Tricky.
Not in the sense that I don’t know what I’m doing when I do what I do. I just do what needs done.
Tricky in the ‘it depends’ sense.
One thing we don’t do, in any conventional sense, is design services. We don’t take a brief, don our turtlenecks, retire to a darkened room and then, a week or two later, step blinking into the light with a ‘ta-da’ and a definitive plan.
It depends
What we do will depend on the situation, the context, and the circumstances.
- Who are the users?
- What do they need?
- What is the intended outcome?
- Who provides this service?
- How will it be resourced?
- What systems do you use?
- Do they need to integrate?
- Is this a new service?
- How will you measure success (or failure)?
- Is this an existing service?
- How will you measure improvement?
- Cost to serve?
- Time to serve?
- Waiting list?
- How will you measure improvement?
We ask questions
Lots of them. Absolutely tons of fundamental questions. Because we’re trying to help you get to the heart of your problem.
Why do you do this?
How do you do this?
Why do you do it this way?
Is there a better way you could do it?
Why is the not working for you?
We research
We might do some desk research, lean on our user research colleagues, or – y’know what – just do some user research ourselves.
All service designers should have this in their locker.
We prototype
We might do some desk research, lean on our UI/UX colleagues, or – y’know what – just prototype something ourselves.
Axure, Adobe XD, a Codepen or Github page. We might just cobble something together on Miro.
Whatever.
I’ve even knocked up prototypes on paper, using Keynote, or PowerPoint.
It really doesn’t matter, Use whatever works. You’re trying to learn something, not seek ideological purity.
Again, all service designers should have this in their locker. No, you don’t have to be able to be able to code. Yes, it’s probably easier if you can. Anyway, find a way to do it.
Find a way to find out.
This takes time
No service designer will claim they can cast an eye over a service, or a proposed service, and within ten minutes come up with a solution. That’s neither credible, nor feasible.
Service design is a long-term commitment to devote time and effort to inspecting and improving how a service is performing, for all its users – both customers and staff. And providing the expected benefits to the organisation sponsoring it.
Service designers don’t design services
They create space for the users and providers of a service to help and guide them co-create something that:
- Meets user needs
- Delivers the intended benefit to the organisation
We don’t have a magic wand. We can’t solve your problems overnight.
But we can show you a way you might improve it.
The rest is up to you.
I'm a service designer in Scottish Enterprise's unsurprisingly-named service design team. I've been a content designer, editor, UX designer and giant haystacks developer on the web for (gulp) over 25 years.
