All posts about
Service design

Service design in government: A systematic approach to designing digital government

Added on 4 March 2013 Peter Bogaards
System thinking connected to design thinking. Deep thinking for government digital services.

Disclosure: I work at Informaat (The Netherlands) ~ “In this ten-minute presentation, the new digital reality and grand challenges facing government are identified, and the way in which Informaat’s systematic design approach can be a solution to meet these challenges is outlined. The guiding principles of this approach are putting citizens at the center of design, applying outside-in thinking throughout, and visualizing as much as possible. By harnessing the power of personas, journeys, ecosystems, dialogues, wireframes and prototypes, government services can be delivered in the best possible manner.”

(Mark Fonds ~ BiRDS on a W!RE)

A new research focus on service design: A report by the Design Council

Added on 11 February 2013 Peter Bogaards
Taking the temperature of a new upcoming field.

“Due to the lack of clarity, definitions and nascent field as a discipline, instead of calling it service design, they recommend a focus on the role of design in service innovation and for specific sectors. More research is needed in the design in the service sector. Service design academics need opportunities to engage with larger, established businesses who would benefit from service design practices. Linking business and design schools and considering the impact agenda, as well as linking design with innovation studies and policy communities.”

(Yoko Akama ~ Service Design Melbourne)

Why businesses should invest in service design

Added on 29 January 2013 Peter Bogaards
They should invest in design in general.

“Service is even more important than the product, because it is the experiences that are often remembered. Even more important than the customer experience is the value of the conceptual journey between brands and people, and service design is about creating delightful customer experiences, which in turn benefit businesses by enhancing brand loyalty and reducing the costs to serve.”

(Nelly Trakidou)

Lean and service design: Understanding the differences

Added on 24 January 2013 Peter Bogaards
Identify similarities and differences, the way to a better DTDT.

“Recent questions about the difference between Snook’s service design approach and the LEAN approach have inspired me to put my thoughts around this into writing. As advocates of the benefits of design thinking, methods and tools we believe that these bring an additional creative dimension to organisations seeking to innovate and co-design new services that are user-centred and user-friendly. I have put together a table outlining some of the differences I see in LEAN and Service Design Approaches below. Although the different aspects are presented in binary form, we recognize that each item is on a spectrum from the analytic and scientific to the intuitive and creative.”

(Snook)

Customer journey mapping

Added on 10 January 2013 Peter Bogaards
A diagram showing how customers mentally travel now. But what about the future territories.

“One of the biggest challenges facing companies when they want to become customer focused is that their own organisation is based around functional silos. This is not only noticeable to customers as they are passed from function to function looking for service, but also to companies themselves either when they look to start a customer improvement initiative, or look to implement change based around customer feedback. With organisational hierarchy based around functions the ability to make effective decisions and push through change is fundamentally opposite to how a customer wants to experience dealing with them. A customer wants to experience an organisation that provides a single seamless journey across all touchpoints from initial enquiry right through to any required post sales support. An approach to overcome these barriers is to consider the total customer journey.”

(Customer champions)

A consistent experience is a better experience: Service design

Added on 3 January 2013 Peter Bogaards
Service design forces user experience design to sync with the new normal.

“If there is one thing that has held the test of time, it’s that history is bound to repeat itself. What was once old will most certainly become new again in the cycle of time because good ideas never go out of style. Service design is a shining example of this fact. In spite of the fact that the conception of service design is nearly 30 years old, it is an idea that is more relevant than ever today.”

(Mark Eberman ~ Digital Compass)

The Evolution, Methods, Processes, and Distinct Value of Service Design

Added on 13 December 2012 Peter Bogaards
From application or site to service. Not really a giant leap.

“The emerging focus on user experience will be the key to companies’ success as we move from an industrial to a service-oriented society. Service Design focuses on the methods and processes of a service from the point of view of the user. The goal is to make sure that when a client or customer interacts with the service, from branding to customer service to any point of contact, there is room to make the service more useful, efficient, and effective.”

(AC4D)

Service design needs a better understanding of the raw materials of service

Added on 10 December 2012 Peter Bogaards
Know your materials: bits, events, and people.

“This post is a critique on service design, and especially the thinking and talking side of it. This is based on both my own experiences as someone who has been involved in quite a few service design projects during past years and how those have changed my own view, and what I have seen and heard my colleagues around the world are doing. Of course there’s as many ways to use the toolbox of service design, as there are people who practice it. However, among those who preach and practice service design there’s plenty of enthusiasm and talking, without real life experimentation and implementation of conceptual ideas and actual proof of delivered effects. And that’s a thing I personally have been a little frustrated about.”

(Reima Rönnholm ~ Meaningful Experience)

Interface Matters: Postphenomenological Perspectives on Service Design

Added on 10 December 2012 Peter Bogaards
To simplify the matter is great; to make it simplistic not. A PhD thesis.

“One of the fundamental questions facing the emerging discipline of service design concerns the definition of its object. In this thesis, I posit that the practice of service design, as a recent development within the tradition of industrial design, may be approached primarily as the design of interfaces between service providers and clients.”

(Fernando Secomandi ~ TU Delft)

Service Design for Innovative Banking

Added on 7 December 2012 Peter Bogaards
Financial services are utility services, for all people.

“(…) how service design techniques can produce unique service ideas for the rapidly evolving banking sector. We were lucky to have some fantastic attendees from various European banks and hearing their thoughts on design in their industry was really interesting. I have summarized the content of our workshop and some innovative new financial services in this post.”

(Chris Brooker ~ Service Design Programme)

The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Added on 7 December 2012 Peter Bogaards
Just make the customer, the user or ‘whatever-you-call-this-person’ the Hero of the Story.

“(…) the best services are those that allow us to tell our stories. And the next challenge in design is based on the fact that more and more objects are connected. The amount of data available about all of us and our environment is growing tremendously. But what to do with this data? Our lives are not made up of data, but of choices: a thousand small choices everyday. And stories. Data becomes valuable when it is interpreted by humans. We have to make sense out of it. And we should use it to tell better stories, richer stories from which we can benefit.”

(Louisa Heinrich ~ NEXT Berlin service design)

10 Principles for Service Design

Added on 29 November 2012 Peter Bogaards
Always good to have some principles to design by. In whatever domain it applies.

“James Lawther has spent the past 20 years working in factories, supermarkets and call centres. Apparently he is fascinated by operations and is always on the lookout for ways to make them work cheaper faster or better. But we are interested in him because he writes a great blog about service improvement and offered to give us some thoughts on service design, so we took him up on this and here’s what he came up with.”

(James Lawther a.k.a. @SquawkPoint ~ The Service Design Programme)

Why the Best Designers are also Facilitators

Added on 22 November 2012 Peter Bogaards
Due to reframing of design challenges as wicked problems.

“This definition paints the picture of what it means to facilitate a session really well. As a facilitator, your job is to help a person, or a group of people, traverse a problem space. The context of the problem space could be one where you, as the designer, need to learn more about what is going on so you can properly craft an effective solution. Or it could be a situation were the participants needs to identify and solve the problem on their own, while you take that solution back and refine it further.”

(Brad Ty Nunnally ~ UX Magazine)

Service Design: On the Evolution of Design Expertise

Added on 14 November 2012 Peter Bogaards
Great set of publications.

“Service design is a relatively new field of expertise: it has mostly developed over the past 20 years. The deepest roots of both design and service design are in arts, crafts, and organised planning. Later the actual concept of design and many of its sub-areas, such as architecture and jewellery as well as textile, furniture, and graphic design, started to emerge. Then service business development, service marketing, industrial design, as well as ergonomics, interaction design, usability design, and information design grew out from the thick root of design.”

(Tuomo Kuosa & Leo Westerlund ~ Servicedesign.tv)

Service Design: Are we still talking about this?

Added on 9 November 2012 Peter Bogaards
Human values are much more important than roles.

“(…) Chris hates the word ‘consumer’. He doesn’t want to be called a consumer, because the word carried the implications of being passive and dumb. Instead, he wants to live in a world where he feels valued and useful. And this means we are not talking about point of view anymore, but about purpose. We are talking about values on a much deeper level than marketing and communications were ever able to.”

(Chris Downs ~ NEXT Berlin)