Expertise
Social themes
Inclusive services
Inclusive services
The client
Can human-centred design contribute to inclusive digital services of cities?
With this interesting question in mind, the Knowledge Centre Flemish Cities (KCVS) and District09 started a search for motivated cities eager to find out together. Thus, the City Deal E-inclusion by design saw the light, we started in September 2022 and the collaboration ran until December 2024. Mediawijs, INTER and VVSG help translate and disseminate the learning lessons to medium and small local governments. The City Deal was subsidised with funds from the Flemish government to stimulate local cities and governments to integrate e-inclusion in their daily work and services.
The challenge
13 Flemish central cities and the VGC Brussels committed to making their digital services more inclusive using human-centred design, and they could use support in doing so. Two coaches from Knight Moves, together with two coaches from Twisted Studio, set to work to train and guide this network in the human-centred design approach.
A second challenge is to also get the other local authorities in Flanders on board with this approach and to share the lessons learned with them. We opted for a widely accessible (online and offline) toolbox where various examples and exercises can be found, and which makes it easy to get started yourself.
Our approach
Coaching & training
Coaching the cities was organised on two levels: locally and as a network. We supported the cities in conducting their local experiments and facilitated mutual learning by bringing the network together. Each city was committed to organize 2 local experiments. In one experiment, they tried a specific method, such as observing citizens at the counter or organising co-creative workshops, ... Within the coaching process, we wanted to put a lot of effort into stimulating exchange, within the city staff but especially also between the cities. The monthly network meeting provided the ideal moment to share learning lessons from the 24 local experiments. Our weekly consultation hour for urgent questions and intervision moments provided depth in certain themes such as ‘How to design a good form?’ or ‘How to organise user testing?’.
We focused not only on coaching the cities but also on training. We organised basic training in human-centred design for all cities. This was enthusiastically received, and we were given the opportunity to also provide some in-depth training on these themes:
- Co-creation and facilitation
- Drawing up a research plan
- Impact monitoring
- Digital prototyping
- User testing
On the one hand, the trainings ensured support for the local experiments and, on the other hand, they motivated staff to put more citizens and partners at the centre of all their projects. By combining open training courses where staff from different cities worked together and local training courses that we gave in the city itself, we ensured exchange within each city and between all cities. We made the training courses practical and applicable, drawing on experiences from the field and questions from the coaching sessions. The focus was on building the right mindsets, and especially self-confidence. After 2 years, we see that everyone within a city is working on human-centred design themselves.
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local experiments in Human-centered design+50
trainings about human-centered design and inclusive design+200
trained employees in 13 cities and VGC BrusselToolbox for all cities and municipalities
With the toolbox Human-centred Design, we want to inspire employees, managers and local governments. The toolbox contributes to support for human-centered design and shows that these methods can be used and offer added value. The physical toolbox provides an accessible start with a selection of methods, while the online toolbox is more comprehensive, with all methods and good examples.
A small group of cities from the network took ownership of the development of the toolbox during workshops. We started with the positioning and goals to give the toolbox a strong identity.
We also had smaller local governments share their visions, experiences and expectations in interviews. We used these insights to tailor the toolbox to the reality of the target group and put the right emphases.
We built a first version of the digital toolbox, which we then tested with real users: employees at different cities and municipalities. At the same time, we further developed the concept for the physical toolbox. This test version or prototype of the physical toolbox was also tested very extensively with several local municipalities.
Result
The impact of the City Deal is being felt in every city. We already shared some concrete learning lessons from the local experiments in this blog post: 'Make your digital services inclusive in 4 steps' and in the episode of the Service Design Podcast ‘Experiments for Inclusion’.
Does your local government want to commit to user-friendly (digital) services for everybody? The human-centered design toolbox will help you get started designing in local government. The toolbox contains the necessary tools, concrete templates and inspiring testimonials from the cities that participated in the City Deal. The toolbox is structured according to six steps:
- Prepare: we frame our project and challenge our assumptions
- Investigate: we really get to know the needs of our end-user
- Summarise: thanks to our end-user’s insights, we prioritise the goals of our project
- Design: we look for creative ideas and think with our hands
- Experiment: before we launch solutions, we test them
- Convincing: we convince the necessary parties to implement the solution
The toolbox was launched at the Digital Inclusion Inspiration Day organised by Mediawijs and VVSG. On the day itself, we already distributed 160 physical copies to local governments and non-profit organizations. You can discover the online toolbox on the website of Mediawijs.
Interested in a physical copy? You can sign up using this form so the Knowledge Centre Flemish Cities can keep you informed.
What was the impact of the City Deal?
Part of the City Deal was that researchers at imec/SMIT were going to measure the impact of the last few years. You can see the full report here. We'd like to highlight these insights:
- Digital inclusion cannot happen without human-centred design: To ‘(re)design inclusive services (...) it is (...) important not to take digitalisation as the starting point but rather the end user.’
- The City Deal approach was a success, and it is recommended to continue the network and set up a similar track for other local governments
- City Deal success factors:
- The combination of networking, training, practical experience through experiments and tailor-made advice
- The open and safe atmosphere
- Flexibility for tailor-made application for each administration
- The broad involvement of city staff: from frontline to management team across city departments
We are very curious to see how the 13 cities and the Brussels FCC will continue working on their own, but also how other local authorities will use the toolbox. Good luck and thanks for the inspiring cooperation: Aalst, Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent, Genk, Hasselt, Kortrijk, Leuven, Mechelen, Ostend, Roeselare, Sint-Niklaas, Turnhout, VGC Brussels, Knowledge Centre Flemish Cities and District09.
“As local governments, we challenge ourselves to work more intensively with our end users. Knight Moves and Leap Forward is a reliable partner for us that manages to bring in appropriate content at the right time. The quality of their training and process guidance is very high and highly customized.”
