But Tom’s work didn’t start with academic analysis. It started with user research, talking to real people who would use the service and be affected by the new policy and understanding their circumstances, their resources, and, most of all, their needs. This approach was very different—and very eye-opening—for Tom’s policy partner. A few weeks into working with the GDS team, he came to Tom with his inches-thick binder of documents and plopped it down on the table. “You know,” he said, “I’ve come to the realization that what I’m holding is really six hundred pages of untested assumptions. I’m
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