Reflecting on “This is Service Design Doing” in the DIO context
By: Hajar Amidian
With contributions from Gabriel Potter, Mark Elamatha, and Carita Chan.
As someone entering the world of service design, I have found that shifting from theory to practice can be easier said than done. I encountered a number of books on UX methods, but they didn’t provide instruction on what exactly to do! This is Service Design Doing offers a common language and hands-on explanations of how to actually do service design, with a balanced mix of theory, practice, and business cases. By walking readers through the implementation of concepts and the successful application of service design in an organization, the authors of this book facilitate this journey.
Since joining the Digital Innovation Office (DIO), I have taken an academic approach to learning about the DIO’s approach and coupled this with practical experience on some of the exemplar delivery teams. Here are reflections and highlights from my recent reading of This is Service Design Doing, with parallels to the work done on the Aboriginal Consultation Office (ACO) Digital Service.
1. Principles of service design
The first section of This is Service Design Doing lays out the foundations of service design — what it means and basic tools and activities involved. I particularly enjoyed where the authors discussed misconceptions that can surround service design. By considering the different views that exist regarding service design, this helps overcome the potential problem of conceptual stretching, or the distortion of the original concept in order to make it fit in other contexts.
Like all DIO exemplars, the ACO team grounds its work in user research, and kicked off by conducting extensive discovery. In this discovery phase, which began in spring 2019, we identified core users and, in our pre-COVID days, conducted open-ended, in-person and in-the-field interviews to gain insights into user needs. This research created a foundation of understanding and empathy of user experiences, which supports the team’s iterative ideation, prototyping, testing, and implementation of solutions.
2. Service design as methodology
The next section discusses the four core activities of the service design process — research, ideation, prototyping, and implementation — with descriptions of steps, tools, and methods for each and their role in the overall service design process. I especially appreciated the free online library of 54 method descriptions that is available to readers, along with the series of case studies that share how different methods were implemented with insights into successes and pain points experienced.
For the ACO, after the initial “burst” of discovery, we constructed user journeys, personas, and ecosystem maps as the first steps to synthesizing our research findings. For ideation, we conducted a number of co-design sessions with the product team and users, which resulted in a set of design prototypes. These prototypes were used for conducting further research and ideation with users, through extensive usability testing via in-person and virtual sessions.
After refining the design prototypes, we used these to construct “development” minimum viable products (MVPs), which were built in code using open-source code and tools, following a Scrum agile methodology. These development prototypes were surfaced to users, using live data on persistent UAT environments, to create a feedback loop. This is an iterative process that we continue to this day with users, with the Beta release of the ACO Digital Service.
3. Acknowledging and overcoming organizational hurdles
The final chapters of the book get into the nitty gritty of setting up a service design practice in an organisation. I believe the final chapter, which deals with the ongoing quagmire of cultural and organizational transformation, is a must read. This chapter provides great tips on how to encourage change in the way your teams works and embed service design in your organisation.
As part of a large organization, here at the DIO, we have been able to implement service design and continuously perform the above cycle on the ACO Digital Service and our other teams. We continue to identify users and work with them to design and deliver services that they will be using. This has allowed us to build relationships with users and bring them along on the shared journey in creating a new and improved service for First Nations and Métis, industry, and the government.
I know that This is Service Design Doing is likely not a one-time read for me, and I will be keeping it handy as I continue on my design journey.
