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Public Service Innovation – Leisure Services Booking and Information System and Leisure Venues

what we do
Engage Citizens / Foster Co-Creation

Service Design for Leisure Services Booking and Information System and Leisure Venues

Project Partner: Leisure and Cultural Services Department

Duration: December 2018 – November 2019

 

Challenge

The Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) manages all of Hong Kong’s public leisure facilities and organises recreational activities for members of the community. In place for more than two decades, its online booking system, Leisure Link System, has been found to be unable to cope with increasing demand in terms of both functions and capacity. User experience is also proven to be unpleasant, with a significant portion of citizens often failing to secure space to play sports. Hence, this project was initiated to better understand users’ pain points and create room for a cross-sector design process. It allows the government, citizens as well as professionals to co-create a new system and leisure venues that would stand the test of time as relevant social infrastructure.

 

Our Approach

Just like all of our other projects, this public service innovation journey is underpinned by the Design Thinking methodology. As a service design consultant, we sought to gain deeper understanding of existing users — their experience, needs, and motivations — through a series of engagement activities. These insights became the foundation of the one-year co-design exercise, in which citizens and staff of LCSD came together to generate ideas of the future system and leisure venues. For these ideas to materialise, stakeholders’ inputs were consolidated and visualised for further brainstorming and ideation. In the process, we also brought in a team of professionals including landscape architects and UX/UI designers to help develop design concepts, and more importantly, bring them to life in the form of full-scale prototypes and test pages so that users can trial and refine them.

 

Impact to Date

  • Advocated active public participation in the design of public services and cross-sector collaboration through Design Thinking in practice
  • Generated service-focused design principles for the new booking and information system through extensive engagement with citizens and professionals
  • Developed a three-pronged vision for the enhancement of existing venues and innovative design features of future venues