Meld Studios and Queensland Government’s One Stop Strategy and Implementation Office won the Good Design Award® of the Year for the Growing Human-Centred Design Across Queensland Government project.
The winning project aims to embed human-centred design across Queensland Government manifesting in the outcomes of policy and government procedure. Queensland Government is on a journey to embed design practices at scale. Applying a human-centred design approach to developing a framework for building design capability resulted in a solution appropriate for and specific to the context of government, accommodating the diversity of roles, existing processes, culture and constraints.
The judges said, “Total standout project, absolutely inspirational in scope, scale, process and outcome. A gold standard for the Good Design Awards and shining example of impeccable human-centred service design. A comprehensive capability toolkit that is well-designed for the problems it needs to address and well-suited to the audiences and end-users who have to use, as well as exemplary description of the process the design team went through. The Jury applauds this project at every level.”
Karina Smith, leading the work for Meld Studios, said during the Best in Class award acceptance, "All of us at Meld Studios are honoured to be accepting this award alongside Queensland Government tonight and to have had the opportunity to partner with them on this fantastic initiative. At Meld Studios, our mission is to improve the everyday lives of people as they interact with the world around them, and we believe that working within organisations to help them build their human-centred design capability puts the power of design in the hands of the people who are tasked with creating a great difference to their world every day, and no better than that is government."
Christine Castley, Deputy Director-General, Housing Services, Department of Housing and Public Works, said during the awards acceptance, "The Queensland Department of Housing and Public Works was really proud to have worked with Meld to change the way we work, engage directly with citizens and deliver responsive government. This is about making a change to the lives of everyday Queenslanders." In closing, Ms. Castley said, "Good design is essential to good government."
In receiving the Good Design Award® of the Year, Karina said, "I think we're moving into a new era of design, particularly for us at Meld Studios. For so many years we've been designing with organisations, but it's really exciting to be now embedded within organisations and really shifting the culture of them with the mindset of design because what we're doing is changing the very fabric of them."
Blamey Saunders’ Facett, the world’s first modular hearing aid, was jointly honoured with Good Design Award® of the Year. Where Facett is a brilliant example of the elegance of design in a manufactured product and reflects the strong history of the Awards in product design, the Growing Human-Centred Design Across Queensland Government project represents the exciting future of systems and service design that will have a profound positive impact on our lives.
Dr. Brandon Gien, CEO of Good Design Australia said “These two projects are a perfect representation of the breadth and diversity of entries in the Good Design Awards and reflect the endless potential of good design to impact everything from something as small as a hearing aid to the complexity of systems and processes within government. To have these two very different projects receive Australia’s highest design honour on our 60th Anniversary is an ideal outcome. One tells a story of where the Awards originated with its rich history in product design and the other paints an exciting picture of where design is going and the incredible potential it has to actually help design a better world."
In addition to the Good Design Award® of the Year, the Growing Human-Centred Design Across Queensland Government project was recognised as the best in class for Service Design, and the Redesigning the Queensland Fortitude Valley Housing Service Centre, an example of Human-Centred Design being applied in practice within Queensland Government, was recognised as the Good Design Award Gold Winner for Service Design.
Dr. Gien applauded the incredibly high standard of submissions this year, noting that the Awards attracted innovative entries from all corners of Australia and the world, including New Zealand, the UK, Sweden, Finland, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, USA, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Korea, China and Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, India and Indonesia.
“The Australian Good Design Awards has one of the most diverse design categories in the world and the winners this year are an amazing representation of the value of professional design and the potential it has to make a positive impact on our quality of life,” said Dr. Gien.
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