This MSc Design for Interaction graduation project aims to explore how design may enhance policymaking. In light of this, an extensive study was conducted at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. This study entailed an ethnographic study of nine months during which six policymaking cases were studied as well as a four month experimental study was conducted. The six policymaking cases served to identify an opportunity to enhance policymaking with design, whereas the experimental study served to further investigate this opportunity. Based on these endeavours, and in light of the identified opportunity a design intervention was developed and evaluated.
The six policymaking cases were studied from the perspective of balancing exploration and exploitation through methodological congruence; policymaking practices need to appropriately balance between utilizing existing knowledge and means - exploitation - and generating new knowledge and means - exploration - according to the determinacy of the problem at hand. However, it was found that policymaking predominantly possesses exploitative traits and, more specifically, is remarkably non-experimental. As such, it was argued that current policymaking practices may best be enhanced with experimentation throughout the policymaking process. In light of this, it was found that the systematic, deliberate way designers experiment may be helpful in policymaking as well. As opposed to policymaking, in which an experiment is typically the final piece of the problemsolving process, in design, several ‘safe to fail’ experiments serve as points of departure, initiating a progressive iterative process of working towards a solution. As such, it was found worthwhile to find a way to apply this particular way of experimenting in policymaking as well. However, this particular way of experimenting does necessitate a particular disposition that is not found in policymaking in which ideas are nipped in the bud, taking decisions is postponed, intended solutions and measures are kept abstract, there is hardly any room for intuition and making mistakes, and learning and having to change course are seen as politically risky. Hence, it was argued that the context and dynamics required for this way of experimenting may only be found outside of the political system; ‘safe to fail’ experiments may be conducted most effectively and efficiently by policy implementers themselves - that are given sufficient discretion - rather than policymakers. In order to see how this can be done, the abovementioned experimental study was conducted. This study clearly showed that these ‘safe to fail’ experiments cannot simply be delegated; it requires taking into account the commitment, capacity and capability of policy implementers to conduct ‘safe to fail’ experiments and responding accordingly.
In order to enable policymakers to do so, guidelines were developed and tested. Although the guidelines do not directly help in making policies in a more experimental manner, they do help minimize the risk associated with experiments, increase the chances of successful execution and contribute to the process of having policy implementers conduct ‘safe to fail’ experiments As such, they may help smooth the way towards making policies in a more experimental manner.