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The Service Design Studio at the Mayor's Office for Economic Opportunity

What we do

Sitting within the Mayor's Office for Economic Opportunity, the Service Design Studio (the Studio) helps spread valuable service design and community-centered design methodologies, which are often underused in government. We collaborate with City agency partners to enhance existing services or design new ones that are effective, accessible, and dignified. Our approach begins with understanding the needs of people who use, deliver, and administer public services. We seek out feedback from different perspectives and test prototypes of service enhancements before implementing them at scale.

Check out our blog to learn more about our tools, past projects, and what we've been up to.

Who we are

Our Studio is made up of designers with varying experience and educational backgrounds in public administration, qualitative research, visual design and participatory design. Meet the Studio team!
As part of the Mayor's Office for Economic Opportunity, the Studio draws on the expertise from our multi-disciplinary office in areas such as program development and evaluation, performance management, product design, data analytics, and more! Our collective team has extensive experience working collaboratively with City agencies and offices to help advance their goals.

A graphic from the NYC Service Design Studio with icons and text stating: Making public services more accessible, dignified, and effective for all New Yorkers.

What we offer

The Studio is your on-demand partner for elevating public services through collaborative design. Whether you need a one-time consultation, team training to build design skills, or a short-term project partner, we're here to help you drive meaningful improvements.

Office Hours

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What are Office Hours?

Each week, we set aside time for City employees to meet with our designers to get light-touch consulting on a project or idea, or to learn more about how service design is applicable to the work of your City agency.

Sign up for an Office Hour!

Visual Design Projects

A workspace with a printed user journey map, showing illustrations and emotional touchpoints. Design tools like pens, scissors, a ruler, and sticky notes are scattered around. A note labeled Touch Points! highlights key moments. A Service Design Studio Visual Design Projects logo banner overlays the image.

What are Visual Design Projects?

Visual Design Projects create clear, engaging, and accessible materials used to communicate with the public and within government. Our team creates design deliverables shaped by user feedback, meaning you can expect light engagement with your stakeholders to develop functional and engaging visuals.

  • Visual design projects incorporate user research, human-centered design, or other participatory research methods with communities who use them.
  • We incorporate accessibility into all visual design materials with plain language writing, color contrast, and usability with screen readers.
  • Visual Design Projects typically include deliverables such as:
    • Infographics
    • Informational assets (one pagers, flyers, brochures)
    • Flows or maps (service flows, systems maps, journey maps)
    • Marketing and branding assets (low-fidelity logo and branding)
    • Signage
    • Short video

Visual projects we do not do:

  • We do not pursue projects unrelated to decreasing poverty and increasing equity.
  • We do not produce visual design projects without user feedback.
  • We are not an on-retainer graphic design agency.
  • We do not design reports or documents longer than 5 pages.
  • We do not build digital products or apps.

Submit a request to work with the Studio on a Visual Design Project

Rapid Design Research Projects

Two women sit at a table, discussing a mobile application. One woman gestures while speaking, and the other interacts with the phone screen. A Service Design Studio Rapid Design Research logo banner overlays the image.

What are Rapid Design Research Projects?

Design research centers the perspectives of the people who use and administer a service. Centering these perspectives is key to understanding how a service is experienced and what opportunities there are to improve. Our process is a systematic approach to understanding users, their needs, and the context in which a product or service will be used. The Studio uses a service design process to carry out the research. The service design process combines qualitative and quantitative methods to listen to people's experiences, discuss motivations, explore preferences, and identify pain points. We organize, validate, and ideate to provide a summary of what we heard and recommendations for how to improve. Input gathered through this process can be used to smooth operations, inform planning, evaluate a service, and generate ideas.The Studio will assess capacity and offer additional support if a follow-up visual design project or design skills workshop is recommended.

  • Rapid research projects must incorporate participatory research methods with communities who use them.
  • We strive to always share back project outputs with all who contributed.
  • Rapid research projects typically include deliverables such as:
    • A research project plan
    • An end-of-project report

Rapid Design Research Projects we do not do:

  • We do not pursue projects unrelated to decreasing poverty and/or increasing equity.
  • We do not conduct quantitative research projects that require computational data analysis.
  • We do not conduct peer-reviewed studies or large-scale projects.

Submit a request to work with the Studio on a Rapid Design Research Project

Design Skill Workshops

People participate in a design workshop, mapping user journeys on a whiteboard with sticky notes and filling out reflection worksheets. A Service Design Studio Design Skill Workshops logo banner overlays the image.

What are Design Skill Workshops?

Design skill workshops are opportunities for NYC City agency staff and their partners to brush up on or learn valuable design methods and skills. Workshops provide instruction, opportunities to apply and practice new skills, and takeaway tools or materials for sustained learning and application. Workshops are typically offered in-person and can accommodate small to large groups.

You can see the Studio's current workshop offerings by clicking the request button below.

Submit a request for a Design Skill Workshop for your team

Civic Design Forums

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What is the Civic Design Forum?

Forum events explore a wide variety of public sector innovation and design topics including, but not limited to:

  • User testing and participatory practices
  • Community-centered design and engagement practices
  • Accessibility design
  • Communications design
  • Operations design
  • Service design methods
  • Systems thinking and policy integration
  • Experience measurement

Have an idea for a Civic Design Forum? Book an office hour with the Studio.

Our Pilot Programs

Designed by Community

A group of community members and NYC staff pose for a picture with matching Designed By Community bags and sweaters. A Service Design Studio Designed by Community logo banner overlays the image.

The Designed by Community (DxC) Program is a fellowship and project funding opportunity developed by the Studio.

DxC, or as we say "D by C," is a community-led approach to designing community-based services. The Studio works with one community-based organization and 6 community fellows (residents with lived experience) to design and develop hyper-localized solutions for their neighborhood using the service design methodology.

Thanks to support from Citi Community Development and the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City's partnership, we have piloted two cohorts.

Community Compensation Fund

Illustration of dollar bills, coins, and an envelope labeled Community Compensation Fund. A Service Design Studio Community Compensation Fund logo banner overlays the image.

The Community Compensation Fund (CCF) pilot invests in compensation for community members/residents who inform City agency work and build evidence about the impact investments of this kind can have. The CCF streamlines access for City employees to physical or digital cash gift cards to compensate residents for participating in activities that improve the City's work. Participatory activities intentionally include people most affected by the service and can be conducted in many forms.

The CCF pilot is a partnership between the Studio, the Institute for State and Local Governance (ISLG) at the City University of New York (CUNY), and ideas42, a nonprofit behavioral science organization. The ideas42 New York City Behavioral Design Team serves as the managing partner of the fund.

Connect with Us

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