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.