Martin Jordan
Making services work better for all people
About
Head of Design & User Research at the German government’s Digital Service
Former Head of Service Design at the UK’s Government Digital Service
select writing
The long slog of public service transformation: Recipes for sustained slow change with Kara Kane
Transforming public service, shaping public value: Service design in the UK government
How designers in the UK government help address climate change with Thaís Tozatto Maio
10 tips for working with a service designer with Annie Streater
We’re all involved in government services with Will Harmer
Design revolution in government: three waves of transformation with Dr Katrin Dribbisch
Deutsche Texte
Servicestandard ist gut, Schulterblick noch besser
mit Caroline Merz und Kannika Thaimai
Kein digitales Angebot ist barrierefrei – wie wir das ändern wollen
mit Marion Couesnon
Mit Design Verwaltung besser gestalten
mit Carina Haumering, Christin Glücks, Daphne Braun, Paul Pistorius, Sophia Grote
Wie wir Nutzer:innen verstehen und in den Entwicklungsprozess einbeziehen
mit Carina Haumering und Charlotte Vorbeck
Services statt Fachverfahren gestalten: wie Servicedesign Verwaltungsdienstleistungen für NutzerInnen verbessern kann
mit Dr. Katrin Dribbisch
select talks
Designing government services that meet user needs
The long slog of public service design with Kara Kane
Working in the open at DigitalService with Pamela Krosta-Hartl
Deutsche Vorträge
Mit Servicedesign Verwaltung neu gestalten mit Charlotte Vorbeck
Nutzerfreundlich digitalisieren mit dem Servicestandard mit Caroline Merz
Wie viel digital – warum echte Digitalisierung holistisches und inklusives Design braucht
Current Work
Design and research at the German government’s Digital Service
with Charlotte Vorbeck, Marlene Kettner, Sonja Wilczek, Tom Haake
Leading the user-centred design disciple and helping it grow from 10 to over 35 people, maturing processes, establishing new roles and formalising approaches, increasing design literacy inside the organisation and beyond, connecting designers across all parts of the German public sector.
Further reading:
Weeknotes from the work at Digital Service
Bringing digitalization and innovation into the German administration
German government’s Service Standard
with Alexander Steinhart, Caroline Merz, Kannika Thaimai, Robert Tiedt and Stefan Matanovic
Spearheading the application and further development of the Service Standard, educating on its implementation through talks, panel discussions and workshops, setting up cross-public sector peer reviews, serving as a sounding board member, supporting the development of version 2.0 and contributing to a formal DIN specification.
Further reading:
Service Standard project description
International Design in Government community
with Kara Kane, Paloma Jain, Viktoria Westphalen and the UCD communities team
Building the 4,000-people strong international community of designers and design-minded people working in governments around the world together with community lead Kara Kane, developing knowledge-sharing formats and co-organising conferences in England, Finland, the Netherlands, Scotland and the USA.
Further reading:
Co-creating the most complete overview of international design in government work
International Design in Government: Working to make government more user-centred
side projects
The Service Gazette
with Dr Katrin Dribbisch, Kara Kane and writing practioners from all over the world
Making a printed newspaper on service innovation and transformation since 2015 together with co-editors Dr Katrin Dribbisch and Kara Kane, collecting stories from the private and public sector from all five continents, editing and publishing articles from a diverse range of practising authors.
Further information:
The Service Gazette – on Medium.com
Berlin public sector meetup
with Christian Katz, Lisa Schmechel, Magdalena Noffke, Tobias Witt and Victoria Boeck
Launching a local public-facing meetup series to make good public sector work in Germany open and visible, share what’s happening and have an exchange with the public and the civic design and tech scene, getting people interested in public sector work in Germany.
Further information:
Öffentliches Gestalten – shaping public sector’s future meetup
Public Service Lab
with Dr Katrin Dribbisch and Simone Carrier
Supporting the application of user-centred design approaches in the German government and public sector through interactive conferences, hands-on workshops, knowledge-sharing formats, and publications in the German language.
Further information:
Public Service Lab website
Previous Work
Service design at the Government Digital Service (GDS) and UK government
with Lou Downe, Clara Greo, Ella Dorfman, Kara Kane, Lina Nilsson, Will Harmer, the UCD communities team, and the designers at GDS
Leading the service design profession at GDS and across the UK government, increasing government’s understanding of service design and its capability through recruitment, mentoring and knowledge-sharing, building a strong cross-departmental service design community.
Further reading:
How we support service design across government
GOV.UK Service Manual und Service Standard
with Alison Foley, Alan Maddrell, Ben Carpenter, Hannah Cooper, Kara Kane, Hong Nguyen, Mel Dunkley, Shahjahan Ahmed
Evolving the established Service Standard and GOV.UK Service Manual, improving, updating and extending them, developing a collaborative community-led approach with the users, rebuilding and leading the multidisciplinary team behind.
Further reading:
Taking a community-led approach to the Service Standard and Service Manual
How we’re improving the Service Manual’s guidance and navigation
GOV.UK Registers and GDS’s Data Infrastructure programme
with Blanca Tortajada, Jen Lambourne, Kieron Kirkland, Louise Petre, Maria Izquierdo, Tom Hughes
Designing the end-to-end service offering around GOV.UK registers in close collaboration with user research, content design and technical writing, leading all design activities across GDS’s Data Infrastructure programme and 4 agile teams, working closely with other members of the programme leadership team on the value proposition and strategy.
Further reading:
Designing the register creation process
Services Week across the UK public sector
with Lisa Jeffrey, Kara Kane, Keeley Robertson, Shahjahan Ahmed and the UK government design community
Initiating and establishing an annual week-long UK public sector event series to promote good service design practice and increase service literacy, co-creating the event framework that allowed 37 government organisations to run 56 formats for over 3,000 participants in 2021.
Further reading:
In case you missed it: This was Services Week 2021
Service design training for UK civil servants
with Clara Greo, Keeley Robertson, Lisa Jeffrey, the UCD communities team and service designers from across the UK government
Developing and designing the first dedicated service design training for UK civil and public servants in close collaboration with learning designer and training lead Clara Greo, training over 800 people with an active learning approach.
Further reading:
How we run service design training as an agile service
London Gov Design Meetup
with Conor Delahunty, Kara Kane, María Izquierdo, Nicolás Rebolledo Bustamante PhD, Stephen McCarthy
Running public-facing evening meetups to connect designers working in, for or with government and people interested in the work, support knowledge exchange, and share the experience of people working on public sector projects and infrastructure.
Further information:
Gov Design Meetup
Digital service transformation in Hamburg
as part of MBA thesis work at Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Finland
Consulting the Digital First team at the state government in Hamburg and researching its digital transformation approach, working with the social welfare office to review the existing service for applying for a severely disabled pass and improving the offering.
Further reading:
Service design can boost public value creation in government transformation projects
teaching and lecturing
Lean, agile and service design
A half-day seminar on lean and agile approaches, where they come from, why they are useful in the context of the design of services and how to apply them in a student-client project – with inputs, discussions, case studies from the public and private sector and various exercises.
at the Royal College of Art Londonwith Stephen McCarthy for master-level students
Creating user-centred public services
A full-day seminar demonstrating German and Swiss public administration students the value and process of user-centred public service design through inputs, case studies and hands-on exercises, making them familiar with user research, journey mapping and hypothesis writing.
at the Universities of Konstanz and St. Gallenfor bachelor-level public administration students
Apps as Machines
A 2-day weekend class about re-imagining apps as physical machines by breaking them down to their elementals and examining experiential aspects through the jobs-to-be-done framework, including hands-on exercises, scenario development and rapid prototyping.
at the Universities of Applied Sciences Darmstadt and Potsdamwith Hannes Jentsch for bachelor-level design students
Design Toolbox
A 3-week design course examining a practical understanding of design, its process and methods through inputs, hands-on sessions and small assignments, students went through the entire design process with user research and prototype iteration.
at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdamwith Hannes Jentsch for bachelor-level design students
background
In May 2022, I joined the German government’s Digital Service as first Head of Design. Since 2016 and for over 6 years, I’ve been working for the UK Cabinet Office’s digital units – the Government Digital Service and Central Digital and Data Office. Before, I worked for Nokia’s navigation and mapping company HERE Technologies in Berlin. Prior, I worked for design and brand consultancies in London and Buenos Aires and startups in the technology, healthcare and finance sectors.
I have a background in communication, industrial and interaction design, and human-centred innovation. In addition, I’ve acquired management skills during my MBA studies in Helsinki.
In the past few years, I’ve been teaching public sector design at the Royal College of Art London, University of Konstanz and St. Gallen.
My pronouns are he/him.
note
¶ Handcoded in London. No data is collected when using this site. No cookies are served. Server runs on renewable energy.