Great services help users get something done. That could be finding an apprenticeship, applying for planning permission, or seeking support with your pension.
It sounds simple but making a service easy to use takes work. That’s where service design services come in.
Service design is different to typical user experience work as it consists of looking at both the front end and back end of the service. For example, when looking at finding an apprentice, a simple approach might consist of research with apprentices and building the service from their perspective. With service design, you would also consider the employer experience as well as how an intermediary (such as the Department for Education) might manage the service.
Most services are inherently complex, consisting of multiple dependencies and relationships. And often within any service, you’ll be meeting needs from multiple user groups, and therefore you’ll need to carry out a number of user experience activities, such as:
- user research
- stakeholder and user workshops
- prototyping
- vision and strategy workshops.
Through this, we will explore a number of areas, including:
- The actors involved in the service
- The location of the service
- The props involved in delivering the service
- The associates
- The practices that support the service.
As a UX service design agency, we cover the whole process beginning when users first try to get something done to when they finish. Looking at a service from end-to-end helps us solve a whole problem, not just parts of it.
Because services are complex and because they go end to end, service design provides focus, allowing you to explore parts of the service that will offer the most value. This means that service design can prove invaluable within inevitable project constraints such as time, technology, and budgets.
We unpick complex processes and systems, often across different channels and teams. Understanding every part of a service helps bring clarity to the complex. Through artefacts such as service blueprints and ecosystem maps, we can articulate the main areas to focus on within a service, or the parts to tackle first. In many services, there can be small issues, usually falling between the gaps of different user groups, which are easy to fix and make the service infinitely more impactful.
When considering service design, there are a number of lenses through which we can view the service, including:
- Policy (intent and how it’s being implemented)
- Operating models (how services and business operate)
- Skills and ways of working (the working practices that support delivery)
- Data (how it’s captured, managed, and used)
- Governance (how processes enable change)
- User experience (how services are accessed and used)
- Content (how it’s designed and delivered)
- Technology (supporting capability and channels).
Let’s work together
Through a combination of these approaches and techniques, we can ensure services are designed optimally, navigating constraints and complexity in order to uncover and release the most amount of value and impact in a service. We love a challenge and appreciate the value that well working services can deliver to citizens.
Contact us to discuss working together to design services.
