Mastering service design

I often get asked why someone would (like to) study service design, how to get started and what to read. In this post I will use my own story, learnings and experiences to answer those three questions.

When I was at the age to think about studying, there weren’t any service design studies. I visited several university open days, trying to find what would bring me joy and fit with my interests, goals and values. A combination of (I am using nowadays words for this): human centricity, sustainability, business (development) and services.?

Before finally joining and studying at the Academy of Arts in Utrecht, I already learned about business design, commercial economics, human resource management and (labour) sociology and with that (in retrospect) was very much focused on the internal business processes, team dynamics, leadership styles and organisational culture. I did learn all about Kotler, Porter, Leeflang, Gr?nroos and Gummesson, but less about the design aspects of services and other business offerings.

That changed when human-centred design fully stepped into my life. I read and learned about it via Don Norman’s books ‘User Centered System Design: New Perspectives on Human-computer Interaction’ and ‘The Design of Everyday Things’ and ‘The Experience Economy’ by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore, and much later, in 2009, when Tim Brown published his book ‘Change by design’.?

I am sharing this because every designer’s career path is different and brings value to that individual creative professional. Like me, there are service designers who started with an interest in humanities or business, and nowadays a large number have started studying and working in ‘product’, ‘digital’, UX/CX, interaction or related, crafting seamless, engaging, and meaningful products and encounters between organisations and their customers. I believe that, to truly excel in these roles and create solutions that matter, an understanding of service design adds an essential additional layer or broader context that makes a designer more complete (or you could say: T-shaped). Let me explain to you how and why.

#1. Broadening your scope: from products to services

Many modern products are, in fact, services or have significant service components. Think about B2B cloud printing solutions, subscription-based product-service offerings, or ‘just’ electric cars becoming truly connected vehicles. Understanding service design enables designers to think beyond products, screens and interfaces, considering the entire ecosystem that supports a product, including people, processes, and physical spaces.

Service design is about orchestrating the front and the backstage, ensuring every component works harmoniously to meet the needs of the persons involved in these services, internally and externally. It broadens a designer’s perspective from isolated touchpoints to the end-to-end journey, enabling them to design not just for usability but for overall service efficiency and satisfaction.

• Recommended fundamental reading: ‘This Is Service Design Thinking: Basics, Tools, Cases’ by Marc Stickdorn and Jakob Schneider (2011). This book is foundational content that introduces service design principles and methods in an accessible and practical way.

#2. Using a holistic approach: from silos to collaboration

Often in -especially large- organisations, teams and departments work in silos, focusing on their specific areas of expertise. However, these service and product-service systems I mentioned do not exist in isolation—they span across departments, platforms, and interactions and are beyond the boundaries of the organisations. Service design promotes a holistic approach by encouraging understanding and collaboration across these silos, ensuring that several parts of the organisation work together to provide a valuable service for their customers (service users).

By understanding service design, you can become a facilitator of cross-functional collaboration. You can help bridge gaps between for instance marketing/CX, operations, customer support, and IT, ensuring that all teams contribute to and understand the overall service vision. This collaboration not only has a positive influence on the user experience but also aligns the entire organisation around customer-centric goals.

• Recommended fundamental reading: ‘Service Design: From Insight to Implementation’ by Andy Polaine, Lavrans L?vlie, and Ben Reason (2013). This book explores how service design can help bridge organisational silos and contribute to seamless experiences.

#3. Enhancing stakeholder involvement: from facilitation to co-design

Service design equips designers with tools and methodologies that go beyond traditional drawing, sketching and mapping. On top of, or perhaps to be able to work with, service blueprints, customer journey maps, and stakeholder analysis you will need to be able to engage stakeholders in the design process to ensure that the solutions created are truly aligned with their needs and expectations. Co-design fosters a sense of ownership and collaboration, making the final design more robust and user-centred.

Learning facilitation skills and the principles of co-design is crucial. These skills help in running workshops, gathering diverse perspectives, and building consensus among different stakeholders. By mastering these techniques, you can create more inclusive and effective designs that better address the complexities of real-world service systems.

• Recommended fundamental reading: ‘The Co-Design Canvas' by Wina Smeenk (2023). This book explores methodologies and practices for involving stakeholders in the design process, offering valuable insights into effective co-design and facilitation.

#4. Encoding services: from experience to value and impact

Services are not just good or bad, or the outcome of a well-designed service blueprint. Knowing a few tools won’t make you a service designer. The great thing about that is that as a service designer, you bridge many fields and knowledge areas. From understanding essential theory about for instance service dominant logic, strategic foresight and systems thinking to learning how to co-create value and encode services, offers you a unique perspective on service and helps you define the value and purpose behind services.?

Services should be designed with a clear understanding of the context they take place in and the strategic intent behind them, ensuring that every component of the service aligns with the overall goals and delivers value to both the ecosystems of the user and the business. For that, you will need to think beyond the blueprint and consider the broader impact of your work on the business and the customer, ultimately leading to more sustainable and impactful solutions.

• Recommended fundamental reading: ‘Thinking in Services: Encoding and Expressing Strategic Knowledge’ by Majid Iqbal (2018). This book explores the conceptual and strategic underpinnings of service design, offering a deep dive into how services can be designed with a clear value proposition and purpose.

#5. Influencing organisational strategy: from innovation to future direction

Service design offers a strategic lens that allows designers to move beyond execution and into the realm of strategic influence. By applying strategic design principles, designers can help their organisations identify new opportunities, innovate existing offerings, and anticipate future challenges. This shift from a tactical to a strategic role not only enhances the value of design within the organisation but also enables designers to support impactful business outcomes.

By being involved in strategic discussions and contributing to the long-term vision, you can ensure that the services designed are not only user-centred but also aligned with the organisation's goals and values. By mastering service design, you can contribute to shaping business strategies that are more rooted in understanding and addressing the needs from individuals, communities, society and planet.

• Recommended fundamental reading: ‘Strategic Design: Eight Essential Practices Every Strategic Designer Must Master’ by Giulia Calabretta, Gerda Gemser, and Ingo Karpen (2016). This book provides a comprehensive guide to integrating (service) design thinking into strategic decision-making processes, offering valuable insights for designers aiming to influence organisational strategy.

#6. Growing your career: from complexity to versatility

Last but not least, let's focus on the evolving design landscape, and with that the changing roles of designers. Mastering service design can significantly enhance a designer’s career prospects, making you more versatile and valuable to your organisation. It opens up opportunities to work on more complex and impactful projects, from redesigning entire service ecosystems to leading customer-centric transformation initiatives.

Moreover, knowledge of service design can position experienced designers for creative leadership roles, as it requires a deep understanding of business strategy, operations, and customer needs. This strategic insight is highly sought after by organisations looking to innovate and stay competitive in an increasingly service-driven economy.

• Recommended fundamental reading: Why not start with a book that helped me in my early career? ‘Change by Design: How Design Thinking Creates New Alternatives for Business and Society’ by Tim Brown (2009) explores how design thinking, including service design, can drive innovation and business success.

Of course, there are many more reasons and also more recent books to share with you. But I hope that sharing my thoughts and learnings with you, helps you to decide on studying service design. Have a look and search for what fits you well. From the Service Design College, I can recommend the 6-week foundational course ‘Service design fundamentals’ or the 10-week advanced course ‘Mastering service design’, or short-running training: the 4-week training ‘Co-design for societal impact’ and the 4-week training ‘Encoding service ecosystems’.?

Happy studying and perhaps see you on the online Campus!