I recently stumbled upon a nice article in Businessweek titled “Ben Terrett on Making the U.K.’s One-Stop Government Website Cool”. This article hits on a few key design issues in the context of a compelling story.

First of all, I’m so thrilled to read how the UK government acknowledged that there was a problem and that it needed to change. Accepting there’s a problem, and on top of that gaining agreement across government was an enormous step in its own right! Even the government realizes nowadays how important it is to think about what their users’ want instead of focusing on the government’s own needs and how they [the government] think it should work. Adoption of an UX mindset of “one site and one user experience” was the first step towards success. Let’s not kid ourselves – folding 1700 websites into 300 on the same platform is a massive undertaking, government or not!

The fact is that we truly are shifting rapidly in this age of constant evolution. I have seen so many organizations struggle with the need to transform themselves digitally. They are just stuck so deep in their own convoluted processes, procurement cycles, and politics. Unfortunately (or fortunately) they seriously need to start rethinking their organization if they want to survive.

I’ve seen people make mistakes by thinking responsive design equals a smart looking website. However, as the Businessweek article clearly demonstrated, it’s not just a design (look-&-feel) project; it’s much more about providing services to end users i.e. being user-focused. It is about applying design to make the user’s life simpler. Focusing on user needs, figuring out what the user is trying to do is vital – make it, test it, apply it, relentlessly. Isn’t this something that all C-level executives should not only read but act on?