The start of a service design migration

Service design seems like a new discipline in the digital world of design; a world dominated by UX. Without a doubt, its present surge in the US, especially in “tech,” is a result of a westward migration of knowledge from Europe and select agencies pushing it to their clients as the newest value proposition.

Service design is the norm in European nations, and there are plenty of places that embrace it and staff it well that are not tech companies. They are service companies. Healthcare, education, government, transportation. Service designers who have never touched a wireframe in their life.

Now you, you’ve been “Designing for experiences” for years. You’ve been thinking end-to-end, looking at holistic product design. Perhaps you read an article, or saw a speaker or two at a conference that inspired you to look into service design. Something that feels both new, and old. After all, how could we not think about the entire user experience; the totality of a human journey through a scenario.

Why be stuck just to the screen when there is so much more that happens before, in-between, and after those interface and interaction designs?

Yet, go poll 100 “UX” designers. What percentage of their time is spent outside of product design? What percentage of their time is spent on higher altitude system design that aligns with a broader customer strategy? Not a lot.

The same, but totally different

From the outside, it looks like a lift and shift of skills. We are designing for human experiences, how different can it be? Everyone who makes anything is designing for human experiences.

Whether you say you “design for experience,” or just relent and say “experience designer,” it’s all making things for people to experience. But, there’s one thing I want you to consider:

We learned that UX is not UI. Now, it is time for us to collectively consider: Service Design is not UX.

Thinking that being involved in designing for experiences is merely going to be a sidestep from one lane to the other is a flawed and dangerous assumption. Picture this in your mind: you’re working as a welder in a garage, on dry ground, welding things that are used on dry ground. That’s where you are with UX, welding like a champion.

Now, picture welding again, only this time 300 meters under the ocean surface. Did you even know you could weld underwater? You can, and the principles are the same; superheat metals with fire or electricity so they can be joined during a melted, malleable state, and then let them harden back into a solidly joined piece.

Ready to walk out of the garage and put on a diving suit? Do you know how to dive? Are you SCUBA certified? Are you trained at the depth you need to go? Do you know what sorts of techniques needs to be used for the things you’re welding? The kinds of people you’ll need to rely on to succeed — boat captains, surface crew, other divers?

Probably not. This is a topic that comes up again, and again, and again, every day. We get emails sent directly to us from people looking for help on how to transition. Questions come up in the service design community we started on Slack (Megan Erin Miller and I) every day, again, and again, and again.

It’s an important topic, and light needs to be shined on it. Not from a design agency’s blog post, not from an academic institution, not from people who have never worked as wireframe and .jpg slicing machines.

It needs to be said from someone who made the leap, and the crash-landing is still fresh in their minds. Someone not speaking from a pedestal, but from the muddy, flooded trenches.

Now, if you’re ready.