Recap: User Needs First International conference 2025

We visited one of the city offices in Amsterdam where the UX department and team is located. The municipality is very much focused on a user-centered approach in everything they do. The variety of topics the UX team works on is huge and ranges from digital public service design to specific domain issues such as congestion in the city’s electricity grid.

The team in Amsterdam finds it important to simplify complex processes and turn them into something clear and understandable. To do that, the team tries to involve users in the design, test and implementation phases.

The Netherlands Police has 65,000 employees: 51,000 police officers and 14,000 employees in other roles. The UX department has an innovation lab in Utrecht: HUB 50.

This expedition included a tour of the building and its various departments, followed by an in-depth session on UX at the Netherlands Police.

The Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations works on fundamental topics of the Netherlands and the Kingdom, for instance: strengthening democracy, ensuring good governance, and digitalization of government services. 

The Ministry organized 5 different field trips:

1. AI, technology and public services
   This specific expedition was about AI, new technologies and plain language. We explored how new technologies can help in rewriting documents in plain language. We also discussed current initiatives and how to scale up best practices in the Dutch field, and we identified examples of plain government language from other countries in and outside government.
2. Design and policy
   We explored the concept of design-based policy development (policy design) through two specific cases: the development of the vision for government-wide online services and the vision for local in-person services. We discussed what design-based policy development entails, and challenges and successes. We showed that a design-based approach is possible in a political and traditionally hierarchical and bureaucratic environment.
3. Unified government services
   Dealing with government services can be quite a challenge—especially when multiple government agencies are involved, such as after a divorce, job loss, or the passing of a loved one. Not everyone finds it easy to navigate government services. During this expedition, we’ve heard about key lessons learned over the past three years and experienced firsthand both the value and challenges of government-wide services.
4. Life events and proactive services
   Life events can have a major impact and demand a lot of interaction with different government agencies. This expedition on proactive services covered inspiration from other countries on proactive services and life events, reflection and feedback on the life events approach, what life events and proactive services look like in practice, and real-world examples of proactive services and life event-driven solutions.
5. Customer experience and signal management
   This expedition covered the use of signal management in improving the customer experience in your organization. We discussed methods and cases in signal management and customer experience.

In this expedition we visited the City of Rotterdam, discussing challenges and opportunities in designing user centric government services in the 21st century. This expedition was also a live meetup for members from our UserCentriCities (UCC) Community.

There were 3 presentations focused on a challenge in user centric service design and how to address it. These were the topics:

• How can we organize UX design within the organization as a standard way of working and show its value?
• How do you incorporate the user perspective in making design or policy decisions?
• How do you design usable digital services for users from increasingly different cultural backgrounds?

Everyone who has lived or worked in the Netherlands will almost certainly come into contact with the SVB. The SVB implements social insurance schemes, such as pension (AOW), child benefit and the personal care budget. We visited the innovation lab of the SVB: Novum.

Novum experiments with new solutions to improve government services in the field of social security. One thing Novum has learned is: real change requires collaboration. That is why they collaborate with several other public and private organizations to design and develop new ideas and experiments. This expedition provided a lot of (practical) information on how to validate ideas and make prototypes that have a user-centered approach.

Kara Kane

Head of Design, Public Sector Reform, Test and Learn
Cabinet Office (UK Government)

Martin Jordan

Head of Design & User Research
(German Government’s Digital Service)

The keynote

Over the past few years, we’ve seen government organizations increase their user-centred maturity – and then lose it again. More recently, we witnessed role-modelling organizations be dismantled. Denmark lost its groundbreaking innovation unit, Mindlab. In Canada, the Ontario Digital Service was shut down. Now, in the US, mass firings of digital specialists and the 18F team happened over night. We have been faced with the reality that government organizations do not mature and progress as we imagined them to. So, what does that mean for our work, practices and values? How do we navigate these times of disruptive change and rolling back from accessible, effective and better quality services? Any change of government or senior leadership can endanger our work and practices. In this talk, Martin and Kara highlighted the stories of people who are still trying to make change from the inside of institutions who no longer advocate for digital and design specialists. Including some tips for how to brace for change or move through the change already here. 

Check their presentation slides on GitHub

Marianne van den Anker

Ombudsman
(Region of Rotterdam)

Marianne van den Anker is the Ombudsman for Rotterdam and its adjoining districts. She is the voice for residents and entrepreneurs who encounter obstacles when dealing with the municipality. As a critical watchdog, she fights against systemic injustice and bureaucratic complexity. For her, putting people at the center of policies is a given. However, addressing these issues is no easy task. Strengthening trust in the government is a major driving force for Marianne and the common thread throughout her career.

She has a long-standing career, having worked at organizations like the City of Rotterdam and the police in different roles.

Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen

EGOV Adviser and expert in public sector digital transformation 
United Nations University, Operational Unit for Policy-Driven Electronic Governance

The keynote

The creative use of technology can enhance productivity, cost-efficiency, and service quality. Digital government services must go beyond transactions to be accessible, intuitive, and user-centric. The 4P’s—preventive, predictive, proactive, and personalised services—are achievable, but service design standards and governance models shape their form, function and delivery. 

This keynote compared several service design standards and guides, from the UK’s centralised GDS to Australia and Canada’s federal models and Denmark’s decentralised system. Some countries enforce design consistency through portals and standardised UI, while others struggle with fragmented, usability-challenged services. Ignoring accessibility and continuous improvement leads to costly retrofitting rather than proactive design. 

Poor UX frustrates users and increases costs for all! A disconnect often remains between users, designers, and decision-makers. Bridging this gap ensures policymakers prioritise good design and user-experiences. By learning in multiple countries, this presentation offered insights on governance, design standards, and embedding user needs in service delivery.

Read the key takeaways from Morten’s keynote

Stephanie Kaiser

Chief Product Officer
German Government’s Digital Service

The keynote

The German government faces the ongoing challenge of delivering user-centric digital services in a complex, decentralized landscape. How can innovation thrive and policy evolve when there’s no single, overarching digital authority?

In this talk, Stephanie shared how DigitalService leverages ‘change through delivery’ to bridge the gap between execution and policy, demonstrating how real-world implementation informs standards and legislation. Discover DigitalService’s strategies for fostering user-centricity within government, gaining buy-in from stakeholders, and measuring the impact of digital transformation.

Watch Stephanie’s keynote on YouTube

Oleg Polovynko

Adviser to the Mayor of Kyiv City on Digitalization

The keynote

Cities are evolving into complex, data-fueled ecosystems. But how do we ensure these ecosystems are resilient and trustworthy? This keynote addressed the critical role of digital infrastructure in navigating the challenges of the future. We’ve examined how smart technologies combat misinformation, enhance citizen participation, and convert data into strategic solutions. We learned how to build digital cities that are not just connected, but that are prepared to withstand and thrive in an increasingly challenging world.

Oleg has a strong message to all counties across the globe: “Be ready”

Richard Pope

Part of founding team of UK Government Digital Service (GDS)

Richard Pope was part of the founding team of the UK Government Digital Service and the first product manager for GOV.UK. He created many of the initial design concepts for both GOV.UK and the digital account for Universal Credit (the UK’s social security service). He was a senior fellow at Harvard in 2018/2019, researching and lecturing on ‘Government as a Platform’.

He is the author of Platformland – an anatomy of next-generation public services, which describes the types of interaction we should expect from the next generation of public services, the digital platforms and infrastructure they will be built with, and the public sector design values needed to make them a reality.