This is a short, elegant, epistolary post on how design and policy come together – or rather about how they might do so better. There often is a gap between policy thinking and design thinking, though one that’s more an accident of history and career paths than of underlying incompatibility. But the contrast sketched here perhaps over-emphasises aspects of the difference: many politicians are interested in more evidence-based and iterative policy development, the trick (as the post recognises) is doing that in a way which creates a space for things not to work without being labelled as failures. And that should be one of the ways in which more traditional policy making skills complement design-based approaches.
Of course it doesn’t always work in that relatively benign way, far from it. But there are great insights here into how it might work better more often.