Why is it hard to know if you are making a difference in public services? What can you do about it? Public services throughout the world face the challenge of tackling complex issues where multiple factors influence change. This book sets out practical and theoretically robust, tried and tested approaches to understanding and tracking change that any organisation can use to ensure it makes a difference to the people it cares about. With case studies from health, community, research, international development and social care, this book shows that with the right tools and techniques, public services can track their contribution to social change and become more efficient and effective.

This edited volume is about the application of design-led approaches for developing interventions that have the intention of addressing real-world issues and problems. The book documents the realities of developing and designing interventions for real people, in a real-world context. The topics covered in the book are multi-disciplinary, and include examples from health and wellbeing, education, and agriculture. The contributors provide open and honest accounts of the challenges and restrictions, highlighting the positive impact that can be gained from involving stakeholders as key voices in the intervention development process. These case studies suggest underpinning methodologies that will support the formalisation of these design-led approaches, permitting the formation of robust frameworks in the future. The book will be of interest to scholars working in design, design research, intervention design, co-design, user-centred design, service design, digital design, digital healthcare, and evidence-based design.