The start of something?— Design Manchester’s Service Design Jam Days
For a handful of years, I’ve been doing service design without really thinking about it. I moved from trad UI visual design to service design when I moved to Manchester and started contracting — being a contracting designer you have to turn your hand to most things and before long I was researching, mapping and prototyping with the best of them. So I was somewhat surprised that there wasn’t much of a community in Manchester, because — you know — this is where this is where I learned the thing!
Service Design is ‘what we do’ in Co-op Digital: start with a need then research, prototype, iterate — if you’re reading this then you pretty much know the gist. Spearheaded by the wonderful and tireless champion of Service Design, Kathryn Grace, a team of us from Co-op went about setting up a new event, inspired by the Global Service Design Jam — Service Design Jam Days, as part of the annual festival Design Manchester.
Back up, what’s service design?
Sorry, yes, good point, let me explain. It took me a few years to truly understand what it was and sometimes the best explanation comes in actually doing it. But anyway, here’s a quick elevator pitch:
Service design is the research, design, build, and iteration of an end to end service from a human-centric perspective.
Well, that’s my interpretation anyway 😊
Rather than focus on the product or the thing you are selling or getting customers/users to use, a service designer’s focus is resolute from the first moment a person experiences their brand/service to the last.
Cool, so what’s a Service Design Jam?
No preserves here, unfortunately for me (I ❤️ marmalade). I’m sure you’re aware of the term ‘jamming’ in terms of musicians getting together to improvise with their respective instruments? It’s pretty much that, but replace musicians with a bunch of research, design, and service geeks, and replace the music with the productive hum of co-operation!
“…participants come together without a team, without an idea and are given a subject or theme to incorporate in their new-to-the-world design while meeting new people.” — Global Service Jam
Usually, the (Global) Service Jam is two solid days of research, ideas, research, prototype, research, testing, and presentations. But, because this was part of the Design Manchester Festival, we had a day of learning the tools and techniques first: blueprinting, ideation, inspiration, research, content design and roleplaying workshops all hosted by the great and good of the North West’s design community (including, but not limited to, BBC UX&D, Common Good, Hyper Island, Code Computerlove, Sigma and Co-op Digital — represent!). The second day was then jam-packed (heh) with building a service. We had to move quickly.
Build a service in one day? Good luck, mate
That’s what I thought! I was helping facilitate the second day and I had plenty of clock watching moments, but the teams smashed it out. Armed with the knowledge they acquired the day before, the teams set about thinking of ideas, going outside and talking to real people, designing, building and prototyping — solving identified problems.
Pictures tell the story best:
Everyone left with a grin on their face and the glow of someone who had learned and achieved.
What I learned
I’m always going to be a student of design and although I was a facilitator I took so much away from these two days. Here’s a highlight reel:
- Take yourself out of your perspective and get a fresh view often — thanks to Tash and Urška from Hyper Island for that one.
- Get out of the workspace early and get out often!
- Behavioural personas — kudos Common Good.
- The best way to learn is to have fun and take it all in your stride.
Watch this space
This will be by no means the last Service Design Jam in Manchester as there’s definitely an appetite for more learning events like this and a fledgling community. I’m looking forward to seeing what this community can do with their new skills and look forward to the future of service design co-operation in Manchester.
If you want to read more stories from the Service Design Jam you can find them in a mini-repo here:
Special shout out to the tireless and wonderful Kathryn Grace who without her it wouldn’t have happened. Thanks Kathryn.
And thanks to you for getting to the end, see you soon x
Nathan ‘Nate’ Langley
@_digin8
