What do I even think of Service Design now?

8 years ago, my dream was service design. I got to actually do it. I don’t think I’m great at it. I still love it, but I need a lot of complementary skills to excel at it.

Sidenote: When I was 16, I really wanted to be in advertising - as a strategic planner. When I was 32, I actually became a strategic planner, in one of the largest, most established ad agencies in the world. After 2 months of finally getting to try it, I realized I didn’t actually want to do it as a job.

People change. Our values change. Our hobbies change. The world changes, too.

I’ve been out of service design for over a year, and I realized that I had gotten so focused on interface-related UX work, that I haven’t given service design much thought in all this time.

So, with fresh but experienced eyes, what have I learned, and what do I think now?

1. It is tough. I would now be doubly wary about taking a service design role, even if I feel experienced in it. I salute people working in government, traditional (non-tech) financial institutions and other legacy corporations delivering services.

When I had the ambition of being a service designer, I was a self-confident UX leader wanting to challenge myself with ever-increasing complexity. I would often find myself saying that I want to push myself to excel at new things. And, maybe something finally beat me haha.

1. What makes it tough: scale and sovereignty.

People are individuals with free choice and personal values, and corporations are groups of individuals. A 12,000-person company is 12,000 personal values and levels of learning that you’re trying to steer.

Let me unpack these further — WITHOUT reading any new blog posts or videos on Service Design, first.

What I would do (differently), given what I now know:

Or “What I would do on my next round of trying it”:

1. Assemble a multi-discipline team.

Service Design isn’t UX design, and shouldn’t be comprised of primarily tech people.