What is Service Design? Overview, Principles, Skills & Salary
Service design is the process of creating solutions and improving experiences between users and service providers. It’s not something tangible like designing a product; however, it’s designing the whole customer experience considering the factors like location, budget, logistics, etc.
Think about your favorite coffee shop for example, why do you like it specifically? I’m sure the answer is not only coffee but the whole experience. You might like the staff members, how fast you get the coffee, the decor, or even the mug. The way the coffee shop operates, receives clients, and delivers coffee could make it better than another one with exactly the same coffee (product). Companies like Starbucks and McDonald’s are good examples.
Principles of Service Design:
Marc Stickdorn and Jakob Schneider, authors of This is Service Design Thinking, identify five key principles—for service design to be:
User-centered: Use qualitative research to design focusing on all users.
Co-creative: Include all relevant stakeholders in the design process.
Sequencing: Break a complex service into separate processes and user journey sections.
Evidencing: Envision service experiences to make them tangible for users to understand and trust brands.
Holistic: Design for all touchpoints throughout experiences, across networks of users and interactions.
The 3 Main Components of Service Design:
People: Anyone who creates or uses the service or may be indirectly affected by it.
Props: Physical or digital artifacts required to perform the service.
Processes: Service-relevant workflows, procedures or rituals performed by employees or users.
What is the Difference Between Service Design and UX?
While UX designers focus on individual (mostly digital) touchpoints, Service Designers focus on the full end-to-end experience which may include digital touchpoints but also physical infrastructure, teams, and things that those teams do such as processes.
Furthermore, while UX Designers mostly create things like Wireframes, Personas, and Prototypes; Service designers end up creating things like Service Blueprints, Customer Journey Maps, and Service Ecology Maps which help them plan and organise a business’s systems and resources in a human-centered way.
6 Must-have skills for Service Designers:
Agile working: A good understanding of Agile Methodology and the ability to work in a fast-paced environment.
Effective Communication: Making complex and technical information and language simple and accessible for non-technical audiences.
Evidence- and context-based design: Visualising complex problems and concepts, applying logical thinking to improve the process based on the project’s context and resources.
Prototyping: Applying technical knowledge and experience to create or design workable prototypes, both programs, and physical outputs.
Strategic thinking: Determining patterns, policies, roadmaps, and vision statements. Effectively focusing on outcomes rather than solutions and activities.
User focus: Understanding users and identifying who they are and what their needs are, based on evidence. Translating user stories and proposing design approaches or services to meet these needs..
Service Designer Salary:
The average service designer salary in the United Kingdom is £51,954 per year or £26.64 per hour. Entry-level positions start at £40,266 per year while most experienced workers make up to £70,000 per year.
Do you Want to find the Right Service Designer for your Business?
Hive / Headhunters is a recruitment agency specialising in sourcing CX and UX profiles based on the client’s needs. Hive was built by +20 years experienced CX and UX leaders to help businesses find the missing pieces of their teams and reach their goals.
Here are the roles Hive can help you find:
Service Designers
UX Researchers
Project Managers
UX/Product Designers
Interaction designers
UI Designers
Copy, Content strategists, UX Writers
Business Designers, Innovation Strategists
VR / AR Designers
Book a free call and we’ll have a deep look into your project needs.
