Let's see how some of the service designers around the world that we talked to define service design – and get it from the horse's mouth! So, service design looks at two things. It looks at the customer experience, so it really takes in the design research lens of looking at what each customer is dealing with.
But then it's also looking at the back-end systems that support a particular experience. And so, we look at a service. And a service we define sort of very broadly, anyway, and in many ways. Like, a service can be something that is like going to a coffee shop. But it can also be a digital tool that you use to deal with your banking. So, that is – an element of your service is dealing with that digital device.
We really want to understand "What is the experience that's happening for the customer?" and then where all those elements that are supporting that – the experience – and those interactions that the customer is having with the service, so that we're able to ensure that if there are any log jams, if there are any issues that may be occurring throughout that service experience, we're able to not only identify them but then begin to address them and improve them.
So, when I talk about service design, I'd like to think of a service as a whole series of different interactions. Now, that's probably no different from a UX designer and how they see their work. But one key difference is that I think for UX designers that will be mainly digital interactions and with service design it can be digital, in the real world – it can be anything. I think that when UX designers talk about "users",
they tend to talk about "end users". And when we talk about "users", that because a lot of these interactions are not with digital products but between people or between people with a thing in a setting, our users are also the staff delivering the service. Each of these interactions in a service we like to break out where they happen – the setting – and we use a theater metaphor – who's involved in this interaction – the actors;
if there's any sort of touch points involved – the props; and then the actors – they will have a certain script. So, when we explain service design – what it is that you're designing – then it's the string of interactions. And then for each interaction, the setting, the actors, the props and the scripts.