In a world drowning in complexity, simplicity isn’t just a luxury — it’s an act of courage. The clutter of processes, policies, and platforms in our organisations can frustrate staff and residents. But simplicity? Simplicity brings clarity, focus, and, most importantly, impact.
Whether you’re a delivery manager trying to streamline workflows, a strategist grappling with ever-shifting priorities, or part of an organisation tackling missions-based working, designing for simplicity can feel like chasing the horizon. But it doesn’t have to.
Here’s how simplicity can be the game-changer you didn’t know you needed — and how to make it happen.
In the world of service design, various programmes are helping to stimulate innovation to help people with or look after those with dementia, from “Living Well with Dementia” to “Dementia Friendly Communities”.
The issue of dementia is deeply personal to me; it’s something my nan lived with as she grew older. This personal connection is something many of us share, yet we rarely feel its full impact.
Dementia presents a significant challenge for public services — a ticking timebomb that could have a more profound effect than the recession on their capacity to provide for patients. Yet, it’s a topic that rarely makes it to the front pages of the news.
The ability of people to care for neighbours with dementia who lack family ties could be a litmus test of how communities can cope in the age of austerity. Yet, we rarely hear about the crucial role of carers in the big society.
It’s a crunchy issue, not just because of how difficult it is to understand how dementia affects people in different ways and at different speeds, but because it’s an issue we find difficult to talk about openly….
1. Design through conversation: nothing about us without us
Yet…as Sam Hecht argues, “dementia allows for an inhibited truthfulness”. Given this, how might we approach engaging and involving people with dementia and their carers differently?
We could learn from designing in simplicity into co-designing services, not in terms of dumbing down how we involve people, but how to support authentic forms of collaboration rather than pre-packaged engagement frameworks.
New Zealand’s Whānau Ora approach: A single framework brings together multiple agencies to provide wraparound support for families. No more navigating a maze of services.
Ask: What’s the smallest step you can take to simplify today?
2. Play at being human to talk about sensitive issues
We could learn from the design and use of children’s toys to stimulate authenticity. The Community Kitchen uses Lego to uncover ideas and thoughts from people who have often been imprisoned by a lack of confidence and support in expressing them verbally or in writing.
Tip: Test how your messages land with someone outside your bubble. Could they explain it back to you in their own words?
3. Use digital to model behaviours people feel confident in displaying
All of us will reject a way of doing things that we think will make us look stupid in front of people we don’t trust, whether it’s learning how to use technology or repairing a roof.
But when you involve users of services and people they have strong ties with around activities that stimulate behaviours they instinctively know they have been good at but haven’t been encouraged to use anymore, if technology is designed to model those behaviours, at best, it will feel invisible.
One of the partners on a programme I co-designed called “Transformed by You” was working in parallel on a project using technology to bring young and older people together to archive their memories. We’re about to start working with them again on how younger and older people can best collaborate to use public space.
Even the most advanced technology, like the iPad, can be as powerful as the most straightforward tool, as @sandiebakowski describes in her moving story about getting her father-to-law to use the iPad after his stroke. Designing for simplicity isn’t how simple it is to prepare for the designer; it’s how simple it is to use for the user.
- Action: Map out a typical workflow. Challenge every step. If it’s not adding value, simplify or remove it.
The path to simplicity isn’t about quick fixes — it’s a commitment to doing the work that matters in ways that work. So, ask yourself:
- What’s one area in your organisation that feels overly complicated?
- Who could you bring into a conversation about simplifying it?
- What small experiment could you start this week to simplify things forstaff, residents, or partners?
What can we learn from this when adapting our services?
