Public Policy Lab
John Payne is an accomplished design educator and professional with extensive experience in strategic design and management. Currently serving as an Assistant Professor at Parsons School of Design - The New School, John teaches core courses within both undergraduate and graduate programs. In addition, John holds the position of Head of Design at the Public Policy Lab, focusing on enhancing public services. Previous roles include Associate Professor of Practice at the Institute of Design, Head of Service Design at Verizon Wireless, and Managing Director of Moment, a digital strategy and design firm. John has a robust academic background, having taught at The New School and earned degrees from prestigious institutions including the Illinois Institute of Technology and Auburn University.
Public Policy Lab
The Public Policy Lab's mission is to design services that help Americans build better lives. We partner with government agencies – and the communities they serve – to create public services that are more effective, more respectful, and simple to use. Public programs are how our society invests in citizens. Too often, however, public services don’t feel very friendly, or even very useful. Here at the Public Policy Lab, we think the solution lies with the people themselves: when services are thoughtfully designed to serve the needs of their users, to be engaging and easy to use, then they’re more satisfying for citizens, as well as more effective and cost-efficient for government. We engage in research at the intersection of policy and user-centered design. We examine how policy goals and public services can be assessed through the experience of their users. We identify best practices from the design professions that can bring value to the public sector. And then we directly engage with government leaders and community members in projects to improve service delivery.