create a form to distribute out to the public, that users can fill in (within constraints set by you)? Then it’s worth investing in some powerful software, beyond standard Microsoft Word & Adobe Acrobat Reader. Learning to use Adobe products like InDesign & Illustrator is useful to create PDFs that are more usable, interactive, and user-friendly. … Read More

How to create interactive PDF forms with Acrobat Pro

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The Design Cubicle presents a tutorial on How to create interactive PDF forms using Adobe Acrobat Pro. It’s authored by Brian Hoff, see the full article at the link to read the entire tutorial. If you’re like me then you like everything from your website down to your legal contracts to look well designed and function to your client’s liking … Read More

Automate excel -> flowchart diagram with Visio

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Here is a very instructional piece from Michael Angeles explaining how to use Excel databases & Visio diagramming software to transform a spreadsheet into a flowchart automatically. It requires some up-front planning & design, but it can be worth it if you make a lot of diagrams. Check out Automating Diagrams with Visio « Boxes and Arrows for the full … Read More

Design pattern libraries for desktop & mobile software

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One of the best ways to quickly develop your vision of a new software product (or overhaul of an existing one) is to visit Design Pattern Libraries, that can show you how other talented designers have laid out interfaces for certain functions. I’ve gathered together links to useful design pattern libraries for both desktop & mobile software interfaces.  You can … Read More

Human-Centered Design Toolkit from IDEO

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IDEO has published a rich & useful toolkit with which to use the design process to generate new product & concept designs. You can download the toolkit for free, and try using it out in the next workshop, design sprint, or hackathon that you’re running through. For years, businesses have used human-centered design to develop innovative solutions. Why not apply … Read More

Canva – easily create graphic designs in your browser

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Canva is an amazing browser-based tool to very easily mix your own gorgeous graphic design image. It provides you with well-designed layout templates, text, stencils, vectors, and free images for you to then feed into your own composition. It is very intuitive to use as an authoring tool. It gives you lots of choices, but supplies you with enough guidance … Read More

Draw | LibreOffice

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via Draw | LibreOffice – Free Office Suite – Fun Project – Fantastic People. LibreOffice is a free, opensource set of desktop software.  It offers several visual design functions. Draw lets you produce anything from a quick sketch to a complex plan, and gives you the means to communicate with graphics and diagrams. With a maximum page size of 300cm … Read More

Amazon Storyteller for creating visual stories

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Amazon Storyteller is a great resource for anyone who wants to quickly create a graphic narrative.  Though Amazon has released this story-visualizer as tool for movie-makers, it is also useful for anyone who wants to tell a visual story. This could be the lawyer who wants to author a graphic version of a legal process. Or it could be a … Read More

Datawrapper for making charts, graphs and maps

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Datawrapper is an open source project started out of a German training institution for newspaper journalists.  It is a free software service that lets you easily create correct charts that you can embed online. Here is their quick start guide: If you just want to give Datawrapper a try, here is a brief run-through. Principle: First the data, than the … Read More

Make Infographics with Piktochart

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Piktochart is an online, paid tool to create your own infographics easily, by plugging in your data into their templates. You can also create reports, banners, and presentations with their tool. Here is their basic tutorial overview of how to make an infographic with their tools: With Piktochart’s tools and features, you’ll be an infographic making genius in no time. … Read More

A Beginner’s Guide to Making Infographics

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Here’s an excellent article from Rachel Banning-Lover on The Guardian, intended particularly for NGOs and relief workers,  via the Global Development Professionals Network | Guardian Professional.   How to make infographics: a beginner’s guide to data visualisation An interactive map of attacks on health care in Syria – the blue spots show attacks by government forces. Photograph: Physicians for Human … Read More

Creating Static and Interactive Infographics with Illustrator and Muse

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An article from Jim Babbage on Adobe’s Blog, via Creating Static and Interactive Infographics with Illustrator and Muse. Creating Static and Interactive Infographics with Illustrator and Muse This week, the team I work on at Adobe was given a special task; to create new education-based assets to use in demonstrations, tutorials and to share with educators and other education colleagues. … Read More

Prototyping with Keynote

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The product design sprint: prototype with Keynote | Google Ventures. The product design sprint: prototype (day 4) Jake Knapp Design Partner At the Google Ventures Design Studio, we have a five-day process for taking a product or feature from design through prototyping and testing. We call it a product design sprint. This is the sixth in a series of seven posts on … Read More

Prototyping with PowerPoint

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Story-centered design: how to make a prototype in PowerPoint | Google Ventures. Story-centered design: how to make a prototype in PowerPoint Henry Tsai Head of UX, Astrid When I started my career as a management consultant, I was surprised at how versatile PowerPoint was. We used it for everything from seating charts to market-entry strategies for Fortune 500 clients. At … Read More

A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

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A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods. from Ralph Lengler & Martin J. Eppler at www.visual-literacy.org This interactive table presents a systematic overview of tools to use when trying to visualize different things — and hover over any of the types, and see an example of exactly that pop-up. So cool & useful!

Lay Out Your Design: A Beginner’s Guide to Wireframing a Website

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A Beginner’s Guide to Wireframing from Webdesigntuts+. Here is an excellent step-by-step tutorial on how to wireframe out a website or app you want to develop! Go from sketch to proper design with this guide. Wireframing is an important step in any screen design process. It primarily allows you to define the information hierarchy of your design, making it easier … Read More

Service Design Toolkit

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Service Design Toolkit – Improve the quality of your service with this hands-on toolkit. This is a toolkit for the design of public services: This toolkit is an introduction to the methodology of service design. With a simple step-by-step plan we offer you a practical do-it-yourself guide. This toolkit on service design is the outcome of a partnership between two … Read More

Make an Interactive Flowchart in Excel

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Here is an Interactive Flowcharting Tutorial – FlowBreeze Help. This tutorial will take you through the steps to create a flowchart using the interactive flowcharting mode of FlowBreeze. Because FlowBreeze is an Excel add-in, it will load with Excel but the interactive text-to-flowchart generation remains idle until you start a flowcharting session. It will operate on only one worksheet at … Read More

Make Interactive Visualizations: Graphviz

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Graphviz | Graphviz – Graph Visualization Software. Graphviz is open source graph visualization software. Graph visualization is a way of representing structural information as diagrams of abstract graphs and networks. It has important applications in networking, bioinformatics, software engineering, database and web design, machine learning, and in visual interfaces for other technical domains. The Graphviz layout programs take descriptions of … Read More

Prototype an App in 1 hour

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via How to Prototype an App in 1 hour: meet POP | Board of Innovation. How to Prototype an App in 1 hour: meet POP by Manu Vollens Business Prototyping tools review – No business plan survives the first contact with the customer. During our Business Prototyping phase, we help our clients to build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Depending … Read More

App Design elements: buttons, interfaces, templates, stencils

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Awwwards has collected together a whole set of free elements for you to lay out, mock-up, and roll-out beautiful mobile apps. This is a great collection of GUI’s, mock-ups, Complete UI and Design elements with PSD files for download, skeuomorphic interface samples, icons, printable sketching templates which we have gathered here for all app designers and we are sure you … Read More

Learn to make Icons

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Here is a five-part free tutorial from Skillshare, taught by the Noun Project, on how to create beautiful & crisp icons for your designs. Especially since there is a lack of legal icons, this is a great way to learn how to go from sketches to usable & sharp visuals. This class is perfect for anyone wanting to learn more … Read More

Free icons, vectors, and pictograms

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This website is full of examples of great free icons, symbols, vectors, and pictograms to use in your designs: Awward’s collection of Vector icons and Icon Webfonts for Interfaces and Responsive web design. Browse through and download these great resources for making your designs and documents look sharper, professional, and creative.

Vector line icons

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This is a free set of beautiful, sharp icons to use in your designs from the Linecons Free – Vector Icons Pack by Designmodo. You can download this pack and you will have each of these icons in all the formats you might need to use in your designs — PNG, photoshop, illustrator, pdf, and webfont. Icons are usable to … Read More

visualizing.org: Data Visualization community

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Visualizing.org is a site that collects together a community of people who are visualizing complex issues through data & design. It includes some political, governmental, and legal issues. It is rich with examples of good visualizations — maps, diagrams, tables, infographics, and more. It also has challenges & support for those who want to sharpen their visual skills.