DPER x MA Interaction Design

Impact

As part of the Action Plan for Designing Better Public Services, the Department of Public Expenditure Infrastructure Public Service Reform and Digitalisation – through the Central Transformation Design Team – are working with third-level design institutions to explore how design can address complex public service challenges linked to policy and life events.

The work produced is a key output of the Action Plan, and Government’s commitment to showcasing the impact of design, fostering experimentation and forging collaborative partnerships across the industry.

Challenge

In March 2025 DPER’s Central Transformation Design Team collaborated with six postgraduate teams from NCAD’s MA Interaction Design programme. The student teams responded to three design briefs:

• How to improve public engagement in shaping policy decisions
• How to support the transition from school into higher education and adulthood
• How the State could better welcome the birth of a child

The students were tasked with understanding complex systems, navigating broad briefs, and producing thoughtful, evidence-driven proposals. Their outputs needed to connect research with clear direction, and tell a compelling strong story about what could be done differently within the contexts for design set by DPER.

Process

The students began with primary and secondary research to uncover hidden insights, opportunities, and service gaps within the context for design. These insights informed clear problem-framing. The teams then moved into ideation, shaping coherent design proposals before prototyping interactions and conducting field tests with real users. The solutions were then refined based on stakeholder feedback, and presented to the DPER team.

Output

• 6 x design proposals addressing the design challenges set.
• The students staged an exhibition of their work in Government Buildings, addressing an audience of senior civil servants across Government, highlighting the importance of design in addressing complex public service challenges linked to policy and life events.
• One of the project outcomes, designed by students Zoe Linh Tran and Samuel Connolly, was the Policy Vending Machine. This project was the winner of the Design Research by Practice Award at the Institute of Designers in Ireland Graduate Design Awards 2025. Looking at improving public participation in policy development, Zoe and Sam developed a design concept to demystify policy and engage the public in policy making:
  • The Policy Vending Machine is an interactive public installation designed to democratise participation in policy development across Ireland. The project is driven by the central questions: How might we bring policy to the public, and engage the public in policymaking?
  • The Policy Vending Machine invites citizen discussions through simple prompts, encouraging them to reflect on how the issues relate to their daily lives. The project combines the knowledge of civil servants at DPER with the voices and the lived experience of people from The Liberties, to embed policy into the general discourse of everyday life—meeting people where they are, where the conversations are taking place, a novel approach to grass-root civic engagement.