Post-conference webinar User Needs First

The User Needs First International Conference (April 9-11, Amsterdam) was packed with insightful talks, engaging breakout sessions, and thought-provoking panel discussions. That’s why we decided to continued the discussion! Watch the recording of the User Needs First post-conference webinar, where we will reflect on the key takeaways, identify emerging themes, and explore what’s next in user-centered digital services.

(Do you prefer reading? We have also prepared a written-out summary for you.)

Part 1 of 3: Jett Virangkabutra (Thammasat University in Thailand)

Part 2 of 3: Charlotte Vorbeck and Dirk Heider (German Government Digital Service)

Part 3 of 3: Peter Fletcher, Jen Gough and Koert Bakker (PwC)

International Design and Government Community Webinar: User-Centered Design in Justice and Public Services

This webinar, hosted by the International Design and Government Community on May 23, 2025, brought together practitioners from around the world to share insights on designing user-centered public services. The session featured 3 distinct presentations covering justice system design, collaborative transformation, and legacy system modernization, each offering unique perspectives on overcoming barriers to effective public service delivery.

Navigating Obstacles in Justice Design: A Thai Perspective

Jett Virangkabutra, a lecturer at the School of Global Studies at Thammasat University and innovation consultant working with the Thai Government, shared experiences from 2 justice-related projects in Thailand. His work focuses on social innovation and building capacity for human-centered design within government systems.

The first project involved improving prison services for female inmates. Through simple questioning techniques like “tell me about your day,” the research team discovered that food quality was crucial to prisoner wellbeing. However, deeper investigation revealed that the real issue was the lack of oral healthcare systems in prisons. Inmates, particularly younger ones preparing for release, were avoiding eating to preserve their teeth, as poor dental health could affect their reintegration prospects and increase recidivism risk.

The second project focused on developing a child-friendly justice system. Working with the Thailand Institute of Justice, the team aimed to improve victim and guardian experiences within the justice system. However, they faced significant recruitment challenges when trying to engage end users. Public prosecutors didn’t understand the role of designers, viewing them primarily as creators of promotional materials. The justice process itself was too taxing for victims to participate in research, and police were reluctant to contact victims about ongoing cases.

Despite these obstacles, the team developed three key solutions: a navigation system to help guardians understand legal processes and find appropriate support, a dual-use reporting system that captures both legal evidence and user needs, and resources to help police create more child-friendly interview environments. The Thai Government has since approved budget for proper interview rooms, marking progress toward better treatment of child victims in the justice system.

Shifting Power Through Co-Design: German Digital Transformation

Charlotte Vorbeck (Principal UX Designer) and Dirk Heider (Service Designer) from the German Government Digital Service shared their ongoing work building a new legal data system for Germany. Their presentation focused on the challenges of collaboration and the need to transform administration from within through co-design approaches.

The team identified that while building great public services is technically a solved problem, implementation remains extremely difficult due to cultural issues, lack of collaboration, and missing skills. They argue that transformation must occur at both structural and personal working levels, with collaboration serving as the crucial moment for bringing about change.

On the working level, they advocate for moving beyond traditional stakeholder engagement toward true co-design. This means extending interdisciplinary teams—common in tech companies—to include administration partners throughout the design process. Rather than building for administration, they propose building with them, gradually increasing involvement from basic information sharing to joint decision-making and design activities.

On the systemic level, they reference the “four shared” model for organizational collaboration: shared risks (openly discussing and being accountable for risks), shared responsibility (joint decision-making across all domains), shared resources (investing necessary skills to solve problems), and shared rewards (benefiting together from successful outcomes). They emphasize that collaboration is the most mature form of organizational relationship, requiring progression through networking, coordination, and cooperation phases.

The speakers identified three pillars for systemic impact: building relationships through personal networks and emotional engagement, displaying reliability as a trusted partner by understanding and helping with organizational challenges, and shaping a common vision of what can be created together that neither party could achieve alone.

Redesigning Legacy Systems: A UK Housing Case Study

Peter Fletcher (Senior Manager) and Jen Gough (focused on user-centric design and customer transformation) from PwC UK, along with Koert Bakker from PwC Netherlands, presented their work modernizing housing services for Homes England. This government body provides grants and subsidies to housing developers to increase affordable housing supply.

Homes England faced the challenge of scaling operations from supporting 100,000 homes annually to 300,000 homes, but their legacy technology systems couldn’t accommodate this growth. The systems were rigid, expensive to maintain, slow to adapt, and provided poor user experiences that inhibited funding applications.

The team employed six key strategies for addressing this challenge. First, they took a holistic approach using their “BXT” philosophy (Business, User Experience, Technology) to understand the complete problem rather than jumping straight to technical solutions. Second, they used an architecture-driven agile delivery approach, maintaining overarching views of technology architecture, service design, and user needs throughout iterative development.

Third, they established multidisciplinary teams from the beginning, including SMEs, service designers, architects, functional consultants, analysts, program managers, developers, and testers working collaboratively with client teams. Fourth, they maintained user-centricity across all user types, conducting workshops, focus groups, and extensive engagement with both internal staff and external customers.

Fifth, they prioritized change management and adoption, creating key user networks and providing training to help teams adapt to new processes while moving away from ingrained legacy system behaviors. Finally, they employed continuous user research throughout alpha and beta phases, gathering feedback and refining designs throughout the lifecycle rather than waiting until the end.

The results included a fully digital self-service user journey from application through contracting, leveraging modern government digital service components while reducing reliance on outdated legacy systems. The transformation significantly improved productivity, created a single source of truth for customers, eliminated data duplications, and enhanced capacity to manage housing funding delivery.