What is Service Design and how to bake a cake
Imagine you’re asking two friends, one a UX designer and the other a Service Designer, how to bake a cake for your mum’s birthday party.
FYI I know there’s a blurred line between UX and SD but for this post I simplify things placing both on different ends of the spectrum. I’m happy to discuss it
UX Designer friend may suggest you first to find out what cake your mum likes and recommend finding an easy to follow recipe and bake it. Straight to the point, right? To make life easier, they may recommend looking for a recipe with measurements in units which are easy to use like a cup of flour instead of 120g, so you don’t have to go wild with looking for a weight; with shorter baking time, so you may check your baking results early and try again if needed. Sorted!
Service designer friend may start similarly but may take a narrative a step back and ask how much time do you have, how much money you want to spend on ingredients, how many people will eat it, what do you have in your pantry, nudge to take stock of your baking utensils. Do you know of the dietary requirements of the guests?!? Do you have a working oven or should you go for a cake which doesn’t require baking? How far you’ll need to travel with this cake? In general, would ask questions which at some point of baking process you’d ask yourself, but if you ask these questions in the middle of the action, it may be quite too late.
Having all the information they’ll help you select the recipe and send off for your baking adventure (and make a few calls to check with you in the meantime).
They are not nosy, they just want your cake to be not only tasty but also —
- not break the bank with posh ingredients which will take space in your pantry for ever
- not push you on the brick of a breakdown and your kitchen into the total chaos
- survive the way to the birthday party
They may also ask you how you’d like to present it? Probably not in a paper or plastic box you’ll use for transport; do you have a nice platter or your does mum have one?
SD designer friend will investigate these invisible elements which are usually not listed in cookbooks, but are crucial to the baking process and final satisfaction. The more you sort out before making your hands (and kitchen) dirty the bigger chances for success you have.
The fundamental difference in guidance is the perspective. UX friend may probably focus on the part of the action related to baking and having the cake done while Service Designer friend will zoom out and in, to see the whole end-to-end process, to consider how to approach each step to get a cake everyone will like and and you won’t have a trauma after baking it. Your mum will not only prize the taste and look but also your organisational skills!
Thanks for reading!
This is an experiment, I’m still working on that analogy so if you find some issues with it, or have any ideas to develop it further please, let me know I’m happy to discuss it.
