As migration increases the processes supporting migration boards as well as migrants face increasing demands for quality, effectiveness and efficiency. The Swedish Migration Board piloted the use of the VISUAL language in this complex area, where laws, international policies, multiple actors, and relationships are intertwined.

The VISUAL project supported the Migration Board in taking a service perspective on the process of spouses, registered partners or common law spouses moving together in Sweden, where one of them already is a resident.

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The VISUAL project supports Lancashire County Council in England in their effort to transform the way that they deliver services. The Council is responsible for a huge variety of services to over a million people in the North West of England. These services include libraries, schools, highways, social care, environment, public health, waste and trading standards.

Tony Roberts, Senior Public Health Coordinator for the Council explained why they are looking for a new approach, “In Lancashire, we are embarking on the most significant shift in the way we deliver services in over a generation. We are moving away from a traditional ‘public service’ approach of delivering services to people and towards a more empowering approach – exploring innovative ways of securing the health, wellbeing and prosperity of the people and communities of Lancashire.”

This change in approach has led the Council to exploring different ways of going about designing services. “We aim to design services around the expectations and experiences of the people who use them, not of the people who manage them”, Tony explained. “That means having a much better understanding of how their contact with us makes sense within the context of how they live their lives.” Read more ›

For the seventh year SDN is organizing its global conference. This year in Stockholm, with around 600 participants. The theme of the conference is Creating Value for Quality of Life. Apart from a Buddhist monk convinvcing us that not everything can be designed, Nathan Shedroff recapturing his work on Experiential Values, and Service Designers focusing on the largest and most important challenges, there were two particularly interesting themes from a VISUAL perspective.

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