Experimental Policy

Cards, methods, and approaches to radically shift policy design

How can we engage policymakers with experimental methods and approaches that have the potential to shift how policy is developed in radically different ways?

This deck of twelve cards (eleven illustrated methods and one blank), developed with Policy Lab, aims to showcase innovative methods for policymaking, supporting the wider policy community in better understanding new innovative and human-centred approaches and beginning to imagine how they might apply them to policy challenges.

Our multidisciplinary team of designers, researchers, and policy experts first started to explore and research a wide range of experimental methods, engaging with experts who allowed the team to gain a deeper understanding of those practices and how they could apply to policymaker’s work. Not all methods were new (Legislative theatre, for example, was created in 1992 in Brazil), but we were interested in understanding how they could bring new perspectives to policymakers’ challenges. We conducted an internal workshop with the wider Policy Lab team to help select the eleven most relevant methods and explore how they could be represented visually.

The final cards were developed with illustrator Toby Melville-Brown, inspired by his playful and colourful drawings. The result is a vibrant deck with hand-drawn illustrations illustrating Policy Lab’s commitment to people-centred approaches and a bright colour palette reminding card users that, more than anything right now, change is possible. Since the cards were launched in May 2022, Policy Lab has tested six of these in live policy development, advancing understanding of how tech, data, and participation can improve policy.

Workshop drawings and card design exploration.