A Service Design principle to help you see if you're doing good or not.

Back in college I had a philosophy teacher who made philosophy seem like something fun and easy. One day we explored what a guy called Immanuel Kant said.

In fancy english it goes like that:

“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” (1)

In unfancy english we could say it like that: to verify if what you're doing makes sense, ask yourself: what if everybody did it? If then the world sucks, this action isn't a good idea.

Simple right. But damn effective.

This question is pretty good for two moments, for us as service creators or owners. You can use it as a diagnosis tool to verify if what's in your service makes sense. And you can also use it before making a change, adding something new to your service and review if it would make sense.

What I love about this question is that it isn't limited to one aspect of life. It forces you to think about ethics, social justice, sustainability and all these fancy things at the same time.

Action question

What are parts of your services that would create harm if more services would do the same?

Footnotes

(1) This is called by the nerds the "universalizability principle".

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.