Service Design in a Time of War

On 10/20/22, the Service Design Network’s NYC chapter invited Oleg Koss to talk about the resilience and creativity of the Ukrainian people in the face of violence and war. Oleg chose to share a collection of optimistic stories on how service design can be used to create functional necessities for extreme conditions.

Oleg is a strategic service designer based in Ukraine. He is a co-founder of the Ukrainian chapter of the Service Design Network. Overall, he has contributed greatly to the popularity of service design in the region. In 2016 he founded Lanka.cx, the first service design agency based in Ukraine. The approach of Lanka.cx lies in human-centric design, helping Ukrainian and International companies earn healthy profits. In 2021, Oleg had projects in Bulgaria, France, Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and Ukraine. Since the onset of Russian aggression on Ukraine began in 2022, Oleg has been helping Ukrainian service designers find work, businesses earn profit, and refugees adapt abroad. Oleg brings with him skills and experience in product management, marketing, design, and e-commerce. He holds an MBA from the IE Business School.

What does Service Design look like in Ukraine?

Oleg opened the talk by pointing out the unconventional backgrounds that service designers hailed from in Ukraine. Business influence is front and center, with most Ukrainian service designers consisting of young professionals from the finance industry. The field is regarded as experimental, which is different from the conventions of product/UX designers dominating the field in the west. Most practitioners came to service design after having received instruction and experience in completely different subject matter. Lanka.cx specifically draws from a cohort of people with business and design backgrounds and works with commonplace Ukrainian brands.

Question for the Audience: “What do you know about Ukraine?”

Initially, the answers primarily concerned cultural exports.“The food is amazing!” “Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe.”

Once the initial replies were counted for, viewers then shifted to the topic of war. “Ukrainians are a brave and resilient people.”

Some viewers asked questions, inquiring more into the extreme fiscal nature of the country. “What role can service design play in social upheaval?” “How did Ukraine become a tech hub?”

Oleg assured everyone that these questions will be addressed during the talk.

Putting the Economy in Perspective

Oleg brought up a graph detailing the U.S.’s GDP over the years. While big drops in activity existed at times of unrest, such as the 2008 financial crisis and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans have, by and large, experienced steady dependable growth. COVID-19 was responsible for by far the biggest immediate drop in recent history. The graph itself resembled a right triangle.

This graph was followed by one that trackedUkraine’s GDP in a similar fashion. If the American graph resembled a right triangle, the Ukrainian graph was more akin to a high frequency sine wave. Every 5 years, a crisis dropped the economy to rock bottom. Ironically, COVID-19 resulted in the smallest effect compared to events like the fall of the USSR, the Orange Revolution, and the Russian invasion of Crimea. The general sentiment around COVID-19 was a strange sense of thankfulness, as it gave the opportunity to Ukrainians to build an infrastructure that would ensure businesses and education can continue in times of social unrest.

Ukraine is Country of Extremes

Oleg highlighted the extreme positive and negative aspects of Ukraine’s economy to give the audience a greater sense of the unique conditions that have aided and hindered Ukraine’s rise. Ukraine enjoys a booming tech industry and is set for the near future with high education involvement within STEM. The digital infrastructure is mature, with a robust e-commerce network and a functional democracy.

On the other hand, Ukraine remains the poorest country in Europe and still deals with corruption issues despite the trend towards true democracy. For the people themselves, these extremes are just a backdrop for a normal life. Here, creative design thrives for the user case of a person who lives at these extremes. The past 8 months have only made these extremes more apparent in life, and in the case of design.

User needs are constantly evolving, emotions do matter in design, and human centered design is actually very difficult. These are the 3 truths that Oleg shared as we transitioned into analyzing design cases.

Business Case 1: OLX

The first case of a business’ service design efforts aiding Ukrainians during the war that Oleg showed was with OLX. OLX is a service like Craigslist and eBay in the U.S. with a much wider range of segments. The website offers a platform used by 1 in 3 Ukrainians to find and offer automobiles, real estate, labor, goods, and other services.

During the war, large cohorts of Ukrainians were displaced from their homes in the eastern territories. Most fled for the safer western regions, abandoning their homes and possessions. The OLX real estate database was leveraged by the company to contact property owners, finding opportunities for refugees to reside in short term housing. The service evolved from one meant for users to find and invest in a home, to an experience in the vein of a longer-term Airbnb. This was possible by distilling the real estate function to a much more limited scope based on the user’s (in this case a refugee’s) unique needs, prioritizing function and efficiency.

Business Case 2: EVA

The second business effort Oleg walked through is a common pharmacy chain called EVA. The extreme conditions of the war made it difficult for the general population to acquire necessities. Curfews limited the hours of the day one could be outside, and even outdoor movement during the daytime was limited. Fortunately, many Ukrainians volunteered to purchase goods and necessities for those who lacked the physical ability to leave their homes during this period. However, scarce supply and small shopping windows made this effort a gamble, as it was impossible to predict a store’s stock or whether it would even be open.

EVA addressed this need by rapidly prototyping a service to address this need. Customers would assemble their shopping list and submit it to an online portal on the EVA website. EVA workers would assemble the order and have it ready for immediate pick-up. While this service is standard in the west, the rollout was anything but. The portal was rolled out in the form of a same day prototype and was used to deliver necessities directly to refugees in the Kyiv subway system. EVA’s in-house service design team, pool of resources, and preparation from a post Crimean invasion world enabled them to launch smoothly.

Goods were initially provided for free, but this could not last. This point posed another question. How do you stop providing a service for free? EVA initially provided this service as a benefit to the customer. The impetus for this was not for monetization, but to assist Ukrainians in times of need. Communication and honesty regarding the costs to maintain the service was frank, and EVA started charging again for a discounted volunteer rate. By framing the payment as a contribution for the future maintenance rather than a profit gathering scheme, EVA retained their user base while still providing value.

What about the competition?

With so many companies launching similar services, wouldn’t there be competition due to a more limited market share? Oleg addressed this with his experience that competition in this type of environment ultimately dissipates. With a common goal that goes further than profits, similar services do not compete. Instead, they exist for redundancy and to collectively reach the largest number of people for a common goal. For example, one of the lead car manufacturers in Ukraine had their stock of parts destroyed by a Russian attack. Instead of capitalizing on the conditions to increase market share, other car manufacturing companies shared stock for the collective good.

Business Case 3: Mobile Networks

The accepted business models of getting a phone and a wireless carrier plan are stressful at best and predatory at worst. Hidden fees, long applications, contract agreements, and many more aspects are just not feasible to deal with when considering a user experiencing instability caused by war. Potential customers have impossibly different circumstances. The user journey of a mobile phone customer changed entirely during the war.

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What it took was a nonstandard approach that started with a small aspect like offering free SIM cards. This path matured into a non-profit driven method of distributing phones. The method prioritized the needs of a user in wartime, focusing on flexibility, location access, and reception. The same conditions for the customer in peacetime could not be applied during war time. Users are now relying on a limited allowance, have an uncertain future, and experience language barriers during this period of constant travel. The outcome was a service that used flexible distribution channels, a tailored onboarding process, and an unusual set of offers using non-technical and user-friendly language.

Business Case 4: Checkpoint Timetables

A common theme with these case studies so far was that in times of extreme conditions, function outranks aesthetics in importance. Oleg brought up the case of a live chart hosted in Google Sheets allowing refugees to access border checkpoint waiting times in real time. The sheet displayed the average time it would take to get through various border crossings. Without the sheet, families could potentially end up trapped at a checkpoint for days on end. Each row on the sheet corresponded to a border crossing, which also had a Messenger group linked.

The person that put this tool together was not an engineer and did not have a huge team behind him. Rather, it was one IT specialist with knowledge of macros and Google Sheets. While the service was ugly and inefficient, it worked in getting information to the users. Oleg pointed out that many aspects of a product that we label as necessary in peacetime can be let go of in extreme times. A necessary service like this need only be dependable, which was ensured using a tool backed by Google’s servers.

Business Case 5: EVA Click and Collect

A similar example of a service in wartime being stripped down to basics brought us back to EVA, where we learned about one of their earlier failed products being repurposed for the wartime conditions. EVA released a click-and-collect service in the prior months that allowed customers to assemble a cart of items online and have it ready at the store for pickup. This service was discontinued for several reasons, from customers failing to pick up merchandise to stores not having items in stock. EVA took the concept from this service and repurposed it once the war broke out. Eventually, this service took the form of the app discussed earlier. However, this service initially used a Google Sheet to distribute information regarding store stocks.

Business Case 6: Migrating Workers Between Factories in Ukraine

Until now, most services have been described from the lens of offering support to customers. However, businesses also exist to serve their employees, so what happens when a business suddenly has an impossibly large employee network to consider in wartime with resources built for peacetime? One of the largest energy companies in Ukraine had to figure this out. An entirely new operations support center was repurposed to solve relocation issues for the entire company. Volunteers were sourced from all areas of the company for this new mission. Almost instantaneously the company was able to offer mental health services, hosting, migration assistance, and re-employment assistance.

Business Market Segmentation

After the business cases were covered, Oleg brought our focus back to the emerging market sections within Ukraine. Businesses are now dealing with 3 different populations in Ukraine. While some citizens are far enough from the violence to experience life like peacetime, others are either in an active war zone or in fully occupied territory. How does one design services for these impacted groups, and how do you conduct user research?

Oleg pointed out that the answer was primarily in the tone of communication. Surveying users in situations like these requires a shift in dialogue from what may be perceived as normal in peacetime. For example, a question like “How likely are you to recommend our product?” would be changed to “How are you? How can we do better?”

Responses to these survey questions showed a clear difference between the split Ukrainian market. People living in areas most affected by war were more focused on whether a service existed or not, rather than issues of niceties or requests for more. Curiously, responses shifted back to peacetime expectations quickly when areas stabilized.

Emotions

Continuing with the focus on Ukrainians themselves, Oleg showed us the considerations that had to be made with customer’s emotions. This is an issue that is always present but is even more pressing in times where businesses would have to say no or deliver hard truths to customers. Sacrifice is always necessary in war, and that means letting go of luxuries. Communicating these truths requires a shift in language and intent. While delivering negative news, apologize and propose alternatives solutions,use simple messages and demonstrate empathy when interacting with customers. It’s important to consider the current situation, but also pay close attention to any customer feedback.

For example, music in most grocery stores ceased during the initial attacks. Managers read the situation and silenced the music, so shoppers could hear air raid sirens. However, over time music was requested as it made shopping less depressing. Certain caveats were added at customer requests: music would have to be set at a lower volume, and no Russian songs would be played.

In times of distress, these issues must be framed with a human-centric approach. The truth must be centered around what is best for Ukrainians, and not from the perspective of someone living in a peaceful nation. Oleg made it clear that the only way to put a stop to these issues that Ukrainians face is by Russia losing this war. Peaceful resolution is not an option that considers the truths that Ukrainians must face. In addition, interventions by other governments are helping and there is a clear force for good in this conflict.

What can we learn for Peacetime?

I want to close this piece by providing a simple list of Oleg’s main statements from this talk:

• Service is about helping people
• Focus brings resources
• Needs are different and evolving
• Emotions matter
• It is hard to be human-centric

While these don’t necessarily translate into measurable KPIs or direct revenue, they do consider the most important mark of service design efforts. They impact the customer’s well-being in times of stress. Even if there isn’t an active war going on, the world is scary and stressful. It is important to remember these teachings of empathy in peacetime.