Challenge

York’s ICT team were struggling to get staff to use new products they’d launched despite having adopted agile development practices. At the same time, York’s Youth Offending Team (YOT) were looking to explore ways they could use digital technology to support their work with young people.

Approach

We were asked to collaborate with the York ICT team to prototype digital ideas for the YOT, with the dual purpose of teaching them user-centred design and product design techniques. The goal was to transfer skills that enabled the ICT Team to improve their approach to future projects.

We delivered an immersive learning experience, mixing theory with practical application and the ICT team soon became confident in adopting user-centred design techniques. We guided them through an end-to-end design process with the YOT, including interviews, user testing and workshops. The output of the project was Accomplish, a digital tool co-designed with YOT workers and young offenders, which aimed to help both parties collaborate on goal setting and tracking.

Impact

User-centred design is now embedded into the ICT team’s DNA. As a result, their recent projects are experiencing unprecedented uptake by users and their skills to deliver transformative change are now in demand across the organisation.