Midterm Reflection
Service Design comes in many different forms and different content. Service design can be described as a journey taken by a group of people in order to create a better journey that is suitable for all parts of the party. In a more formal definition “Service design is the activity of planning and organizing a business’s resources in order to directly improve the employee’s experience, and indirectly, the customer’s experience.” — Neilsen Norman Group. A service is a connection that is intangible and instantaneous which can be seen in almost all parts of our society. Since society grows more people, products, and experiences, Service design is needed in order to reduce the sophistication that can grow from communication, short or long-term experience, and exchanges. If I were to explain this to a friend or family member I would simply say that it’s a project in which I would get inside someone else’s shoes and find an easier way to tie their shoelaces (if that even made sense).
During the past 7 weeks of class, the key point I learned was that service design takes time. Professor Chao displayed multiple service design journey’s in which she encountered that took a lot of time especially communicating with multiple people in order to fully understand a companies service system and find the pros and cons of each individual experience. One of our first assignments was journey mapping at one of our favorite restaurants. Going out in the field and actually looking for specific touchpoints that most of the time I would pass over was a great experience since it made me realize why I enjoyed that specific restaurant so much. Next, we had the opportunity to actively create a stakeholders map and identify key stakeholders. Since this exercise was conducted in a group, We were able to find stakeholders that we would not have noticed individually.
Furthermore, the most important design method we encounter was the blueprint. The blueprint displayed exactly the why and how process of service design. Finally, our service analysis on the Company “Bumble” was a great opportunity in which we applied all three methods of service designing. This analysis project brought our vast amounts of internal and external factors that we normally take for granted when we normally use dating apps services.
I currently have experience in creating a start-up company. Our company was developing an online wedding platform for soon-to-be brides. One of the key issues I faced during the process of developing my company was communication. Both of my partners were not very familiar with using app services so it was very hard to explain the process and workflow of our platform. One application that I should have used or should use is blueprints.
Specific blueprints that describe the detail of our service would make it easier for my partners and investors to understand clearly what our company is trying to create. Now I see that service design is needed in any stage of a product or a service
