A human-centric way of working
at INPS, the italian social security & welfare administration
#Public-administration
#service-design
2021 - 23
THE Challenge
Shifting from processes to people:
Support the PA in becoming more citizen-centric and increasing its design maturity by launching an internal design unit and supporting its strategic and tactical activities.
The Institution is organised in silos and collaborating across teams becomes very difficult. This causes redundancies, misaligns and missed opportunities.
The strong focus on the normative aspects of the provided services often steps over the user-experience led linguistic or process simplification attempts.
The distance between the PA and citizen often is due to strict engagement procedures and related timing that not every project can sustain.
THE SOLUTION
A systemic solution was crafted to tackle both the strategic and tactical needs of the PA.
On a strategic level the internal design unit was launched and supported in creating internal strategic alliances. It was equipped with a structured design-led way of working ("INPS Experience System"), infused with agile practices to help spread the design culture internally.
On a more practical level, templates, frameworks, design guidelines and a unified design system ("Sirio") were crafted.
Project impacts
The design system Sirio is currently being applied on 85% of the PNRR related services, and 25+ other digital services offered by the Institution.
With its design tokens, new collaborative and agile workflows between design and development have been made possible.
The design system contains a rich set of educative contents and guidelines that equip stakeholders to learn design by doing it.
All third parties working with the Institution in service development have been, and continuously are being, asked to use it - and their feedback shows how valuable it is to their work quality and agility.
The IES (INPS Experience System) process is currently being made available widely within the Institution. One of its key templates, the User journey, is being applied on pilot projects.
All contents and tools are published on an open source platform at inps.design.
4M
Users
impacted
11
Business units involved
19
Third parties involved
Project Awards
UX@INPS
& IES
GOV DESIGN AWARDS 2022
Sirio
Design system
GOV DESIGN AWARDS 2022
INPS
design culture
iF DESIGN AWARDS 2023
approach & methodology
The project started with an initial discovery phase to identify main Institutional needs and context factors. It then evolved into different work streams that span over 2+ years.
Each of the streams followed a tailored approach based on design-led practices, business empathy and agile practices.
Common key aspects were: the collaborative activities, the iterative way of working, and the focus on a combination of strategic and operational outcomes.
01
Definition of the design unit key value proposition areas
Understanding the needs and struggles of different units' staff to craft a solid identity and value proposition for the new design unit. Identification of main success factors and setup of internal strategic partnerships.
50+
stakeholders engaged
11
internal units involved
02
IES (INPS Experience System) co-design
The E2E design process was co-designed by a multi-disciplinary team in a way that adapted the design methodologies to the PA's context. The framework includes a wide variety of templates, guidelines and educational contents to support employees' work.
60+
supporting contents
2
iterations
03
Design system "Sirio" co-creation & evolution
The design system was based on a systemisation of existing webkits and design languages already in use within the PA. It was a collaborative effort from all third parties involved and it's being iterated on constantly ever since it was born.
19
third parties involved
300+
services that will be redesigned
04
An institutional service design quality standard definition
A quality standard governance framework was setup for the design unit to guarantee standardisation and user-centricity throughout all projects run by INPS. Score-based design quality levels were defined and assigned to projects categories based on their complexity.
5
complexity categories
3
quality levels
MY role
As designer leading the strategic phases of the project, I took care of the following activities:
-
business empathy with internal stakeholders and collaborating partners
-
co-design activities planning, lead and analysis,
-
INPS Experience System framework definition and evolution
-
customer journey template design (together with other designers)
-
design system content contribution
-
presentation activities to client leadership and partners,
