Take a look at the Human-Centred Design Playbook

For public servants who are designing, procuring or managing human-centred design projects.

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Human-Centred Design Playbook
PDF 2.94 MB
Updated 5 Aug 2022
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How and when to use this playbook

This guide is for public servants who are designing, procuring or managing human-centred design (HCD) projects.

It was developed for use by public servants who are new to HCD practice. It will help you collaborate better with Digital Victoria's service design team, service designers in your department and external design agencies.

It’s structured to get you up and running quickly and can be used in several ways.

Scoping and planning a project

This guide can be used as a starting point for when you’re planning and scoping design-based activities. It can help you structure a project by providing an understanding of common approaches, time frames and budgets for HCD projects.

Procuring an external design agency

This guide can help you understand the type of design project you need. It describes typical deliverables to include in your request for a quote and may be useful when assessing responses from design agencies: their methods, proposed outputs, and price.

Increasing your design literacy

Non-designers can use this guide during a project to help them feel informed and have better conversations with design practitioners and to validate approaches suggested by a supplier.

Precedents and case studies

It provides VicGov case studies, references and evidence of application to help determine whether an HCD approach is right for your work and make the business case for taking a design-led approach.

Why use this playbook?

There are many HCD playbooks, guides and toolkits available. This guide is unique because it was written in the context of the Victorian public sector. It seeks to demystify the HCD process by combining HCD methods and outputs into a set of suggested project plans. It does some of the thinking for you via the guidance on assessing your options and practical steps for executing a project.

This playbook will help you incorporate an HCD approach into your work by introducing design processes, costs, time frames and what outputs to expect.

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