Service design draws from a wide range of other disciplines in order to improve interactions with users. There's always room for improvement and, thus, potential for gaining a competitive edge.
On the surface of things it is simple enough at this point: Service designers design services. But two decades ago the practice had not yet been conceptualised and thus there were no service designers.
Even though there were lots of people designing services the term hadn’t gained recognition. 10 years ago it was still a brand new idea. It’s true; service design is only a novelty in the sense that service design has become a conscious activity thus leading to the emerging professionalization which we are witnessing today. But this professionalisation is taking service design to new levels, dramatically improving the quality of services and creating amazing value for the companies and organisations that understand its importance.
Service design is still an emerging design practice with an interdisciplinary heritage, and in order for service design projects to become successful you need to build on skills from several disciplines.
“As service design becomes more established as a practice, we can deduct how it draws on insights and inspirations from other disciplines, such as interaction design, user research, product design and architectural and graphic design. For each of them there are, on one hand, the knowledge and practice that professionals develop, and on the other, the set of skills that help create the various deliverables.” says Ione Ardaiz Osacar, Service Designer at Designit Madrid.
Nobody owns it
When users interact with organisations – across the rapidly increasing number of communication channels and platforms – they take part in a constantly evolving, complex social system. The relationships between individuals, communities and organisations are dynamic and influenced by an even wider social context. That understanding, which comes from interaction design, is one key element when designing successful services.
“From interaction design we learn the importance of mapping connections and intercommunications for the service. Both between the user and the artifacts in the service (known as touch points), and between the various stakeholders involved in the service in the form of an actors’ map.”
According to Ione Ardaiz Osacar, it’s a significant advantage for the service design discipline that it is still in the process of becoming properly defined.
“The field is characterised by a very inspiring openness, it’s like nobody owns it. There’s nobody around to say that there are things you can’t do because it’s not in accordance with the orthodoxy. That is very valuable as the world we design services for is rapidly changing and developing and calls for new answers all the time. The inspiration for the right solution can come from unexpected corners of our understanding, unhindered by an established practice.” She says.
Always new tools
This is not to say that there is anything amateurish about how service design processes are approached. On the contrary, each contributing discipline must be on its best form and each is rapidly developing individually. There are always new tools to dig out of the toolbox and test in the real world. New looks and new conceptualisations from graphic designers and new methods and insights from the rapidly developing area of product design. And, not least, constantly new ways to improve the co-creation processes with users and clients.
“There’s so much inspiring work and so many inspiring insights to draw upon. Service design is growing and maturing into a powerful force for organisations looking for ways to distinguish themselves from the competition,” says Ione Ardaiz Osacar, who follows the developments within countries like Germany, Italy, Austria and the UK, where the discipline first began to become conceptualised.
Extend the reach
A common way to look at service design is to focus on utility, as in what the service does or offers, usability, as in how easy it is to interact with the service and pleasureability, as in how much pleasure the user derives from interacting with the service. Service design processes will often have as their starting point an analysis of the existing service with at least those three elements present. And there is always room for improvement.
“Traditionally there’s a strong focus on the quality of the physical product but less attention is dedicated to the services surrounding that product. But these services are growing strongly today, for reasons such as the emergence of new platforms for providing those very services. Services are in themselves powerful means of extending the reach of the physical product. Consultancies with the necessary – quite broad – set of skills and with the necessary openness to inspiration can bring tremendous value to clients because of the power of services.” says Ione Ardaiz Osacar.