Service Design: In Theory and In Practice
Hi fourth year Info Designers!
I hope that you were able to learn a bit about what it is like to work as a service designer during my presentation last week. As I mentioned, service design is quite a varied discipline. There is no one path to becoming a service designer and there is no one description of what a service designer does. The below resources can help to round out your understanding of service design and provide a jumping off point for you to learn more. I encourage you to explore service design further if you are at all interested, as my experience only represents one of many types of service design roles and projects.
Service design can seem like an intimidating undertaking from the outside, but it is not as difficult as it may seem. I feel that the info design program sets you up very well to do this type of work because similar to info design, the foundation of service design is research, synthesis, and communication. With a bit of extra reading, professional development, and on the job learning service design can be a natural progression from where you are now.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions or would like to chat further about service design!
email: gdick146@mtroyal.ca
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/gabrielledickson
MRU Info Design Slack group: Gabrielle Dickson
Thanks,
Gabrielle
Resources mentioned during the presentation:
Designing Services That Deliver by G. Lynn Shostack link
The first article to describe service design, published in the Harvard Business Review in 1984.
Companies to check out:
I encourage you to check out their case studies to learn more about what different kinds of service design projects can look like. Service design is becoming more popular as both an in-house service and a service provided by consultancies. I included consultancies because they make great case studies.
Snook link
British service design company, with a focus on service design in government. The founder (Sarah Drummond) is very cool.
Bridegable link
Canadian service design company based in Toronto.
OXD link
Canadian company specializing in public sector service and digital innovation.
IDEO link
Ideo does a lot of service design work.
General resources:
Service Design Network link
A global network of service designers with chapters all over the world.
‘Full-stack Service Design’ by Sarah Drummond link
A framework for service design created by the founder of Snook.
The Service Design Show link
YouTube talk show featuring interviews with many prominent service designers.
MoSCoW Prioritization Framework link
I use frameworks like this often to facilitate conversations and decision making with stakeholders.
Books about Service Design:
Good Services by Lou Downe link
An intro to the principles that make a service good.
This is Service Design Thinking and This is Service Design Doing link
A very popular textbook-like book put together by a group of practitioners.
An Introduction to Service Design: Designing the Invisible link
A university textbook on service design.
Books not directly about service design that I have found quite relevant to my work:
Creative Confidence by Tom and David Kelley
Scrum by Jeff Sutherland
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
Sprint by Jake Knapp
Playing to Win by Roger Martin
The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis
Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson
The Culture Map by Erin Meyer
Stolen Focus by Johann Hari