An approach to system visualization for service design

Co-written with Serena Talento

On the occasion of ISVIS 2023, the Israeli Visualisation Conference, we shared some reflections on how we use visual sense making in service design and how it can be a thoughtful ally to navigate complex design challenges. What are the key takeaways?

What does it mean to design a new service nowadays?

When designing an integrated product-system, we need to adopt a holistic view on the whole ecosystem of users, stakeholders, physical spaces, digital products, back-end systems, processes that interact with it. We are not just designing isolated artefacts but also shaping the surrounding context.

When approaching this level of complexity, interacting with other users and stakeholders becomes essential not only to understand the current state of the system, but also to design and implement the service itself.

In this article we want to explore how information design methods and data visualization can contribute to structure co-design processes, from research to handover.

What are system maps and how we use them

System maps are a service design tool that become handy to highlight all the relationships and interactions between different entities in the systems and their ways of exchanging value. System maps are not templates, but are structured upon some key elements: stakeholders, touchpoints, connection and processes that can be rearranged and clustered in different ways, according to the goal and context in which the map is used.

It is essential to keep in mind that system maps, like any other visualization, will only be a partial representation of the phenomenon described, translated into an abstraction of reality. Pretending to include and visualize all the elements in a system and their related interactions would generate a map too complex to be understood and not actionable for the design process.

“System analysts often fall into…the trap: making boundaries too large. They have a habit of producing diagrams that cover several pages with small print and many arrows connecting everything with everything… This “my model is bigger than your model” game results in enormously complicated analyses, which produce piles of information that may only serve to obscure the answers to the questions at hand”

D. Meadows

In this sense, it becomes fundamental to define a clear point of view and adjust the visualization’s granularity accordingly. Here we try to list some use cases to support different goals for system mapping.

Mapping through the design process, from exploration to execution

Mapping system structures

After a preliminary research phase, it’s often necessary to give an overview of how the system works and what pain points and opportunities are connected to it.

In this case system maps are essential to show how the services work and highlight not only visible flows and connections (what the user perceives and can experience) but also the relations in the back-end.

Most of the time these maps are shared with stakeholders and used to bring up pain points and gaps in the experience, align visions and guide ideation processes.

Understanding cause-effect correlations

During the research phase system maps can be also used as a synthesis tool, building on all the research insights and highlighting what are the main correlations within a system. What happens when we change a process upstream in a supply chain? How is data collection impacted? How is the funding system connected with the distribution system?

System maps are not always the outcomes of such a linear process. As in this case, they can be the synthesis of a long research project and of multiple maps with different lenses. Here is the interpretation we give as designers that becomes central.

Evaluating impacts at different scales

When it comes to start thinking about a new service strategy, we need to map how it should work as well as considering and evaluating possible impacts on the context. In this kind of maps, stakeholders and touchpoints shift from being the key represented elements to backbone structure, collecting all the actual and potential impacts of products and services in different areas (like environmental, economic, governance and social).

Impact system maps can’t be a standalone deliverable, but need to be accompanied by other maps and research outcomes that help to understand how the system itself is structured and evolves throughout time.

Projecting behavioural changes

When moving onto the definition of a strategy, it often becomes necessary to show which users’ behavioral changes need to be taken into account to envision and develop a new service.

As an example we can show and design how people in a learning community can shift from a state to another, building their journey from being a prospect student to a community mentor.

This type of system maps can be used as a strategy index for all the stakeholder developing the final service touchpoints and future implementations.

Comparing future scenarios

Finally, maps can be used to show and compare alternative scenarios of how the service can be implemented. For example, starting from the assessment of the main criticalities of a refugees assistance network, this model shows how an NGO could play different roles to make a bigger impact. This kind of map is useful not only to align all the stakeholders, but also work as prompts for a ideation and brainstorming session.

Visualization as a practice, a tool to manage complexity rather than a deliverable itself

The previous examples demonstrated how, in the design process, visualization isn’t necessarily the final delivery, but a tool to guide the assessment and design of new services.. This perspective shift affects the visualization (as deliverable) in multiple ways: from how we collect data, we visualize information and interact with the map.

The service design research methodologies affect the way we collect data, including by default qualitative data . Examples of how we collect data might range from semi-structured interviews, observations on field and digital ethnography methods and many others.

In regards to the visual dimension, the value created is not just represented by the graphic quality of the final map, but mostly on the method we adopt throughout the process. System maps could be a useful method to immerse ourselves in a project, gain a basic understanding of the services or even explore possible future scenarios. Even if some maps are not a final deliverable, but could be a key step to involve users in the research and align stakeholders.

When it comes to the interactive dimension, maps can be surfed, used and accessed in different ways and not exclusively as a storytelling tool. Maps can be used to align stakeholders, accelerate the decision making process, involve users in the research phase or to synthesize findings and build the final research report.

“A map is a Polaroid. It stands for a precise moment in time for your organization or client. Depending on how quickly things change, it might stay relevant for a day or six months. Therefore maps are never done, they are just a tool to get somewhere.”

A. Canella

In conclusion, a map is just a map. A moment in time, a picture of a service in an exact moment and we need to be aware of the limit of this representation. We cannot pretend to represent a system exhaustively but we can use a lot of different lenses and perspectives to analyze it and understand it.