What is Service Design?

How is Service Design changing?

This is a field that is expanding in many different directions. To name a few: change and organisational management, cultural experiences and their influences on Services, the interconnection between Service and Interaction Design in digital services, and servitization. Some of these directions are generating new tools, for example Live work’s servitization mapping tool, while others are adjusting existing tools to the new fields.
 

How do you teach different service design tools to your students?

As with most of the design tools, we teach them by means of practice. After an introduction to an array of tools, students are encouraged to use and adapt them to their projects. 
 

What five tools do you use most?

Each project has its particularities that will influence the tools that end up being used. Here are the five most common:

• AT ONE
• Customer Journey 
• Service Blueprint
• Story Boards
• User profiles
   

Are there any limits to these design tools?  

A tool is a resource that needs to be adapted to the characteristics and requirements of each project. Most of the times the quality or shortcomings of the tools are not related to the tool itself but to the designer, the choices behind the selection of the tool, how that tool is being used and how it is connected to the situation. A hammer is a very versatile tool, but it might not be the best choice to change a lightbulb, and if I only have a hammer to build a chair it will be a challenging process. 
 
So the issue with tools is a greater one than the tool itself; it is linked to the array of tools that the designer has access to, the designer’s criteria and expertise to choose the tool that fits better the project, the project's restrictions and resources such as time, access to information, stakeholders that need to be engaged - to name just a few-, and the designers own way of addressing the design process.