SERVICE STANDARD · POINT 2

Solve a whole problem for users

Users experience problems, not organisational boundaries. A service that solves only the digital slice of a task — leaving someone to phone a helpline or post a form to finish — has not solved the problem.

Design for the complete task someone is trying to complete, even when it spans multiple organisations or channels. Avoid handing users off to another service or paper form to finish what they started.

Whole-problem thinking means mapping the end-to-end journey from the user's perspective. If your service is one step in a longer process, you still need to understand what happens before and after, and design sensible hand-offs or integrations.

This point often surfaces in assessment when teams have optimised a form but ignored the policy step, the payment, or the notification that completes the task. The question is whether someone can actually get to done.

How teams usually demonstrate this

A journey map or service map covering the full task, not just your team's slice
Evidence that cross-organisation dependencies were explored
Design decisions that reduce hand-offs or make them explicit to the user
Content and design that reflect the user's goal, not internal process labels

Phases where this often matters

Related standard points

← Point 1: Understand users and their needs Point 3: Provide a joined-up experience across channels →

Point 2 of the Service Standard is published by the Government Digital Service on GOV.UK. Content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0. UCD Services explains the standard in its own words and is not affiliated with GOV.UK or the Government Digital Service.