Give me the week day when you give me a date

Daniele Catalanotto
Sep 1, 2022


A Service Design Principle to help people better understand dates.

It's a special time, for a few weeks I'm working in a customer support centre. My job is to check in with customers about what happened on a particular day. Easy!

I open the first file, see the date I have to ask about and call the customer. I say something like:

“Do you remember what happened on the 16th of December?”

Big silence...

"hmmmm... no idea!"

Hmmm, not so easy after all. So I continue the conversation:

"The 16th that was last Friday, about one week ago"

Now the customer says: "Oh sure!..." and he gives me all the details I need

This conversation shows something very simple:

When you mention dates, always mention the weekday and say how it’s relative to today. Was it on a Monday? Will it be in a month, a week?

I asked the question as the IT system gave it to me. The system didn't give the weekday. So I didn't either. And it created a poor very bureaucratic experience.

That's why I believe that we service designers, creators and customer support members have a special job.

We translate the bureaucratic language that the process feeds us into plain simple words for humans.

Daniele's personal notes

  • This is the second draft of this Service Design Principle.
  • The length of this principle has been reduced by 25% compared to the first draft.
  • Once adapted even more, this principle could be part of the book "Service Design Principles 201-300"
  • As always, feel free to share comments, feedback or personal stories to improve this principle.
Like 1
Daniele Catalanotto
Oct 31, 2022

The third draft of this Service Design Principle

For a few weeks, I'm working in a customer support centre. My job is to check in with customers about what happened on a particular day. Easy!

I call the first customer and say, "Do you remember what happened on the 16th of December?"

Big silence... "hmmmm... no idea!"

Not so easy after all. So I continue: "The 16th was last Friday, about one week ago" Now the customer says: "Oh sure!..." Now, he gives me all the details I need.

My mistake is simple. The IT system doesn't give the weekday. So I didn't think to give it either.

So let me ask.

What information, given by your tools, can you translate into human words in your service (1)?

Footnotes

(1) For example, mention the weekday when we use dates. Or say the date is relative to today.

Daniele’s notes

  • This is the third draft of this principle.
  • I’ve reduced the length of this principle by 39 % compared to the previous draft.
  • I’ve added a conclusion question to help the reader turn this principle into action.