Collaborating with Philadelphians to design better City policies and services.

The Service Design Studio is a unit within the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer. We support service improvement efforts at the City of Philadelphia.

As a team of design research and service design practitioners, we believe:

Service access is a social justice issue. Design is never neutral. The people closest to a policy or service challenge should inform its design. We address these beliefs by:

Doing fieldwork to understand shared needs, barriers to delivery, and opportunities for improvement. Collaborating with residents and City staff to design policies and services that work for people. Evaluating the effectiveness of our solutions before broad implementation. Championing ethical and data-driven design practices. Teaching colleagues design methods for use in their work.