Читать книгу Good Services - Lou Downe - Страница 5

Foreword Mike Monteiro

There used to be a tree in front of our house. It was, by the entire neighbourhood’s admission, a very ugly tree. It had greyish bark, sticky sickly looking leaves, a generally unpleasing shape, and didn’t appear to be in the best of health. But it was our tree. It blocked the afternoon sun from our living room, and our dog liked to pee on it. We were glad to have it.

Then a large branch fell. A thick, heavy branch. Right onto a neighbour’s car. Luckily, no one got hurt. The neighbour’s car was a little dented, which he wasn’t happy about but, all in all, it could’ve been a lot worse. Life went back to normal. People went back to parking under the tree, and dogs went back to peeing on it. Until a few weeks later there was a heavy wind and another branch came down. The tree’s time had come. A city worker came by and taped a notice to the tree, alerting us that it was marked for removal. I wasn’t happy to lose the tree, but it was obvious the tree was now dangerous and had to go. Luckily, the notice contained a URL where I could go to ask the city for a new tree.

This is where our story takes a dark turn.

Years of dealing with local government services websites have taught me a few things. First, make sure you are alone, because you are going to get angry. Second, have your anxiety medication nearby. Carve out at least half a day. Make sure the dog’s water bowl is full. Update your will. And alert your neighbours to ignore the screams. If they look worried, just tell them you’re using a local government website. Watch as their concern turns to pity. Some of them may offer to bring you meals.

Sadly, all that preparation was in vain, because the first thing I found out on the new tree website was that, before I could get a new tree, I had to request a stump removal. Which was handled by a different department, on a different website. Also, I didn’t have a stump yet. I still had an ugly yet beloved tree. I had to wait until I had a stump.

Two weeks later, workers came, cut down the tree and left a stump. I had my prerequisite for getting a new tree. I went to the stump removal website, and asked them to remove my stump. A week later, they did. Which meant that I could now go to the new tree website to request a new tree. First question: is this a replacement tree? Easy enough. Has the stump been removed? Oh, yes! So much progress. Third question: what kind of tree do you want? Reader, there was a drop-down list. I clicked.

Let’s take a nature break. Do you know how many types of trees there are? There are a lot. There are deciduous trees, which lose their leaves with the seasons, and evergreen trees, which do not. In addition there are palm trees, banana trees and, oddly, bamboo is a tree. I didn’t know that. But I do now. Because it was listed in that drop-down list. Along with every other tree on earth. They were all in the list. Including sequoias. Now, I’m the kind of jerk that if someone is willing to plant a sequoia in front of my house, I’ll take it. So I said, yes, give me a sequoia.

A week later I got an email that said, no, you cannot have a sequoia. It’s not the right kind of tree for your neighbourhood. Ok, well, I guess that’s on me. I knew I was being a jerk when I selected it. But it’s also on you, for having it on the list. Regardless, I probably knew I shouldn’t have asked for a sequoia. I went back to the list. I picked something else, I think it was an oak tree, because that sounded like a non-jerk choice. A week later: no, you cannot have an oak. I tried again. Cypress? (Possibly because I was listening to Cypress Hill.) Again, no. Wrong tree. Why couldn’t the city just tell me what kind of tree I could have? This went on for a while, until one day I came home to find the city had cemented over the whole thing, and some kid had written LORD SALAMANDER in the wet cement.

I never got a tree.

In this particular case, as much as I enjoyed my ugly tree, it wasn’t a catastrophic loss. It was annoying. But the same city that runs that online service also runs services for starting small businesses, getting married, jury duty, the municipal courts and law enforcement. And I guarantee you those are designed just as well. And that’s just the city stuff.

Every day, all over the world, people go online to accomplish things. They’re signing up for stuff. They’re checking their finances. They’re getting tickets to something. They’re making medical appointments and, if they’re in the US, they’re checking to see whether their insurance company covers a procedure they need. They’re checking on their citizenship application status. They’re applying to schools and trying to see if they qualify for a loan so they can afford it.

For the most part, no one wants to be doing these things. They’re not exciting. They’re tolls for existence. We want to get through them as quickly as possible so we can get back to the stuff we actually want to do. Sadly, using these services too often turns into a frustrating experience. Made all the more frustrating because you didn’t want to be doing it anyway.

Here’s where we come in. If you’re reading this book, it’s probably because you have something to do with designing services of one sort or another. And I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume that you’re the type of person who cares about doing this right, because, duh, you’re reading a book about it. And you’re looking for help in doing the right thing. Well, I have good news for you. This book is going to help. I’ve read it! It’s well-written. It’s helpful. And it’s brilliant. And it’s written to help you help others do what they need.

Lou Downe has been designing good services for quite a while. And they’re good at it! I can’t tell you how many times I got stuck trying to solve something and thought: ‘Well, let’s go see how GOV.UK solved it.’ I have no doubt that Lou is a good designer, because I’ve stolen their work more than once. But as much as Lou cares about design, I think they care about people even more. And that’s the secret. You’ve got to care more about the people on the other end of the screen than about what’s on the screen. You’ve got to help them get on with their day. So they can do the stuff that really matters to them.

Some people say that good design is invisible. That when it’s done right you shouldn’t notice it. I say they’re looking in the wrong place. Turn around. Good design is very visible. It’s visible on the face of every person who’s ever used a well-designed service. The slightly raised eyebrow that says, ‘huh, I expected that to be a lot harder’, followed by a recognition that they just reclaimed some time to read a book, or play with their kid, or walk their dog – whatever it is they actually want to do. That’s good design. It’s pretty visible. You just need to know where to look.

We don’t design for screens. We don’t design for organisations. We don’t design for shareholders. We design for people.

I have no doubt that if Lou Downe had overseen the design of that local government website, I’d have a tree right now.