A Service Design Principle to inspire us to upgrade the criteria of what makes a good service.

Many service creators use three simple criteria to determine if a service works well. Is it desirable to the humans who should buy it? Is it economically viable for the company that creates it? Is it technically feasible to create this service(1)?

This creates services that humans love and want to use more. But in a world where overconsumption breaks the planet, maybe we shouldn't stop at making stuff that people love.

That's why these days, many propose adding a few additional and complementary criteria so that we create services that people love and serve the planet well.

For example, you could add the criteria Responsible, Systemic and Transparent (2).

This makes us ask questions like: do people know how the service works and what it produces? Have we done our homework in understanding the domino effects of our service and its impact on society and the planet at large? Are we sure this service is safe, and do we take responsibility for its side effects?

Action question

What could be new criteria that you can add to evaluate the quality and impact of your service, not just for humans, but also for the planet?

Footnotes

(1) Desirability, Viability and Feasibility create a pretty great Venn Diagram of what Design Thinking is all about, as shown by the people behind IDEO.

(2) Like the team behind the website Planet Centric Design proposed with its Planet Centric Design Principles.

Daniele's notes

• This is the first shitty draft of this principle

• This principle might one day make it in the fifth book in the "Service Design Principles" series that explores how to better serve humans and the planet.

• If you're curious about service design principles, you can get the four previous books in the series, with proofread principles and less grammatical creativity.