The Prerequisite: Human-Centered Design as Infrastructure for Government Service Delivery

Public trust in government institutions continues to decline, and the experiences people have with public services often impact that trend. Every form, portal, and eligibility check creates a burden for people: the time needed to learn how a program works, the effort required to comply with its requirements, or the stress of waiting through an opaque process. This works like a “time tax” that can fall hardest on those with the least margin to absorb additional costs.

Authors: Mark Lerner, Deputy Director and Reilly Martin, Executive Director, Technologists for the Public Good

United States Capitol building framed by autumn trees and a wet reflective plaza with numerous pedestrians appearing as colorful, blurred silhouettes, suggesting motion in the rain.

These burdens carry real consequences. They determine whether eligible families receive disaster assistance, whether students complete financial aid applications and enroll in college, and whether residents see government as working for them. Reducing such burdens provides one of the most direct paths for government to improve service delivery.

The authors bring deep practitioner experience to the topic. They draw on service at the U.S. Digital Service, work embedded in city and state governments, and conversations with customer experience and design leaders across all levels of government. From that experience, they contend that human-centered design (HCD) works best as an ongoing process rather than as a one-time project or values statement. Their central insight appears in the report’s title: HCD constitutes a prerequisite for effective service delivery. The report explains how agencies can build the capacity to practice HCD effectively.

The report opens with an examination of administrative burden and the legal and policy architecture that shapes it. That architecture runs from the Paperwork Reduction Act to recent Office of Management and Budget guidance, executive orders, and the Government Service Delivery Improvement Act. The authors also introduce a new framework, the Human-Centered Design Readiness Ladder. They apply this framework to four case studies spanning federal, state, and local government: the Department of Homeland Security’s Customer Experience Directorate, Federal Student Aid’s response to the rollout of the 2024–25 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), the Colorado Digital Service’s operational toolbox, and the City of Long Beach’s Civic User Research Playbook.

The report describes several key issues. First, the Readiness Ladder offers a clear theory of change, with four levels that include technical foundations, iterative development, user-centricity, and service design. Each level builds upon the one before, and organizations that attempt to skip steps may find that their work fails to take root. Many maturity models benchmark technical capability; the Ladder instead centers on the organizational conditions that allow citizen-centered practice to become durable.

Second, the case studies show how HCD takes hold under different circumstances. Together, they show that meaningful progress is possible at every level of government and with varying resources.

Third, the report addresses the growing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in service delivery. The authors observe that AI adoption without a human-centered design foundation tends to treat the human layer as a cost rather than as infrastructure. Two examples illustrate the alternative: Long Beach’s careful evaluation of its generative AI chatbot pilot and Colorado’s AI assistant for unemployment insurance claims. Both show how HCD practices can help agencies deploy emerging technologies that work better for the people using them.

The report closes with practical recommendations for scaling HCD. These include securing leadership support, building alliances with career staff, investing in senior design talent, and designing initiatives that last across administrations.

This report builds on a sustained body of IBM Center work on improving government service delivery. That work includes Applying Design Thinking to Public Service Delivery by Jeanne Liedtka and Randall Salzman, Human Centricity in Digital Delivery: Enhancing Agile Governance, and, most recently, Agile and Adaptive Leadership in the Public Sector by Ines Mergel. Lerner and Martin’s report complements and extends this series by addressing the organizational sequence that determines whether human-centered methods endure. The Center will soon issue related reports focused on improving service delivery in the digital age.

This report provides a clear and actionable roadmap for making government work better for the public. We hope the report will offer value to a broad audience:

  • Agency executives charged with improving customer experience
  • Technology and digital leaders building modern delivery capacity
  • Program officials seeking to reduce burden on the public
  • State and local officials working with limited resources
The Prerequisite: Human-Centered Design as Infrastructure for Government Service Delivery