WHAT DO WE WANT PEOPLE TO FEEL?

I can't stop watching it. Every couple days, it lures me back. It's Apple's recently released video about their approach to design. I'm not an Apple fanatic, but I am fascinated by the company's design ethic - especially the principle of simplicity (see Ken Segall's excellent book for more on that). The video both articulates and embodies those things, but that's not why I keep coming back to it.

I keep watching it because I can't help but wonder what would happen if we applied the same approach where I work in government. I'd like to try to apply almost everything set out by Apple in this video to the design of public services. The tension between abundance and choice. Simplification. Intention. But in particular, I'd like to see what happens if we start by asking what we want people to feel?

That may sound ridiculous because public services aren't about feelings. They're about compliance and behaviours and regulations and actions. That's how we typically design them - by asking what we want people to do or not do (or, even worse, what we want or need from them). So if the idea of starting with how we want people to feel seems absurd, more than anything that may just demonstrate how wide the gap is between what we do and could do. Public services don't inspire delight or connection or surprise. But does that mean they couldn't? Maybe if they did they'd be better at also inspiring the desired action or behaviour or compliance.