Shaping Tomorrow: Episode 3

The Service Designer Spotlight Series: Chris Tighe-Ford

October 2023

Few disciplines rival the transformative influence of Service Design, a proven catalyst for change that is increasingly growing its influence in shaping the trajectory of our future.

In our Service Designer Spotlight feature, we highlight the exceptional talents who are driving the Service Design field forward.

Join us as we delve into the creative journey, insights, and inspirations of this remarkable Service Designer, providing a glimpse into the artistry and meticulous thought that go into crafting seamless and transformative experiences.

Chris Tighe-Ford

UX Director, London, UK
Experience: Boston Consulting Group (BCG), American Express, Cisco Systems…
Education: Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK

Greg Lakloufi: Chris, designing services involves considering the entire customer journey. How do you approach mapping out this journey, and how do you identify points of friction or areas for improvement??

Chris Tighe-Ford: My instinct is to start with the actors — who will use the service and to what outcomes, and to increase the granularity of their journeys as my knowledge increases. Starting with a very high-level / low granularity map is also a great way of engaging my stakeholders — people tend to feel more comfortable doodling over the top of something rough-and-ready, which means I get more feedback, often delivered with more candour.

Research obviously plays a key role in understanding the experience as-is and helping the team to understand the perceptions people have of the service with which they engage and to better understand the points of friction and areas for improvement and opportunity. But I’m wary of taking — in these early days of a project — these feedback points to literally: I’m rooted firmly in the “If users knew what their problems were, they would have made their own solution” camp.

So I rely as much on deep, structured collaboration across organisations — making a point of engage with the different Functions that support the services, the different disciplines who will engage in the final service definition and the leadership who will — ultimately — measure the value to the business of the work we do. Not all problems are user problems.

Prioritisation is always more art than science, and some days I’m tempted to fall back on “whatever is quickest, easiest and cheapest”. I’m not particularly loyal to any method and DFV is often just as useful as a collaborative stack rank. As a former colleague of mine once said, all these tools are just ways of keeping the conversation going.

GL: Measurement and evaluation are essential to gauge the success of service design initiatives. How do you define key performance indicators (KPIs) for your projects, and how do you ensure that your designs are delivering value?

CTF: So measurement is one of my current obsessions (how can we as a discipline expect to get that fabled ‘seat at the table’ if we can’t credibly evidence the strategic value that we create?)

One tool I’ve been using more and more in a recent months is a measurement framework I created — catchily named the 6 Domains model. This framework defines the different ‘domains’ in which we operate, design and create impact. Currently (and I really need to stop fiddling with these), the 6 Domains are:

• Touchpoints
• Performance
• Process
• Policy
• Structure
• Culture

Whenever we create research-driven insights, or identify points of friction or opportunity, we can assign these to the correct Domain and — once we understand the root Domain of these pain points or friction, we can better understand where our solutions space will lie.

So we might find that whilst Pain Point X is manifested in Domain: Touchpoint, it is rooted in Domain: Policy (the decisions made by the organisation outside the direct experience of our users).

Now this is useful in itself (knowing where you problems are rooted is a Good Thing) but there’s a finesse on top — each Domain has it’s own KPIs and OKRs and, importantly, all of these KPIs and OKRs are aligned to the organisations strategic ambition. Which means that our measures of success for problem mitigation or opportunity capture are by design aligned with the measures of success that the business uses to measure it’s own ambitions.

It’s all very cute but I’m finding it a really helpful way of both encouraging designers and researchers to focus on where problems and opportunities are rooted (rather than where they manifest) and as a kind of babel fish between what we do as service designers and what the business needs us to evidence to them

GL: Effective storytelling can enhance the impact of a service design. How do you craft narratives around your designs to communicate their value to stakeholders and end-users?

CTF: And that’s my other hobby horse :D

I suspect most designers who been in the industry for some time understand that a smart idea on its own isn’t enough; that ideas only really have value when they’re enacted — when they’re born.

And getting ideas enacted is hard (my experience generally is the better the idea, the harder it will be to sell it). The best route to getting buy-in for your ideas is — by some margin — story telling.

Now this can all get a little happy-clappy but I think you can codify all the bits that you need to get right to tell a meaningful, resonant and persuasive story:

1. Most importantly, know your audience: Understand what they know, what they value and what kind of stories they respond to. Equally importantly, understand the objections that people are likely to raise, and hit them head on in your narrative.

2. Define the problem you’re addressing unambiguously; clarity and simplicity are the key measures here

3. Sell the sizzle not the steak: We’re designers, and its easy to fall in love with our babies. But sell the outcomes of your genius design, not the design itself. What will you achieve? What value will you create? What will you protect?

4. And finally — Create a compelling narrative: Even in a data-lead pitch, keep your story human. Have a clear beginning, middle and end and be sure that the story builds towards the conclusion you want people to arrive at.

The best designers I’ve worked with have all had one thing in common — they recognise the power of stories as a mechanism for change. Get your story right and people will believe in your ideas.

GL: Designing services involves considering the entire customer journey. How do you approach mapping out this journey, and how do you identify points of friction or areas for improvement?

CTF: First and foremost, it is crucial to define the purpose: for what reason, whose journey you aim to enhance, and how you intend to improve it. If the business issues driving the improvement of the journey are clear, prioritizing points of friction and areas for improvement becomes less challenging. In Japan, the emphasis still lies on qualitative research and understanding the customer journey, but there is a need to shift towards quantitative verification and improvement of the customer experience. This transition is essential for business professionals to comprehend the necessity for future enhancements in the customer journey. To achieve this, we heavily rely on SDN’s “Touchpoint” feature articles and other resources.

GL: Looking ahead, how do you envision the evolution of service design as a field, and how do you plan to continue growing and pushing the boundaries of your own practice?

CTF: I suspect Service Design will become ‘design’ more generally. As someone once said “Whether we like it or not, everything is a service now”. I think larger organisations are beginning to understand the value of thinking in terms of service, rather than platform experience — they use different words (I hear folk talk of end to end journeys for example) but the outcomes are the same: Understand the overall experience across all touchpoints.

But beyond that inevitable maturing of the discipline, there are some areas that I hope we’ll see grow in importance:

1. I think we’ll see a greater focus on design ethics and responsible innovation. If everything is a service then that’s a huge amount of influence to wield (and potential harm to cause). I think it’s was too easy to ignore moral and ethical considerations when we designed platforms (the moral and ethical questions were rooted in other Domains :D ) but as SD grows, I think it’s going to become harder and harder for us to deny that we’re making moral and ethical decisions pretty much all the time. This will be a Good Thing (altho’ it will cause a lot of us some sleepless nights)

2. I mean, it goes without saying, but AI is going to disrupt SD (and design generally) in ways that are clear today and in ways that will only be apparent when the dust (and bodies) settle. I think we’re still viewing AI as a tool to do what we do better, faster and at larger scale and I suspect that that will prove to be a myopic view of the world. Vive la revolution, as you might say Greg…

3. We’re going to see Service Design at Scale. I work in a truly global business, and the services we offer operate at that global scale. We’re already in a world where we need to consider multiple, different cultural, regulatory, and market contexts and that complexity is only going to increase as time goes by. What is the role of service consistency in a fundamentally inconsistent world? I think we’re about to find out.

4. We’re going to continue to waste our breath arguing about what we call ourselves, and whether Framework X is better than Methodology Y and how can we get that seat at the table*, and it will continue to tire and demotivate me.

5. But I think we’re going to see a change in the way design is positioned in organisations. Service Design (and business and strategic design) is better positioned to genuinely influence business behaviour than UX ever was (or ever could be) and — if we get our act together, stop wasting our breath and focus on generating value rather than demanding our seat at the table — I think the future is bright.

*Answers: “Designers”, I don’t care and by credibly evidencing the value we create in terms that mean something to our employers.

In wrapping up this enlightening Service Designer Spotlight interview, it’s abundantly clear that the art of crafting exceptional user experiences is a fusion of creativity, empathy, and strategic thinking. The insights shared by Chris underscore the pivotal role of understanding user needs, mapping intricate journeys, and innovative problem-solving. The journey of a Service Designer is one of continuous exploration and growth, an odyssey where curiosity and collaboration pave the way for a more user-centric and harmonious world.