Design: Service Design

This is a sample chapter from the new Rosenfeld Media book Service Design: From Insights to Implementation. ©2013 Rosenfeld Media.

If we are looking to improve an existing service, our blueprint has given us a pretty good overview of the component parts of the service and how these are experienced over time. If we are developing something entirely new, we may have less detail but some idea of people’s needs and what some of the key touchpoints might be. Before going further into the details and committing significant resources to the project, we need to develop the service proposition. Read More

If you’re like me, you have a mini-library of those user experience books that are most meaningful to you. No, not the ones hidden away on your eReader, reminding you of their presence only when you see their titles on the screen. Rather, I’m referring to those tangible books, sitting on your office bookshelf or on a side table at home. Perhaps some remind you of the time when you first entered the field of user experience, wanting to absorb everything about the topic. Or maybe everyone raves about a book as being seminal to the user experience discipline, but you keep the fact that you’ve never read it a secret. Regardless of why you have them, where they live, or how much you recall of their content, these books are important to who you are as a UX professional.

I’ve recently finished reading what is now the latest addition to my own professional mini-library: This Is Service Design Thinking, by Marc Stickdorn, Jakob Schneider, and numerous collaborators and co-authors. This book is likely to become the quintessential service design textbook for students, educators, and professionals alike. In this column, I’ll share highlights from the book, along with some of my own interpretations, and tell you why you should add this book to your own personal collection. Read More

If you were moving to New York City, what would get you excited? You might say the nightlife or the food. But for the geek in me, it was getting Verizon FiOS (Fiber Optic Service). I mean, who wouldn’t want blazing fast Internet speeds? My new condo is FiOS-ready, so I thought it would be easy. I called Verizon weeks before the move, so I would have Internet access on Day 1. But there was a snag: after about two hours on the phone, trying to figure out why we kept getting an error, the sales representative said that she would have to call me back. I never got her call.

Since I had gotten nowhere trying to order FiOS by phone, I next tried ordering FiOS online. Then, two days before my move, I again tried calling Verizon. That sales representative also hit an error and couldn’t help me. I called again on my moving day and asked to speak to a manager. While I waited for a response, I tried using my iPad to see whether I could complete the task online. It turns out that Verizon had run out of phone numbers in the 212 area code. No error messages alerted them to that fact or offered any alternative way of proceeding. Okay, so who cares about an area code? (It turns out, I do—and by yelling and screaming, I ended up getting one—but that’s beside the point.) Read More