Let’s look at three ways we can think about the outcomes of service design:
Service level outcomes
Organizational outcomes
Changes to how people think and what they feel
Service Level Outcomes
Service design finds ways to co-create value throughout the design process so that there is value both in the designing and in the delivery of services. These service level outcomes include:
new services
improved services
changes to touchpoints
changes to service interactions
new service artifacts
increased service efficiency
reduced waiting times
higher quality service
improved service relationships
Organizational Outcomes
”The material of service design is the Organization”
- Stephen Taylor, Harmonic Design
In order to be able to achieve service level outcomes, we have to achieve organizational outcomes. When we think about service design work, a lot of the time we are working with the 'meta’ as Dan Hill calls it.
Organizational outcomes of service design are things like:
capability or capacity building
creation of ‘value’
new perspectives
new conversations
convening (new) relationships
enabling a different problem solving process
adoption of a new set of words/language
change in behaviour
adoption of a new mindset
updated operating models
Outcomes as Changes to How People Feel and Think
Some of the most powerful outcomes that I’ve seen while practicing service design are shifts in how people feel (and think).
What if, working in these more complex, intangible types of design, with relational outcomes, we need different ways of knowing? What if we think about how people feel as an outcome of service design work?
”People will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget
how you made them feel.”
- Maya Angelou
What if we think of changes in perception and knowing as an outcome of service design work?