Can UX designers successfully apply service design principles/ thinking?

I hate to admit it, but I am not a big fan of the title ‘Service Designer’.

Although I have dedicated most of my career towards the craft of crafting services that are more useful and desirable while ensuring the application of a holistic, multi-disciplinary and integrative field approach, it can be seen as an exclusive role that is only suited for people with specific skills, backgrounds or departments. This creates a service design saviour complex, where you need to only have a strategic hat or background to do the role. Like most things, context matters as skills as a service designer can change depending on the industry and the type of service issues/opportunity.

In the past, I have talked about how service designers can better collaborate with roles across an organisation. However, while speaking to others and running numerous workshops there, question about how user experience designers can apply service design to their jobs have come up.

This post is my opinion on how user experience roles can blend into service design. It is important to understand the difference between delivering a single-user experience and a service experience. Service encompasses everything a user, directly and indirectly, interacts with, which includes products, services, systems, processes, technology, environments, policies, etc.?

User experience design aims to create digital or physical products and services that are easy to use, enjoyable, and effective for the user. This involves understanding the user's needs and behaviours, designing intuitive and visually appealing interfaces, and testing and iterating the design based on user feedback.

In service design, both UX design and customer journeys are used to create a holistic view of the service and ensure that it meets the needs of the user at every stage. For example, UX design can be used to create a seamless and engaging experience for the user when they interact with a digital product or service, while customer journeys can be used to identify pain points in the overall service experience and design solutions to address them.

As the world becomes more uncertain and ambiguous, organisations are starting to adopt a more service way of thinking to create a realignment of existing and new service experiences which impact both users and businesses. According to LinkedIn, over 3 million people have or had a job title that includes ‘service design’ with brands such as Lego, eBay, NHS, Starbucks, Shell, Audi and many more.

This shows a trend that more brands want to design services that by nature, are sustainably addressing the needs of all stakeholders throughout the entire service and across the business. A lot of designers I have spoken to organically use a lot of service design principles and tools without having an official job title. User experience is becoming more than a stage in the design process; they are having an impact across the end to end journey. Experienced designers at a senior and leadership level are also beginning to have a voice in their organisations, becoming advocates for a different way of thinking and creating a mindset for multiple different users (customers, businesses and external partners). This involves creating conversations with a wide range of stakeholders that breaks linear thinking most time.?

This responsibility should fall not only to service designers; both user experience designers and service designers share a lot of the same language and tools. However, there is some difference around vocabulary and how we engage with this stakeholder outside of the design departments.

Service design typically involves a range of activities, such as research, mapping customer journeys, prototyping, testing, and iterating solutions. It may also involve collaboration between designers, researchers, business analysts, stakeholders, and other professionals to ensure that the service meets the needs of all parties involved. Moving towards more strategic design might require a mix of experience, product, and service design skills. Working with and across different design disciplines to leverage everyone’s skills and experience could improve any effort.?

People can be fixed on the limitations of their current roles. This can be a culture whether they are not able to do the workers or service blueprinting that is related to a strategic position. It shouldn’t matter your title; we need to be more adaptive and flexible as we need to use different tools, and expand our thinking as roles and cooperate environments evolve.

A lot of the above is just my opinion; there are many new ones to this topic as many different voices might have viewpoints on the role of different designers overlaying across different sectors.?

In my experience, there are a number of deliverables and outcomes that service designers and user experience designers can blend together across any full end-to-end journey when developing any service. Many designers adopt the mindset, principles and skillset that was once exclusive to service designers.?

There are also new opportunities to collaborate to create better service experiences as designers help to create a better world.

Here are some opportunities that can help service design to flourish and be nurtured to an environment that fosters working holistically, facilitating change, and coordinating the delivery of experiences across silos and functions.

1.??????Continue to educate yourself and others: Design will always change as contexts and the role of service/strategic and user experience design adapt to the complexity of the world. Staying ahead by educating yourself and others about the principles and benefits of service design to your industry. Starting small by building a small tribe of people, you can share articles, case studies, and other resources that demonstrate how service design can improve customer experiences and drive business success.

2.??????Gain advocates by starting small: This may involve reaching out to colleagues in different departments and building a cross-functional team to collaborate on service design projects. Begin by identifying a specific service or process within the company that could benefit from service design. This may involve conducting user research, mapping out customer journeys, and prototyping solutions. Start with a small project that has clear goals and measurable outcomes, and use this as a proof of concept to demonstrate the value of service design to the rest of the organisation.

3.??????Communicate the value: Once you have completed a service design project, communicate the value and impact of your work to others in the company. This may involve sharing data and metrics that demonstrate how the service design solution improved customer satisfaction, reduced costs, or increased revenue.