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Design like there’s a climate crisis
Building a network around Design for Sustainability Back in April, Snook was overwhelmed by the energy in the room at DOTI: From Service Design to Sustainable Environmental Action. The sense of...
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Make the sustainable thing the best thing
Senior Service Designer Ness Wright talk about the challenge and opportunity of designing services and products that people want to use. I’m a proud Fairphone owner (of the 17,248th to be precise). I...
View ArticleSharing knowledge for better mental health services
We’ll be working in partnership with Barnado’s to develop a library of best-practice guidance for developing digital mental health products for young people. We’re able to do this because we’ve been...
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How to procure service design
Sarah Drummond talks about learnings and best practice in procuring service design. I’ve been responding to requests for bids from clients in the form of ITTs, RFQs, Briefs, Proposal requests — for...
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Snook 2019: A year in review
We turned 10, so we’ve been celebrating and reflecting on everything we’ve learnt along the way. And of course, we’re always looking forward – thinking about how we’ll build for the next 10 years....
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13 books about design and the world for World Book Day
Here at Snook we love books. So much so that we didn’t manage to keep it to a top 5 as originally planned. So, for World Book Day here are 13 books about design and the world that we love: 1. Hope In...
View ArticleHome Office + Snook
Snook is excited to announce that we are the Home Office’s user centred design partner. The team will be working with Katy Arnold, Deputy Director for Design and Research at the Home Office and her...
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We’re hiring!
We’re hiring at Snook – not just a few roles – lots of them. We’re looking to grow our team in a number of areas because we’ve got a big challenge on our hands. Why is Snook here? We’re on a mission to...
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Digital inclusion in times of crisis
UK mobile operators give free access to NHS websites As service designers, our job is to design services — for the people who use them, and the staff and organisations who deliver them. We research...
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We need long-term thinking now more than ever
A crisis like Covid-19 requires urgent emergency responses. With crises come feelings of panic and we see lots of people running quickly towards the problem to help. But we know those feelings of panic...
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Key research insights around digital inclusion
Imagine going about your normal day without access to the internet. At the time of writing, during the COVID-19 lock down that’s more inconceivable than usual with most of us relying on it to do our...
View ArticleService recipes: our new tool to help you get inspired by how other charities...
We are excited to share with you that an early version of the service recipes for charities platform is now live and is the result of the collaboration of Catalyst with FutureGov, Snook and CAST. It...
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Reflections on Covid-19: Exploring remote democratic decision making
This post looks at how the UK social landscape has been shaped by COVID-19 and especially government, healthcare and communities. Our focus is to share insights and tools that people can take away to...
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Service Design Day 2020: The Many Routes to Service Design
On this Service Design Day 2020 we wanted to reflect on the many routes our team had taken into service design. At Snook we currently have 32 service designers and we asked them to tell us about...
View ArticleWhat you can do about accessibility
September 23rd 2020 is a date that has been looming large for anybody in the public sector. It’s the date that Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations (PSBAR)...
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In Defence of Algorithms
Algorithms are in the line of fire. Boris Johnson recently blamed the exam results fiasco on ‘a mutant algorithm’, after the one used by Ofqual downgraded almost 40% of the A-level grades assessed by...
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Principles for Designing Sustainable Services
Service design is all about understanding people’s needs and delivering services that meet them. So why do we design and implement these services without understanding the impact they have on our...
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Making it safer online by design
After a year when many people’s lives were lived online more than ever before, and with that trend only set to continue, the issue of online safety has never been more important. This is an...
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Meet Snook’s Head of Learning
Tash Willcocks joined the Snook team as our new Head of Learning at the end of 2020 and cheered us all up no end. In April she’s running the first of our ‘Learn with Snook’ courses; a 2-day course...
View ArticleDOTI Distance 2021: Digital Innovation in Social Care
On 26th March 2021, we dusted off DOTI after a pandemic-induced hiatus and hosted Design on the Inside: Digital Innovation in Social Care. It was a chance to celebrate the work of the Social Care...
View ArticleMake the sustainable thing the best thing, by design
In the summer of 2018, we published a blog, Our world is getting warmer’, to sound the alarm on the climate crisis and explore how design skills can help. We decided to revisit it and share what we’ve...
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The Design Patterns for Mental Health Library is live
On May 20th 2021 the design patterns for mental health library went live. Our CEO Sarah Drummond published this blog on the day of the launch: Today, Snook launch the next iteration of the design...
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Moving towards circular design with EGG Lighting
Around 40,000 tonnes of waste each year could be saved just from upgrading and reusing lighting fittings. EGG is a lighting manufacturer based in Glasgow who came to us to help them explore the...
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What does Global Accessibility mean? And how can we make it a reality?
Global Accessibility Awareness Day was on May 20th this year (2021). The event was set up 10 years ago to highlight the continued inequalities experienced by disabled people worldwide. The organisers...
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Designing Responsible Technology
Why asking questions about the wider system is essential The questions we ask before designing a product or service are crucial. They frame our understanding of the problem and inform the product...
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How to become planet-centred: our learnings so far
We know that the need to address climate change is urgent. There’s no point in designing wonderful, user-centred services that will be redundant within a generation if we don’t tackle the environmental...
View ArticleCo-designing with young people during a pandemic
Snook has a lot of experience of co-designing with young people. We’ve worked with them to transform education, social care and housing services over the years. We’ve learned so much with and from them...
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Moving on from Snook
This is a post by Sarah Drummond, published on 3rd August 2o21 This is an excerpt/mashup from the call I had with our team on Thursday 29th July 2021. And yes, I did cry. I’m just going to say it out...
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Jonny & Rebecca Rae-Evans join Snook as co-CDO
We’re delighted to announce that Jonny and Rebecca (Bex) Rae-Evans are joining us, sharing the role of our new co-Chief Design Officer(s). They have so much experience in design, innovation, and...
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Housing with a customer mindset
Snook has a long history of working in housing. From helping to design purpose-built homes for at-risk young people, to recent work exploring the ways to help identify people who might need extra...
View ArticleSmall steps in a large footprint: COP26 & beyond
“There are professions more harmful than (industrial) design, but only a few.” Victor Papanek wrote that In 1971 in the opening of his book Design for the Real World. We’ve made some progress in the...
View ArticleHow listening can lead to change in social housing
We’ve been working with housing expert John Baldwin to develop ways to help housing providers put residents at the heart of what they do. On the eve of launching the offer on our site, we asked him to...
View ArticleIntroducing the Snook Spotlight Team
Snook’s history is rooted in designing services that work for people and help improve society. From working with local and central government departments to partnering with countless charities, we’re...
View ArticleDesign for Planet: now the work begins
Five quotes to prompt ideas, action and resolve Last week we took part in Design for Planet, the Design Council’s initiative to “mobilise” the UK’s 1.69 million-strong design community. 120 of us...
View ArticleTwo new heads are better than one
We’re excited to welcome our new Head of Product Design, Alex Nelson and Head of User Research Ali Stevens to the team at Snook. Alex bade a fond farewell to the BBC recently, where he spent 8 years...
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It’s Earth Day. Let’s activate hope
“Hope just means another world might be possible, not promised, not guaranteed. Hope calls for action; action is impossible without hope.” (Rebecca Solnit: Hope in the Dark) The Thriving Planet group...
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Transitioning Careers — Advice from the Snook Service Design team
Snook recently held a Service Design — Ask Me Anything! session to celebrate Service Design Day, on the theme of “Do Good — Give Back”. Over 70 people joined us on Zoom for this interactive and...
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A practitioner-led new business approach
I wanted to take some time to talk to you about some exciting changes that are happening at Snook in our New Business Development (NBD) team. Don’t stop reading. NBD is fun! Design agencies share many...
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Reducing energy bills and improving energy efficiency for rental tenants – a...
Part one – Snook Senior Interaction Designer Ananda Maryon recently took on a ‘Washing Line’ project. When Snook’s are between client projects, they sometimes have time to spend on internal work and...
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The good and the bad of government service assessments
Senior Interaction Designer Tom Wicks has been part of the Snook Digital Team for over two years. In this blog, Tom shares his experience of service assessments, why he thinks they’re important and...
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Differences designing in the public and private sectors
Principal Interaction Designer Martyn Dawson has been part of the Snook Product Design Team for over a year. In this blog, Martyn shares his insight on the differences and similarities when designing...
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Applying behavioural design to help people make more sustainable choices
Learn how to apply behavioural science techniques to change habits and drive the adoption of more sustainable actions. In this article, we focus on how our practice is integrating learnings from...
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Defining the difference between analysis and synthesis in user research
The terms ‘analysis’ and ‘synthesis’ are used differently by different researchers, which can lead to confusion about what processes people are specifically referring to. In this article, Principal...
View ArticleThe possibilities of ChatGPT: Insights from humans and AI
This article is part of the Snook spotlight series – where we bring you in-depth conversations with the best and brightest research and design thinkers. In this edition, Kat Dixon interviews Liam...
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Inclusive Design: designing with everyone in mind
This article is part of the Snook spotlight series – where we bring you in-depth conversations with the best and brightest research and design thinkers. In this edition, Kat Dixon interviews Becky...
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Thinking in systems to address the climate crisis
Luca Piallini is a Service Designer at Snook, focused on our thriving planet mission. In this blog, he explores how we can use systems thinking to navigate the complexity of the climate crisis. He...
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What to do when you don’t have a content designer
Content design is an essential element of any product or service. Here, Senior Content Designer Iso Roberts shares her advice in applying content design principles to your project. What’s one thing...
View ArticleShow us your messy bits
In this edition of the Spotlight series, Kat Dixon talks to Snook’s Service Designers Olivia Holbrook and Tom White about the chaos and complexity of service design projects, which they often refer to...
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9 things to remember when doing research with underrepresented communities
Anu Samaraweera and Chandni Patel co-author this article, with support from their colleague Jane Leggat, based on their experiences of facilitating research with underrepresented communities of Black,...
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A Researcher’s career journey: from the academy to the user
Becoming a User Researcher isn’t always a linear journey like other careers can be. In this article, Gordon Tait, User Researcher at Snook, reflects on his lifelong passion for research, and shares...
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