Context

As a designer in the public sector, I constantly find myself shifting between roles. Often, I step back and ask “Are we even solving the right problem?”. Reading the article “How do policy and design intersect? Three relationships” gave me insight into a language to describe these shifts. The article moves beyond a framing of “design for policy” and provides a typology that feels much closer to the reality of government work.

Rather than position design as a fixed intervention, the authors describe three relationships, each shaped by different assumptions about purpose, authority, and how policymaking is done. What resonated with me the most about this article is the acknowledgement that these relationships are intersecting and evolving, even within single projects. In this post, I outline some reflections and scenarios to help surface the tensions and transitions I’ve seen in practice.

TL;DR

The article challenges the idea that design is merely used as a set of tools to deliver more efficient or user-friendly policy outcomes. Instead, it proposes a framework with three relationships between design and policy:

1. Instrumental: design as a tool to help refine delivery of predetermined policy goals (e.g. streamlining a service journey)

2. Improvisational: design as an aid to navigate uncertainty and complexity by making space for iteration, lived experience, and adaptive learning

3. Generative: design as means to challenge assumptions and reimagine policy altogether, often surfacing hidden perspectives and expanding democratic participation

Design is not neutral. The authors argue that each relationship reflects different assumptions about knowledge, authority, and the role of design in shaping policy. There is more nuance beyond treating design as a technical fix. This requires acknowledging the political, temporal, and spatial dynamics that shape how design is used in practice.

Questions

Are the three relationships mutually exclusive?

No, the authors explicitly argue that the relationships are not mutually exclusive. While conceptually distinct, the relationships can be layered, iterative, or even in tension within a single policy context.

These relationships can coexist within the same policy process, used by different interest holders or at different stages. For example, a central government actor might employ an instrumental approach to meet delivery targets, while grassroots design practitioners involved in the same policy area may engage in generative or improvisational practices to negotiate context-specific challenges or advocate for alternative approaches.

The relationships are distinguished by their purpose, scope of policymaking, and terms of interaction, not by strict boundaries. A design method like prototyping might serve all three, depending on intent:

1. To test delivery (instrumental)

2. To explore uncertainty (improvisational)

3. To challenge dominant paradigms (generative)

How might improvisational design be used to navigate uncertainty?

Improvisational design is valuable when problems and solutions are still co-emerging, and policy responses should remain flexible. It can help make sense of uncertainty through:

1. Continuous iteration, enabling policymakers to adapt as new information surfaces

2. Gathering public input through forums, interviews, and observational studies, especially where little guidance or precedent exists

3. Methods like participatory mapping and scenario testing can help interest holders express priorities, uncover potential compromises, and pre-empt unintended consequences

What are some barriers to generative design?

Generative design is the most nascent and politically fraught of the three relationships because of its transformative nature. Political risk aversion is a major barrier. Generative design challenges dominant views and introduces contestation. This may not sit well with policymakers who are incentivized to produce stable, measurable outcomes. Generative work often asks uncomfortable questions like "What counts as a policy problem?" or "Whose knowledge is being excluded?". It demands more distributed and diverse forms of participation, which can be difficult to sustain within bureaucratic systems. The radical potential of this work can be seen as a threat to existing institutional norms.

What spatial and temporal dynamics affect these relationships in practice?

The kind of relationship between design and policy often depends on where and when the work is happening.

Temporal dynamics

1. Electoral cycles: close to an election, governments may prefer instrumental approaches to show clear, actionable outcomes. Immediately after an election, there may be more room for generative experimentation.

2. Policy maturity: early-stage policy areas (e.g. climate adaptation) may invite improvisational or generative approaches, while more established domains may default to instrumental logic for stability of delivery.

Spatial dynamics

1. Frontline practitioners often have greater scope for improvisation or generative approaches (e.g. co-design labs and community partnerships), while policy owners may be more constrained by political mandates and performance metrics

2. The design maturity, openness, or risk tolerance of an organization often shapes what kinds of relationships are viable

Interfaces between design-policy relationships

The overlap between relationships highlight how different modes of design relate, complement, or challenge each other in practice. They are useful when advocating for design’s evolving role in government work, especially when teams or mandates shift. Rather than considering each relationship discretely, I wanted to explore what happens at their edges. In thinking about these interfaces, I was interested in how transitions happen, not just in theory, but in the day-to-day realities of project work.

These are moments that are critical turning points in how design is understood and valued within teams and institutions. This framing reflects a common reality I’ve come to understand. Rarely do projects follow a clean arc from problem to solution. Instead, designers are required to move between relationships. I wanted to surface these realities and the tensions or insights associated with them. To make my thinking more tangible, I developed fictional examples rooted in government contexts that I’ve been exposed to in the past year. These aren’t case studies, but instead composites based on familiar scenarios. Each example is meant to illustrate how design relationships can shift in real time, and how teams might navigate those shifts with intention.

Instrumental and improvisational

Design shifts from delivery-focused tools emphasizing efficiency and compliance towards adaptive responses to uncertainty. This interface acknowledges that not all problems are well-defined. Delivery teams can also benefit from real-time iteration, interpretation, and participatory input. It invites a mindset that values iteration and exploration alongside compliance. Design can become a bridge between structured mandates and lived complexity. Practices like prototyping or journey mapping aren’t just used to refine experiences, they also become methods to navigate ambiguity, gather insight, and adjust course.

Scenario: A service team is tasked with redesigning a web application for a benefit program. The project brief emphasizes usability improvements and reduced error rates among users.

What might unfold: During usability testing, the team discovers that confusion stems from ambiguity in eligibility criteria. In other words, applicants are unsure if they qualify. This reveals a need to reinterpret the problem space, not just redesign the form. The team might introduce participatory workshops with applicants and caseworkers, mapping the decision logic collaboratively and bringing those insights back to the policy leads. This improvisational relationship doesn’t reject instrumental goals, it complements them by enabling context-aware improvements that reflect lived experiences.

Improvisational and generative

Design shifts from enabling responsive problem-solving to questioning the framing of the problem itself. Generative relationships invite alternative worldviews and surface what’s been excluded or taken for granted. This transition often involves deeper engagement with research participants and more speculative, future-oriented methods. Design helps policymakers and collaborators ask “What are we not seeing?” or “What could be different entirely?”. This interface supports new narratives, challenges power dynamics, and reveals more inclusive possibilities for policy making.

Scenario: A cross-Ministry working group is developing policy around digital identification (ID). They begin by gathering input through public consultation, scenario testing, and journey mapping.

What might unfold: Participants raise questions about trust, surveillance, and control. Marginalized groups share how government ID has historically excluded or harmed them. These concerns aren’t easily addressed through iteration alone. The team pursues co-creation of speculative futures instead. This generative relationship invites consideration of the system itself, shifting the focus from optimization to transformation.

Instrumental and generative

This interface is marked by friction between stable delivery objectives and the disruptive potential of design. Tensions can arise when institutions are not prepared to reconcile efficiency with dissent or disruption. Even so, this interface is where critical conversations and transformative change are likely to occur. Generative insights can reframe how policy goals are understood, pushing delivery teams to question their assumptions about users, success, or fairness. Navigating this space requires translation, trust, and an ability to hold space for contradiction.

Scenario: A service team is improving an intake portal for housing subsidies. The mandate is to increase completion rates and reduce staff workload.

What might unfold: A generative research team working in parallel shares design fiction based on lived experiences of unhoused residents. One story questions the assumption that the system is equitable, suggesting that digital services cater only to residents with housing stability and internet access. These conditions may not be available to many applicants. The generative team is exposing a contradiction to the delivery’s team focus on optimization, creating friction. A dialogue emerges about what success actually means, and the team negotiates updates to include non-digital access pathways. The tension created at this interface ultimately leads to a more inclusive service.

Takeaways

Design’s role in government isn’t static. It ebbs and flows with political rhythms, organizational constraints, and the lived experience of people we design with and for. By being aware of the edges between design-policy relationships, we can become more intentional about how we deliver, adapt, and reimagine services. Moreover, this perspective can help us advocate for the kind of design work that aligns with both user needs and institutional readiness. Even if we can’t control which relationship we’re working within, recognizing it gives us more clarity and agency in navigating it.