Beware: this email may irritate you

[jh-01]

If experiencing poor service irritates you then learning a little
about service design and it's huge potential is likely to heighten
your awareness of poor service even more. I therefor feel that the
goldmine sent through to me by Sylvain requires something of a
caution.

The Service Design Network conference has just ended but you can get
to see a large number of the presentations in video and .pdf formats:
http://www.service-design-network.org/content/media

I also noticed on the site that the SDN has created a journal of
service design which isn't very expensive:
http://www.service-design-network.org/node/602

Enjoy!

Jason

ps. for those of you who never got to see Sylvain's presentation when
he was here in Joburg you can get it here:
http://www.slideshare.net/sylvain/ux-design-service-design-design-thinking
The relationship between ux, service design and design thinking is
explained in a very digestible manner.

[Lynnsey]

Hi Jason,

Thanks for this - I'll definitely check it out.

I have a strong interest in Service Design - after all, it's just UXD
in the non-digital world, isn't it? (Of course nothing in the
description User Experience Design suggests that the field should be
limited to online.)

My experience working at large companies has brought it home to me
that regardless of what kind of experience you provide online, if the
offline experience is rubbish (or good but out-of-sync with online)
then overall, customers are having a bad time.

I recently read an interesting interview on the same topic. The
introduction emphasises the commonality between UXD and SD:

"Isn’t all design a service to someone? Perhaps that can be debated.
But currently the service design genre is receiving considerable
attention and achieving currency. When Phi-Hong D. Ha, an interaction
design and strategy consultant, was asked what is meant by “service”
in today’s design world, she responded, “Service design is a
collaborative process of researching, planning and realizing the
experiences that happen over time and over multiple touch points with
a customer’s experience.” And according to Liz Danzico, chair of the
School of Visual Arts’ new MFA Interaction Design program, “Service
design looks at customer needs and experiences in a holistic way.” Yet
many service designers in the United States do not call themselves
Service Designers. Much of the work done in this area is still
referred to as “customer experience” or “user experience.” This is
where Ha enters the arena. She was a senior user experience designer
for Method, where she led the team in redesigning TED.com and
TheApt.com. At Method she started championing the emerging field of
service design, and she is currently on the faculty of SVA’s MFA in
Interaction Design and a member of the Service Design Network.
Recently we discussed the viability of this new field."

(Interview follows here:
http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/answering-the-call-to-service-design-an-interview-with-phi-hong-d-ha.)

Lynnsey

[Jason Hobbs]

Re "it's just UXD in the non-digital world, isn't it?"

Yes, but I think it's more than just 'multi-channel' UX or UX for all
touch points. There is a dimension of service design which goes
'backwards' into the organisation (as apposed to forwards towards the
customer) where the changes that emerge as required from user centered
research involve change within the 'engine room'. This can be
organisational strategy, channel strategy, product, people, place,
pricing etc. This certainly comes out very clearly from the keynote
address at the SDN network (incidentally the speaker's company is
called 'Engine').

I think this is a critical point for a few reasons.

How many times has the work you're doing on a particular touch point
front end (e.g. a website) raised issues (or insights) that require
change at an organisational level and not just a channel level. Since
our project sponsors often only represent a single channel or
department, this requirement for change from other units or the
organisation as a whole, often mean that our design isn't executed
properly or effectively and the user experience suffers. Information
architecture often provides this when we are trying to organise or
categorise in a way which makes sense for users but is at odds with
the way the company perceives the 'structures' that embody the very
idea of the meaning of their products and services.

It also speaks to ux strategy or design-led strategy or making an
organisation more customer centric. This change happens deep inside a
company and affects all aspects of a company and goes beyond customer
touch points and multi-channel (although this is where the change will
ultimately be felt by the customer).

J





072 260 5478
www.jh-01.com

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[Lynnsey]

Absolutely! And this is actually really difficult to achieve,
especially when business objectives conflict with user goals. After
all:

Can we afford to keep the call centre open until 9pm, even though
that's what our customers are asking for (and are our competitors
doing it)?
Do the rules for this product align with our brand values?
Is it okay to stop stocking this thingamajig that our customers need
to operate the whatchmafoojab we sold them last month?
Can we advertise this dingaling even though we're not sure when the
next shipment will arrive?
Can we make this old-tech product sound new-tech so that the market
will see us as innovative?
Can we make this vapourware sound like a product so that the market
will see us as innovative?
Do we really have time to make sure the FAQs on the web site come from
our customers and not from our product managers?
Can we put www.bigcompany.co.za onto all of our print ads even though
we're not sure the information is there?
Do we have time to properly brief the "web guys" on this campaign or
shall we just send them the training pack?
And who's going to notice if we get it wrong - our customers, or the
people who pay our bonuses?