7d. Consider the need for any travel, printing and postage
Travel, printing paper documents and postage often represent significant sources of environmental impact for services.
Lead Roles
Interaction designer, developer, content designer
Sub-actions
7d. (i) Reduce consumption of paper, printing and postage where appropriate
7d. (ii) Consider the need for travel and in person interactions
(i) Reduce consumption of paper, printing and postage where appropriate
Paper might be used for physical documents that users fill out and submit to access services. Consider if online options could replace use of paper.
Remember that sometimes paper will be needed to support digitally excluded users.
In some circumstances, staff supporting delivering of the service may also need paper. For example, vets conducting visits to farms as part of Defra services need to use paper rather than tablets.
Environmental benefit:
Reducing paper usage can lead to big savings on energy and carbon.
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(ii) Consider the need for travel and in person interactions
Services can require users or staff to travel. Where appropriate, allow people to make an informed decision about when to travel. If travel is required, coordinating visits or inspection can cut the amount of travel.
Consider when/if face-to-face human interaction maybe be more effective, or needed alongside digital services, in order to deliver desired policy outcomes
Digitising service touchpoints may (often) save energy, resources and associated environmental impacts, but there may be moments in a service journey when users may really value or need face-to-face interactions. These may be particularly important for services intended to shift behaviours (rather than those that are purely transactional), for example farmers signing up for new farming subsidies. For these types of services, human interactions can be an important way for keeping people engaged in the service journey, particularly where earning trust is critical to service delivery. Robust social and user research (including ethnography) can help you better understand when digital and human touchpoints will be most effective in service delivery.
Having these user needs in mind from the start helps to ensure designing for offline interactions is not neglected in favour of the digital touchpoints.
Service Manual, Understanding users who do not use digital services
Environmental benefit:
Reducing travel means reduced energy consumption and likely direct greenhouse gas emissions.