The Government Digital Service (GDS) is a British government organization that wants to build platforms, products and services that help deliver a simple, joined-up and personalised experience of government to everyone. The GDS has created what they call the "Service Standard". It ins't really a Service Design process but rather a set of principles to follow.

I love how this standard starts with the end goal in mind. It shows clearly that the goal of all the Service Design work is to solve a problem for users in a simple and accessible way. That's it. Starting by showing what's the big motivation or the end result that any Service Design work should create is something that isn't as clear in many other service design processes where almost all the information is about what activities you need to do.

Sure, the Service Standard does also this.About a third of the document explains that the team should for example work in a multidisciplinary way, work in a agile way, etc. The standard also wants to codify the way of working in the behind the scenes.

I really like how this set of principles both keeps it very simple and goes really in depth. If you look at it from far there are just three big mindsets to follow: Meeting users's needs, Providing a good service and Using the right technology. Then for each of these mindsets you have 4 to 5 principles you should follow to make it a reality.

This standard is alway evolving, so it's pretty interesting to read how each new version changes and the reasons behind it. You can find the latest version of the Service Standard here. On this website you'll find for each principle a specific page that explains why this principle is important and what it means in practice.