Reviewing design methods to make them more sensitive to gender

1. Introduction

In June 2019, the Scottish Government accepted a recommendation from the National Advisory Council for Women and Girls (NACWG) to "Embed gender sensitive approaches in all work relating to programmes developed through the new Scottish Government 'Scottish Approach to Service Design' (SAtSD) model".

Scottish Government's Office of the Chief Designer, which is developing the SAtSD, provides guidance to help those involved in developing and delivering public services embed design processes in their work.

As a first step towards implementing the NACWG's recommendation, the Office of the Chief Designer undertook a review of its design and research methods and concluded that these are not sufficiently gender sensitive. For example, these methods do not take into account barriers that may prevent certain user groups such as women and girls from participating in user-centred design activities. Furthermore, these design methods do not take an intersectional approach to participation. This means that they are not suitably equipped to uncover insights that can help design inclusive and accessible services.

To address this, Office of the Chief Designer carried out desk research to identify best practice that helps design practitioners make it easier for women and girls to engage with their work. This report summarises key findings from the desk research and presents ideas that can help design practitioners involve women and girls from a variety of backgrounds in their work. This allows the seldom heard voices of women and girls to inform good service design.