Open practices: lessons from co-design of public services for behaviour change

This paper explores what the distinctive value of design may be in a policy context. The paper broadly supports the contention by Smith and Otto (2014) that design offers a distinct way of knowing that incorporates both analysing and doing in the process of constructing knowledge . The paper will also outline potential limitations of the direct translating of design practice and methods into a policy context. To achieve this, the paper uses insights gained from an on-going design research project, Open Practices, which aims to co-design services and policy interventions to enable sustainable behaviour change. In this case, co-design, as a method and context for policy design, interweaves alternative ideas and perspectives (e.g. interdisciplinary knowledge, desirable visions of future behaviours), new policy practices (e.g. co-creation, policy labs, practical experiments, ethnographic study) and new social relations (e.g. new networks and actors)