Tools and Methods used in Service Design

There are a lot of different tools and methods used by service designers to generate idea, test the idea, improve, and implement it. Here are some of these tools and methods that are introduced in the book, This is Service Design Thinking.

Stakeholder Maps: A stakeholder map is a visual and physical representation of the different groups involved in a particular service. It consists of employees, management, customers, business partners and other groups that will have impact or have benefit on that particular service.

Service Safaris: Gaining Valuable experience is only possible when people try different services and compare the good and bad customer service. In Service safari people will go to similar businesses and observe and explore their services.

Customer Journey Maps: A customer journey map is a structured and visualized map that explains the user experience. It will show where user will be interacting with the service.

Contextual Interviews:  These interviews will be conducted in the environment that the service will take place. Interviews are conducted with all stakeholders, customers, staff, and etc.

Expectation Maps: The usage of expectation map is to investigate what are some expectations that customers have from a certain service. It is essential to know customer’s needs to be able to deliver desirable experience.

Personas: Personas are fictional characters developed to represent particular group based on a shared interest. Most personas are developed from researches gathered from different stakeholders.

Idea Generation: There are different ways of generating ideas such as group discussion, brainstorming sessions, mind-mapping, and S.W.O.T. analysis.

Storyboards: A storyboard is a visual sequential story telling method. Designers will create a particular sequence of events illustrated in a comic-strip format. The kind of story being told is up to the designer; It can be a section of the service or the entire service experience.

Desktop Walkthrough: This is a 3-D small model of the service for visualization and more understanding of how the service will be implemented in the environment. The model is mostly very simple and it allows the designers to analyze a specific situation.

Service Prototype: A service prototype is a simulation of the service experience. It can be a simple role-play or it can be a user-participating model, which is totally based on the complexity of the service.

http://thisisservicedesignthinking.com/#

Fields of Service Design 2

Strategic Management: Designing a service is just the first step, implementing is as important as the design process. There can be a great service designed but if it is not implemented appropriately the result will be a poor customer experience. This is why strategic management has an important role in the process for providing great customer service. Managers use three levels of strategy, corporate, business, and operational, to better demonstrate the reason for the decisions that have been made. In the Corporate strategy level the 5-forces model of Micheal Porter which includes Industry competition, Suppliers, Buyers, Substitutes, and Threat of entry is commonly used. Business strategy is dealing with the decisions made about the methods and techniques of competing in a certain market. The Operation strategy is where service design is highly involved. It is the segment where research and development takes place and the marketing and customer service are main concerns. The import thing to remember is that designers should be aware of the business language and the business world to be able to design appropriate services, to understand the process of implementation, and to better communicate with the stakeholders.

Operation Management: Kate Blackmon definition of operation management is clear and powerful “Operation management is concerned with the design, management, and improvement of the processes through which an organization’s product and services are delivered.” So operation managers and service designers are working side by side for a common goal in parallel direction. One of the operation management methods to deal with services, introduced by Ted Levitt, is to approach service as it is a product. The role of technology and customers are very important in the service design. The use of technology is important but it needs to be simple and user friendly. Customers, also, have a great role and impact on the success of a service. The interaction between employees and customers are a key point in designing a service and has to be emphasized.

Design Ethnography: Understanding the future choices and decisions by studying behavior and background of different people is the main point in the structure of ethnography. Ethnography is a method that uses different social sciences such as anthropology and sociology and it is learning about people and their behavior and choices they make in life. These studies gather data that can inform and inspire service designers for innovative processes. There is a strong connection between ethnography and service design which can result to a successful customer experience.

http://thisisservicedesignthinking.com/#

Fields of Service Design 1

Service design thinking is an interdisciplinary arena that connects various fields of activities to fulfill the desired outcome. There are many fields that their expertise is needed for this creative process. Here we will mention some of them according to the reference book This is Service Design Thinking.

Product Design also known as Industrial Design: Designers role changed dramatically in last decades. Now a product designer is also part of the research group and the process designing team. To design an object only the material, form and function is not important but also the interaction between people with the object, the technology involved, the way the product will be delivered and also the functionality of the product all need to be considered. The Industrial Design Society of America defines industrial design as “a professional service of creating and developing concepts and specifications that optimize the function, value and appearance of product and system for the mutual benefit of both user and manufacturer (IDSA, 2010)

Graphic Design: Jakob Schneider says “It is nearly impossible for any product or service to be available on the market without a graphically designed element.” These elements can be the packaging, branding, manuals or pictograms. The graphic designers as visual individuals are responsible mostly for branding and information design. Branding refers to create a visual identity for goods and services that are meaningful and familiar for the customers. Information design, in the other hand, is making a simple way to understand complex concepts. Graphic designers are important for a great successful service design process to create comfortably usable forms, developing pictograms, designing information graphics, branding, and providing many other creative supports.

Interaction Design: Interactive design a young field but it is becoming more important everyday. It is an important part of service design because it is basically about the interaction between customer and the service. Some of the important points to consider when designing an interface design are Desirability, Utility, Usability, and Pleasurability. A good service needs to gain customer’s trust, be functional and work well, be easy to use and gives customer good feeling. Interaction design can keep the current customers satisfied and gain new customers.

Social Design: The design process which is addressing a social issue or on concerns that can change human lives is known as social design. Social design is a way of thinking about what, why and how designing a concept, a product, or a service can change the needs of the society.

To be continued…

This is Service Design Thinking

Service Design Process

Designing a service doesn’t have a set in stone procedure and different service designers have their own methods. Also labeling the steps of the process is different but overall the mindset is the same for them all. One can label the process as Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver and another can call it Research, Brainstorm, Prototype, Repeat, and Deliver. This is Service Design Thinking by Marc Stickdorn and Jakob Schneider introduces these steps as Exploration, Creation, Reflection, and Implementation.

The First step, which is called Exploration, requires a lot of research. First the designers need to understand the vision and goal of the company providing the service. Getting familiar with the organizational structure and the way the service is being delivered is very important in terms of understanding the real issue. This leads to the second step in exploration, which is identifying the real problem. Designers should gain a clear understanding of the problem from the customer’s point of view. To finish this first step, designers should visualize all findings and also the underlying structure of the previous service.

The second step is Creation, which has a very close relationship with the third step Reflection. In these two steps the basic idea is to select a concept, design the service, and test it. This process is an ongoing process until all mistakes been caught. This procedure might take awhile until troubleshooting and continues testing results a flawless product. As the book says “one of the main features of service design thinking is that this approach is not about avoiding mistakes, but rather to explore as many as possible mistakes.” Making mistakes early in the process will help the designers to solve the issues before implementation.

The final step is the Implementation, which requires change management. In this step planning change, implementing change, and reviewing change as the fundamentals of the change management should be considered.  In this process beside customers that the whole service is designed around them, employees play an important role as the service deliverers. In ideal situation, employees should be involved from the beginning of the design process therefore because of their involvement they would be familiar with the concept and the process. There will be always unconsidered situations and problems and solving the issues as they occur quickly and creatively is required for a smooth transition to implementation of a new service.

About the picture: Service Designers’ best friend is the sticky-notes! They are simple and quick tools to visualize the process, show the relations and add new information during the co-creative process. It is easy to add a step or remove it when everything is visualized by sticky-notes.

This is Service Design Thinking