The importance of good Service Design
And why it matters so much
Apologies for the delays to this weeks weeknotes, it’s been a funny old month or so for me, and the majority of this has been outside work rather than inside, but sometimes the two overlap.
One of the founding principles of our work over the last couple of years has been that of user centred design, looking closely at user needs and how we can apply these principles in order to fulfil them.
A couple of weeks ago I had a perfect example of why good service design works, and it hit hard. Shortly before Xmas a close member of my family found a lump in her breast that lead to a number of GP and hospital appointments. As you can imagine the process of diagnosing a lump as benign or malignant takes a few visits for tests, biopsies and discussions with consultants etc.
This is a difficult time for all concerned, it’s stressful and what you really need in these circumstances is empathy, understanding and above all certainty from a trusted source and I’m of an age where a trusted source is usually someone like a doctor.
So imagine the scene, she has now had the biopsy and we were waiting in the car park, a week on from the original hospital appointment. The big news today is whether the lump is malignant or benign with the implications that this will bring.
So imagine her surprise when she receives a text message from the NHS booking her in at the radiology clinic the following week, effectively confirming the diagnosis that her lump was malignant. As you can imagine this created a number of emotions, concern and a lot of anger at being informed by text in the car park prior to her appointment with the consultant that her lump was malignant.
In fact the message was to actually book a follow up MRI appointment, the next stage when the prognosis is not so good, but to receive this prior to the doctors appointment was just wrong. It created stress and anger when all she really wanted was reassurance and support.
And this comes down to poor service design, where actions and interactions just don’t happen in the right order or at the right time. The services we have been designing over the last couple of years haven’t been that critical, although they can certainly touch people in difficult and stressful times, but it’s important that the same level of care is taken with these as ones where the outcomes might be the difference between life or death.
