Service Design and creating a Blueprint

Is your organization doing Service Design?

It seems like it’s one of the hottest new trends in the User/Customer Experience arena. Where I work, not only have we been introduced to the concept, we are being encouraged to carry out the process on our products.

What is a Service Design Blueprint?

Yeah that was my question too when I first heard the term some time back. Does it have to do with architecture? Is it only for the service industry? How does this play in to UX? Yes I had all of these questions and many more.

OK, really, What is Service Design?

According to Wikipedia, Service Design is:

  • Involves the activity of planning and organizing people, infrastructure, communication and material components of a service.
  • To improve its quality and the interaction between the service provider and its customers.
  • May function as a way to inform changes to an existing service or create a new service entirely.
  • The purpose is to establish best practices for designing services according to both the needs of customers and the competencies and capabilities of service providers.
  • The service will be user-friendly and relevant to the customers, while being sustainable and competitive for the service provider.

Ok, this all sounds good right? So how do I get started? I am lucky enough to have attended the Adaptive Path Service Design seminar which gave me a grand introduction to the value and process. I am going to share a great asset they provided to me so that you can share it with your teams. (PDF is attached at the bottom of the article.)

Service Design blueprinting building blocks.

Now that you have a bit of foundation of what it means, I suggest you start creating Service Blueprints for the various products and services that your organization produces. You would be amazed the opportunities and caps you will discover from a Service Design blueprint exercise. Give it a try!

Service Blueprint block Example layout

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