← Back Book cover of This is Service Design Doing

This is Service Design Doing

Applying Service Design Thinking in the Real World

As a non-service design professional reading the book to complement my UX focus, I found the book to be a bit overly detailed, but 2 ideas from it will inform my future design process:

  1. The design process is a cycle of divergence and convergence—creating and reducing options. User research (diverge), analysis & visualization (converge) → idea generation (diverge), idea selection (converge) → explorative prototyping (diverge), evaluative prototyping (converge)… Knowing which stage I’m at is key to a smooth design process.

  2. Avoid decision paralysis by prototyping. Do, don’t talk. Ideas work in our heads—less so in practice. Prototype multiple ideas simultaneously to reduce risk. Be specific about the purpose of the prototype: is it to explore, evaluate, or communicate? What questions will it answer: value, look and feel, feasibility, how it will integrate with other components? Don’t waste time on early first drafts!