Health and Safety System Change Through User-Based Design

This article describes an action research project involving a user-based design process which enables stakeholder group participation in the design of administrative systems. The user-based design process is applied to the redesign of a health and safety system within a large government agency. The project involved a small design team working with a community of practice of health and safety practitioners and several representative stakeholder user groups to redesign the system. The article outlines the process involved and critically evaluates the progress and success of the redesign and the user-based design process from the viewpoint of user groups. It also suggests improvements to the process and recommends its potential application for use in other organizations.