Challenging Assumption-Based Decisions - User Centred Design

Find out more about the Challenging Assumption-Based Design guidance to help social researchers identify, challenge and re-frame assumption-based design.

The Government Data Quality Hub (DQHub) has recently produced a set of posters and accompanying guidance which aim to help social researchers challenge assumption-based design.

The principles outlined in these posters should aid the identification, challenge and reframing of assumption-based statements during design. In turn, this will aid you to focus on quality and fitness-for-purpose from the outset.

The importance of challenging assumption-based design decisions

It can be all too easy to refer to opinions or assumptions when designing a product or service. Making decisions based upon assumptions risks:

creating products or services that are not used or well understood by the intended users

collecting inaccurate, unreliable, or poor-quality data

increasing burden on the users of our services

To drive good quality from the start, we promote the use of User Centred Design (or Respondent Centred Design if working with surveys). This is in line with government good practice for service design. User-centred design is defined as learning about the needs of those who will use your service and designing it to meet them.

It is important to take on board and understand the needs of the users of those services, rather than making assumptions based upon our own feelings. Without carrying out research with users, there is a risk of not understanding:

There are some phrases to listen out for when designing services and products that show evidence is not being used to inform design decisions. We have called these ‘red flag’ statements.