The distinction between public and commercial design –But I’ve had an early conversation about a pilot with b-corp lab about extending use of our public design ROI into commercial space ( that might be one for later in the year).

But in the meantime, I need to build a case on how outcomes of public design and commercial design drive different outputs (think commercial companies driving shitification), and therefore need differing inputs (i.e. design practice is different in govs)

1. Public design (financexwellbeing) > outputs (products, policies, services) > inputs (different design practices)
2. Commercial design (finance) > outputs (products, policies, services) > inputs (different design practices)

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Commercial and public design are interrelated in another obvious sense, insofar as the public and private sectors are mutually constituting.

Government policy, and public institutions more broadly, are tied up with commercial design, for example through regulation. In the case of the mortgage service, government directly shapes commercial design through oversight and regulation of financial institutions offering mortgages, and indirectly through how financial institutions set mortgage interest rates in response to government activity and public debates about the desirability and affordability of mortgages.

• In a policy that puts value on economic stability and opportunities for people to own their own homes, commercial design in the financial services sector is irreducibly implicated with the design of public policy, services and institutions.
• A well-designed customer-centric service for a mortgage application makes good commercial sense in a competitive, and highly regulated sector.

Similarly, if we take other sectors in which we can find commercial design, such as retail, construction or hospitality (on the high street or via social media apps or websites), even a brief inspection of each of these reveals that “commercial” priorities informing design are also linked to and shaped by government activity and wider public policy debates such as “sustainability”, “levelling up”, or “open data”.

In short, differences between public design and commercial design are not always clear cut.

The argument made here is that despite such difficulties there is value in making such a distinction. This review will argue that there are significant differences in purposes and enabling conditions shaping capabilities and practices in public design and commercial design, which have implications for the effectiveness, operationalisation and accountabilities of each and hence for resulting outcomes.

Differences in:

• Purpose
• Enabling conditions
• Capabilities and practices that are shaped because of this
• Implications for effectiveness, operationalisation and accountabilities based on context

FIGURE 3

The figure above, an example of a mission map for clean oceans (Mazzucato, 2018) edited to demonstrate the role of commercial and public design takes this one step further in the context of mission-orientated innovation policy.