While many cities offer technical tools to municipal workers, many are not well suited to employees’ needs.
A number of years ago, a Midwestern state rolled out a comprehensive procurement system that allowed state employees to identify purchases based on 1,400 different categories. However, despite the specificity built into the system, the state was surprised to find that 20 percent of procurements were marked as “other.” The problem was not that there were not enough categories, but rather that state employees did not want to scroll through all 1,400 to find the right one.
This is all too typical an occurrence in city government. While many cities offer a host of technical tools to municipal workers, many are not well suited to employees’ needs. These types of problems underscore the value of human-centered design, a process in which the needs of end users are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process. READ MORE…