Hello, It’s the team from the City of Philadelphia Service Design Studio — PHL Service Design Studio for short. We know it has been a long time since we last spoke. We’re writing to update you on what we’ve been doing for the past 18 months. We promise to stay in better communication with you moving forward. See our plan below.

 

Re-introductions: Who we are

To remind you, the PHL Service Design Studio was created by the Chief Administrative Officer and former Office of Open Data and Digital Transformation team members in February of 2020 to support service improvement efforts across the City.  

As a team of design researchers and service designers, we believe we’re closer to creating a more just city when residents and colleagues — who’ve been historically marginalized by government actions — can access and deliver government services with ease and agency. To support this belief, we collaborate with residents, front-line staff, and leaders to design accessible, equitable, and trauma-informed services that honor the diverse needs of Philadelphians. 

We operate as an internal-to-government consultancy — working on capacity-building and service design projects that include qualitative research, strategy, process change, change management, and evaluation. 


What we’ve been doing: Year one report

We welcome you to read our year one report to learn more about how we practice our mission. In the report, you’ll find further details on who we are as a team, what we do at the City, and project examples.

 

Staying in communication with you

Lastly, we promise to stay in better communication with you. Below is what we have planned. 

  • We launched a Twitter account so follow us @DesignStudioPHL. Weekly, we tweet calls for participation, updates on work, and resources. 
  • We’ll start publishing a monthly blog in October on phila.gov/service-design-studio. We’ll write about our perspectives on public sector service design. 
  • Bi-monthly, we release an email newsletter about our Equitable Community Engagement Toolkit project. If you’d like to receive the newsletter, please sign up through the linked form.  
  • You can email us at service.design@phila.gov. We schedule informational calls with curious peers as time allows. 

Thanks for engaging us on Twitter @DesignStudioPHL and beyond!