What is service design? From a developer’s perspective
Before I joined Caution Your Blast as a developer in February, the term “service design” was something I’d heard of but never really understood.
I’d worked at a small start-up that had the typical “move fast and break things” mantra, so we didn’t spend much time on discovery. I’ve also worked at a large company where major project goals were decided by the big wigs — those requirements were trickled down to the developers, who weren’t involved in the early user research. So it’s a refreshing change to be at an organisation where everyone can be involved in the process from start to finish.
This, however, meant I quickly needed to get a good understanding of what service design is and how it could help me better understand a new system we plan to develop for digitally legalising documents.
What is a service?
When you order food at a restaurant, you’re being provided with a service. It’s the same when you buy something from Amazon. But the definition goes further. The white paper Anatomy of a Service defines a service as:
“…a means of delivering value to customers by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve.”
This means you can be provided a service without goods exchanging hands. When you check-in for your upcoming flight, when are looking for something new to watch on any streaming app, or when you need to find a piece of information on a government website.
What is service design?
Usually, a service designer works with the intent of making a new or already existing service better. This is done in three different ways.
1. Focusing on the user
Putting the user and their needs first to deliver a better, more valuable service. To achieve this a service designer needs to get to know the user, understand their needs and behaviours.
At this stage, a service designer, (and/or user researcher), would take any user research conducted and create a shared understanding of the target user(s) through personas, mindsets or whatever technique they feel is best. With this, everyone on the team will understand the user as well as the service designer which will result in a better product being built.
2. Understanding the process
Next, a service designer gets an understanding of everything that goes into the current service. Understanding the service from the viewpoint of the user and if necessary, adjust or make new company goals that put the user first.
A service designer would create a visual representation of the customer’s journey of the existing process (if there is one), understand how it’s currently being used, and think of ways it could be improved. They would holistically think about all the processes and people involved in the service and see how all the interactions can be improved. For example for the government service I’m currently working on, not only were the customers of the service considered in the design system process but also all the government staff behind the scenes who are involved in processing the application, other countries who have implemented this system, improvements to the flow and content used on the existing service.
3. Suggesting improvements
Depending on how many changes need to be made to the service, it makes sense to narrow them down to the changes that will most benefit the user. As an example, in the government project mentioned, to prevent users from being told the documents they submitted are invalid after they’ve paid, we have planned out a system whereby documents are scanned automatically on upload and the user is told they are invalid before moving on.
After understanding who the user is and what the current process is, low or high fidelity prototypes are created of an improved service that is tested with users to see if it provides more value. The organisation is also given a chance to comment on the prototype but ultimately the user’s needs come first.
Once refined and agreed upon, the prototype can be built. This doesn’t mark the end of the user feedback after the service goes live. It’s easy to build a product that strays from the original goals if it’s not being reviewed regularly, which is what the service designer will do.
If all the stages are done correctly, the users will be happy, the organisation will be happy and the service designer would have done their job well.
Wrapping it all up
I’d be lying if I said working with a service designer as a developer is smooth sailing. Building a prototype for user testing, then continually iterating over the prototype post user findings is super annoying sometimes, but in all honesty, it does visibly make the product much better for the user.
I’ve really appreciated being invited to user research sessions and seeing users interact with prototypes. Expecting them to do one thing but do another, making it glaringly obvious what parts of the service need to be improved.
Anyways, I hope this article gives developers who didn’t know anything whatsoever about service design, some insight into what it is and into how it can improve their product.
