The full transcript of my conversation with Marc
This transcript was generated using Descript. So it might contain some creative mistakes.
Introduction
How can you reassure people before they join your service or product? That's what we discuss with Linn Vizard during this conversation for my international book tour. Lynn is a Service Design lover, and the founder of Made Manifest, an independent Service Design consultancy in Canada.
She's a Service Design educator through her newsletter, Ask as service designer, where she answers common questions people have about Service Design.
She also writes in other publications like Usability Matters or the Adobe blog.
In this one hour conversation, we cover a lot of ground. We explore topics like.
What are practical tips to implement Service Design ideas?
Why answering Service Design questions is a great reflection practice for any Service Design professional?
How to use comparison as a tool to reassure people about your service or product?
Why you should not compare your service only with direct competitors. But also with wider alternatives?
Why showing the end at the start can reassure people?
We also do a deep dive into the importance of choosing the right level of principles for your context, how to mix them together and how to stay in a healthy diet when you consume such Service Design Principles.
Thank you so much to Lynn for this lovely conversation.
Daniele: Hello, Lynn!
It's such a pleasure to meet you, finally.
Linn: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited and yeah, excited to get to know you a bit more, too.
Daniele: Super excited to get the chance. to Meet you live, and also to to know a lot more not only about you, but your way of thinking, your way of working, and also, your way of criticizing stuff. Let me ask you,
Meet Linn
Daniele: when you arrive in a birthday party how do you present yourself to new people?
Linn: Usually I'm just like, Hi, I'm Lynn. Maybe compliment something they're wearing or something I find interesting. I assume the subtext here is if they start asking, what do you do? And I was laughing, I was listening to some of your other episodes, like with Ben Reason. So mostly anyway, I just say, oh, I run my own small business a small consulting business.
And I leave it at that, actually.
Daniele: The classic.
Linn: I love it. Yeah. I'm like, if I say management consultant or consulting, then people will hopefully leave me alone. They won't want to know more, right? They're just like, oh, okay.
Daniele: So you're a part of the scary one. Yeah.
Linn: Cause I, I find, like you, like many other folks you've chatted to have said, if you say design, then inevitably you get, oh, fashion, interiors.
And then I'm like, no, not really. I, we help companies make their services better using design. I've tried a lot of different things out, but I haven't really Nailed the one that sort of feels best. I do notice there's a lot more literacy around digital and UX. And so sometimes people can relate to that.
But then I get frustrated because I'm like, but we don't just design apps and websites. Can't win.
What's Made Manifest?
Daniele: Okay. And so you say, okay, I'm this consultant of a small business. What's the business? What do you do in that small consultancy?
Linn: Yeah, so I might say something like we try to make services better, so that could look like the experience of buying a luxury jewelry gift or going to City Hall to pay your taxes.
It could be what it's like to go into a lab, to have a blood test, and those are all examples of projects that we've worked on. And so those are the types of things we try to help companies and organizations do, and we really do it by talking to people, understanding their lived experience and yeah, suggesting ways we could maybe improve.
So that's the, my attempt at a plain language explanation, right?
Implementing Service Design
Daniele: Awesome. And, we are part of this kind of a network of very nerdy people. When we get into the nerdy stuff, what's like the topics that you get really excited about at the moment when it comes to service design?
Linn: Yeah I love that question and I 100 percent relate to being a nerd and love having found a career and a practice and a community of people who are also really nerdy and just like to get into the details of things and constantly learn and but to answer your question, the stuff I'm really curious about and have been for a while is around how do you use Service Design to actually make changes, right?
To actually improve a service and to deliver real world change to a service and I think where that kind of leads to or goes is working with all of that, Dan Hill calls it dark matter, but how do you work with people and power structures and organizational culture? How do you think about your stakeholders?
Stakeholdering and stakeholder relationships how do you think about how change happens on a project, in a team and all that stuff is really hard, but those are the things I'm really learning about and experimenting with and trying to explore in the projects and work because I think as designers we want to make stuff happen.
Fundamentally, we're not here to just think or make diagrams, like we want to build things in the world. And how do you do that with something as complex and interconnected and at scale as a service?
Daniele: It's it's the curse of the consultancy sometimes, where just in the name, it's Oh, you're consultants.
We come to you, you get, you give us ideas and concept processes, stuff. And then we do it. It's okay, because we're just consulting you. You don't do it. It's okay. So even the name is is giving us, putting us in a, not in the place of the
Linn: implementer. Yes. I think that's such a good reflection, right?
What's the expectation or mental model that sets for a client, right? You work with many. Client teams and their expectation is you're going to give me a PowerPoint and recommendations. I'm like, no more PowerPoint, no more recommendations in my dream world. But so you're right.
It's, what's that dynamic? And yet I was actually reflecting on this because the most recent newsletter that went out was about different career. Options or paths in service design. And I've actually stayed, agency side or consulting side my whole career, because I'm addicted to the variety and the relationship building and getting to see behind the curtain in all of these different, organizations and teams and services.
And then I'm always battling with Okay how do you balance that with doing projects that feel really satisfying where, real change happens where you're involved in delivery and execution? Yeah,
Daniele: I'm curious because you're saying you're exploring that. What's the things that you learned in the six last months, where you said you had an epiphany where you said, okay, that's how I can make change happen.
For example I realized, lately that one question that I stopped to ask is, who's the person deciding? Because usually when I ask that, people then answer me, oh, obviously it's me, because you're asking them, do you have power?
And obviously they'll answer you, I have power. But when you, and so suddenly I have noticed that when I ask the question. whO can block it? And then it changes completely the conversation because then it's Oh, Bob from marketing? He's a dick, but he's super powerful because he can speak in the ears of the CEO.
It's okay, now we know where the power is, and I'm interested for this kind of stuff where, the simple stuff where you say, This has changed something in my way of thinking, in my way of working, when it comes to implementation.
Linn: I love that example. What a powerful reframe.
I'm going to steal that. I think maybe two thoughts that come to mind off the top. One is,
Implementation tip: Readjust your expectation
Linn: readjust your expectations. I feel like this is a lesson that I learn over and over in my career and in my work. And it's great to be optimistic and to have big vision and to see the ways in which things could be better.
You mentioned in the intro about my way of critiquing and that's awesome. And I think it's important to balance that with understanding that we're You know, we're one part of a bigger system and so really taking a step back to think about what success looks like and adjust your expectations and think about, maybe the win on this project isn't some massive change to the service, but the win is moments like when someone on the team you've been working with, and this happened in a project I worked on, says, I'm never going Designing anything again without testing it with the people who use it, right?
That's a win! sO that's one, adjust your expectations. And then two, I think, is:
Implementation tip: Pay attention to relationships
Linn: Pay attention to relationships, which is exactly what you were talking about, right? And
Daniele: how do you do that?
Linn: Yeah, so a couple different things. One technique that I really is, of course, there is stakeholder interviewing.
Very classic, right? But really thinking about the intent of that interview. Is it about information gathering, like you need to actually understand procedurally what's happening in a service so you can build the blueprint, for example? Is it about building buy in and understanding people's goals?
Or is it about Relationship building and just really meeting another person as they are as a human and understanding a little bit of where they're coming from. And of course it doesn't have to be either or. You can try to blend these, but I do find that the more attention you pay to the relationship building that can really pay off.
And so asking questions. And then there's one of my favorites is how did you come to this work? Because what that does is it gives people a moment to reflect on their path and connect back to perhaps an intention that brought them to where they are today, which can be quite powerful.
And it also helps you understand some of that kind of backstory and history. So that's a really nice one. Where are things most stuck? Tell me a story about that. So simple kind of reframes that create a little bit more open and reflective space to build a relationship in something like a stakeholder interview.
Daniele: And these are very powerful questions because You're managing two things, with one stone. I think there is a, an expression like that, killing two birds with one stone, not the most poetic thing, but but there is one thing which I find very powerful in what you say, which is, asking people from why they are here in this project, in this job.
It's very interesting because it's using the lens of professionalism, why are you here in this job, but then obviously people will reveal a lot about their life story, which often you, I don't know how it's in Canada, but in Switzerland, You need a bit of time before you can get into the more emotional stuff, the more personal stuff.
And so it's like a way to ask a personal question but disguised as a professional one, which I very
The power of opening rounds to create relationships
Linn: Yes, and it reminds me, Daniele, something else that we do and that my awesome team is great at facilitating is one of our kind of non negotiables even for just a regular, let's say, status, like a project status type meeting that we do weekly with a client we always incorporate an opening round this is this idea that you're going to have much more effective meetings and more balanced if we hear from everyone's voice at the start this is, We'll bring a prompt question.
So what did we do yesterday? We did your, what's your mundane superpower? Are you really great at packing or finding things that your family have lost? And we had one a couple of weeks ago around what would you like to win a lifetime supply of? And these are low stakes questions.
And then we all take turns to give an answer and nominate. the next person. And it can seem, especially in more kind of bureaucratic cultures, it can seem a bit weird. But there is actually evidence that says, when you build this practice and do this, you have more effective, efficient and productive meetings and also more balanced input when you create a moment at the start to hear from everyone.
And what it also does is it opens up the possibility for some human connections. So we found out with some clients, things we had in common, like two of us And I think that's actually part of our jobs as service designers and designers is to come in and model a slightly strange way of being.
You find out these little things you have in common and it starts to humanize, but to your point, you are also treading this balance of the more professional culture where this can seem like a kind of weird way of being. And I think that's actually part of our jobs as service designers and designers is to come in and model a slightly strange way of being.
And be okay with people going, I don't know about this, but okay, maybe I'll play along and see .
Daniele: It's being a bit of this hybrid worker, like not totally the crazy consultant, who comes and people say, oh, I'm scared. This is bullshit. . But very creative.
And this is a colleague. And, we do stuff as we always do. And it's like being in this hybrid where we can take stuff which is a bit crazy, making people a little bit uncomfortable, but at the same time having this comfort zone where people can come back to you and say, okay oh, you understand me.
You're part of this. Oh, you also just live with spreadsheets and you hate it, but have to live with it. It's okay. Yeah it's interesting to be in that kind of middle zone where it's not. Full crazy consultant and not full colleague who is just lost in the daily work.
Linn: Yeah. And it's tricky, right?
Cause you want to strike that balance. And especially I think at the start of projects, when you are building those relationships, it can be hard to find where is that sweet spot. And as you're building trust and understanding and it can feel awkward, it can create friction. You don't want to do something that.
is so far out of left field that it really undermines the credibility. And people are like, I don't know about this, why did we pick these people? Or, and right. So going, it goes back to what we were saying, it's like, how do you tend to those relationships, even in structures that aren't always set up, I think, to really create space for that or enable that.
And it's tricky, right? It's not always easy. It's not always like smooth. But you got it. I think our job is to keep trying and to keep. Offering the invitation and not expecting people to change their way of being completely, and recognizing that they're part of an organizational culture and a way of doing things, and they have very real constraints and incentives that we don't understand but still oh here's a little invitation, here's a, We'll create a space to maybe try something slightly different.
The Ask a Service Designer Newsletter
Daniele: And I'm curious about one thing that you didn't mention in your birthday party presentation or just the stuff that you do with your clients when you introduce yourself. There is one part that is missing, I think. Obviously, there are more than one, but there is one that I'm very interested in, which is You are a very good service design educator because in your writing, especially, the work you do with your newsletter, but you have also writing in crazy places.
I just saw that you've wrote for the Adobe blog, for years. I saw that it was like, okay, that's that's something I didn't know. But I'm curious, what's your approach? On on how you teach service design or share your practice with the community. Could you share a bit more because I think, I'm not the only nerd watching this.
There are many people saying, Oh, she has a newsletter. I want to know more. What's the kind of stuff that you write, that you publish that people can. Can, take a look at and say, Ooh, now I'm getting a direct access to her brain.
Linn: Ah, thanks, Daniele. I appreciate that. Yeah. It's funny because it's almost such a reflexive or automatic thing that I don't think about it.
It's true because I really love, sharing and reflecting and being in dialogue with people about service design, about what we're learning, about how we could do things differently or better, about the experiments we're doing, about what we're inspired by. And so really the, writing and speaking has been an opportunity to do that and to share and hopefully You know, support and influence other people's practices and be in that dialogue together.
So the main sort of outlet for that at the moment is my newsletter, which is Ask a Service Designer, and it started as an experiment, as a prototype, where I thought, Oh, maybe it would be cool to have like a service design advice column. So I don't know if you have this in Switzerland, but this idea of an agony ant or like an
And the kind of idea was people could submit questions and then I would share some reflections and it's really grown and evolved. I will often write about topics that we're dealing with or problems that we're trying to solve. In our practice, and then I'll also invite folks, guest writers to contribute and write about their topics.
So we've covered so many different things, right? We talk about what are the outcomes of service design career paths, how do I identify good service design training, and then really trying to have it as a bit of a hub for interesting links to other work that's inspiring.
I actually wrote one a couple months ago that was, my favorite service design PhDs. And I read these PhD theses and then shared some of the learnings so that if you're not into reading PhDs, you don't have to. And things like sharing, jobs, local jobs and things like that. I think very similar, Daniele, to what I find so inspiring about you.
It's really trying to share back knowledge and create connection and opportunities for people to share and learn together, right?
Answering questions is learning
Daniele: Absolutely. We often say the telephone was invented at the same time by two people that never spoke together and they came up with the same idea. They never knew each other and just one was faster at filing the patents. And and it feels to me there is one thing which is quite similar with the newsletter you have, where I see that we are a few service designers trying to do that, having this kind of advice columns, or question and answer stuff.
And the kind of magic I find in that is, it's not only good, for giving back to the community, but whenever I answer one of these questions, that people send. Often I'm like, I never thought about that question. And it's what a good question or worse. It's what a weird question to have, and then you're trying to help the person. And so you get into it. It's okay, what could I say, which might be useful? And then suddenly by writing the answer and very humbly saying, I don't know shit about it, but if I had to do anything, I would do this. Then suddenly you get to a place where a few months later, you're faced with that part, that exact question yourself, and you already did all the work, reflection work, and you can just say, Oh, let's do it like that, and then people look at you and say, Oh, you're such a fast thinker.
It's no, I just answered a question for a friend, and now I reuse that answer.
Linn: Yeah. It's very cool. Yeah, it reminds me of that, isn't there some saying around the best way to learn something is to teach it? Because it absolutely forces you to formalize, like in a way, your thoughts and knowledge or experiments or things you tried, things that worked didn't work.
So I find it similar is a really nice, it's like a really nice way, I think, to synthesize your own practice and explore new things, right? And what I love too, is, My answer will be different to your answer, and there will be lots of perspectives and ways to look at something.
A reflection practice for service designers: answer questions.
Daniele: Yeah, and in some way, that's a bit of a call to action that I'd like to share with the community, sometimes people ask, yeah, What's a good practice, to stay on top in service design that you can do daily, some, a lot of service design work is just good old project management, where you call people you do, you, you answer emails, you prepare a presentation, this kind of stuff, you have to do that.
It's a part of any job today but then people ask, yeah, but how can I stay fresh in in in my practice? And I think having. An advice column, even if it's just internal within your company is a very good thing to have to say as a practice, to say, Hey, each month it's week, someone each, someone of our team answers a question, and he has to write it because writing is a very good way to force yourself to really think about stuff and then we share it to the company or things like that.
If we feel a bit more a bit more courageous, we can share it with the world. And, maybe you just keep it for yourself. But as, but I think this practice is a very good practice that I would highly recommend to basically anyone, if it's, if you're in house, if you're a consultancy, if you're a solo guy It's a very good practice just to, on days where you don't do any service design related shit, because it's just, doing your accounting or doing Excel and stuff, it gives you this, ah, at least I'm reflecting, at least I'm going forward.
Linn: Yeah, I think it's huge. I love that call to action and just the idea of a reflective practice, right? And that is really where we get to do a lot of the integrating. And so we try to be very You know, strict or diligent about things like retros, and at the end of projects, one of my team members, Michelle, introduced this idea of the project mid flight, where we do some reflection, and so what are those opportunities to do that reflection, whether it's, the advice column structure, like you suggested, which I love, or building in these retros or moments, and it can sometimes feel like, oh, we have to create space for this, it's another hour or 90 minutes, or, and, it doesn't even have to be that.
big of a container, but I think what I'm trying to express is sometimes it can feel like, oh, we don't have time for that, but actually the richness and the learning and how much it feeds your practice is, makes it so worthwhile to prioritize some kind of reflective habit, I think. Yeah.
Daniele: It's a, it's like the sleep for service designers, it's like nobody wants it in some strange way, if you have enough.
Then you have a good day. And you need these reflection spaces, which creates a very good transition. I'm very happy of how our brains work to that.
Chapter critic
Daniele: So we're speaking about reflection and I'd like to transition on like the reflections that you had because I shared with you a bit in advance a chapter of the next book I'm writing, which is Services and Principles.
Now it's 300, 1 to 400, so it's the first, the fourth one and you got the chapter, How can you reassure people before they join? And I'm very curious on your own reflection about that topic. And to start, is there One principle, one idea that you resonated with in that
Linn: chapter. I think there were several.
I really enjoyed my chapter a lot.
The good: approachable writing
Linn: And I think something that is so wonderful in your writing is that it is very It's really approachable and accessible and I love all of the everyday examples that you use to really bring it to life. So I think for me, it felt like there was this theme that I would bundle or roll up into the idea of, how do you set clear expectations before someone joins a service?
Show the before and after
Linn: And I love this idea of showing the before and after. I also loved the show me an example of what I'm getting into, so it reminded me of a few things I don't know if you have this again in Switzerland, but you know when people are in the grocery store with the like hairnet and they're giving you a sample, it reminds me of that, right?
How do you reduce the cost and risk? For someone to try something new and help them understand, hey here's what it might be like. So I like those two a lot. And the showing before and after reminded me a bit of I'm sure maybe you have HelloFresh as well, Mealkit I think it's a German company actually, and their tagline is Dinner Solved, and it made me think about how that tagline, even in those two words, there's a before and after, right?
Dinner solved. Before HelloFresh, the, the eternal question, what's for dinner? Oh my god. And I thought it just made me reflect a lot on how that's a really, the before and after is embodied in this tagline. And I thought it was very clever. It made me reflect on it in a kind of a new way that, ah, that's what they're doing.
Daniele: And so I'm curious, how do you do that? Because this, the, you said this kind of meta team that you see is setting the right expectations, because once we want to reassure people, it's often just to say, this is what's going to happen. Either it's it's going to be bad, just know it, or it's not going to be as bad, just chill.
How do you usually do that? In, in your own work with your clients or with end users, how did you have that? Do you have any tips or maybe examples of of smart ways of doing
Linn: it? Yeah. So I have a couple that came to mind and one was I was smiling because you mentioned in the chapter, newsletters that let you browse the archive.
And that was something, again, these ideas that are everywhere, right? That I had implemented some time ago as well to say Oh, before you ask someone to hand over your email give them an example. Let them in a low. Commitment Way, read some past editions. So that's a sort of, micro example.
How to reassure buyers: show how it compares
Linn: A project came to mind that was some, a couple years ago, and it was really around how do we help people understand what internet package is right for their needs. And so this is like, how do you reassure people before they sign up for this, can be expensive, recurring, bill for internet, which is the sort of, fundamental infrastructure for our life in the West and modern life.
How do you reassure them that they're making the right choice and they're getting something that's just the right amount for their needs. And so what we did on that project through, the typical process of research and so on, we eventually designed a sort of A tool that helped people to make a decision on which package would be right for them.
And so some of the things that were really important were, how do you do that in plain language, right? So instead of all the tech, it's this many gig or meg or whatever like up and down and all this stuff like people are like Oh, I don't really know what that means How do you talk to people in kind of terms that they understand like well?
Hey, do you do a lot of? live video game play do you do a lot of streaming? Do you work from home? So really connecting to the more, yeah, plain language use cases that people might be able to make comparisons through. And what was really, there was two things that were really interesting and cool about this.
So we designed this tool, you can imagine it's pretty simple. You answer some questions and then we say, okay, great. Daniele, we think this is the right internet package for you. And so the first thing was that. We saw a really high completion rate. Most people who started this tool got to the end.
So that was a win, right? And we also saw that conversion went up by It was I think I'm trying to do the math here quickly But conversion went up from by about 2. 2 percent which you know sounds little but it's actually quite impressive When you think about industry standard kind of conversion rate,
I hold these examples very tightly where we have and that's all I have metrics to show. But what was really interesting, even more so for the service design nerd was, we had this hypothesis, okay, people are gonna do this tool and then they know, okay, great, this helps me compare options.
And now I know the choice that's right for me. But actually the behavior that we saw was people would use this tool. And they would do their own browsing and comparison on product pages. So what I thought was really interesting about this and bringing it back to your your chapter is we might want to be able to give people the possibility to compare in many different ways, right?
So We thought, oh, it's just gonna be one and done, and then you click, yeah, buy this one. But actually, it was one input among many that people wanted to be able to feel reassured. And so I love the idea of, can you layer these principles that you've outlined, and use more than one to really support people?
Daniele: Absolutely. There are two or three ideas that I very resonate with that you're mentioning. So I'm trying to do a mental bookmark of the elements that I'd like to share with you. One is This idea of simulation, this is one idea. The other idea is this kind of mixing small elements together.
And then the last one is like creating tools that help people compare, even if it's not comparing just what's within your company. Which one would you like to start with? Which one of these keywords is tickling
Linn: you the most?
Comparison beyond your company
Linn: Let's do the comparison not just within your company.
Daniele: Because one thing that I find very interesting in your example is this idea that, okay, once I answer these questions, at the end, you're telling me, okay, this is the type of subscription you shall get, this type of, this number of megabytes, et cetera, et cetera.
Then as a consumer, I know, okay, now I know how to compare because I can now go to So I can go to the competitor and look, what's the fucking megabytes here? Okay, that's the megabytes. That's something that I can compare. Okay. The up thing is that. So now I know that I am comparing this offer to this one.
And so you're not just helping people in understanding your offer, but also to having a bit of education about. What it means, what these numbers mean, and then even if they don't choose you in the end, they remember you because you're the one that helped them decide, which is a
Linn: very strong thing.
Oh my god, Daniele, I'm getting very excited because I feel like a lot of companies and services and organizations are very scared to do the comparison outside, right? It's like we want to almost pretend like no competitors exist, right? We just want to like tunnel vision, like there's no way you're going elsewhere.
And of course, we all know as like people, as consumers that of course, we're comparing across a range of options. And it's very rare that we are only looking at one choice. And so I think what you said is really powerful, where even if you play that role in helping the broader comparison, That's awesome.
Or if you're brave enough to explicitly say, here are our competitors and here's why we think you should choose us. That's even better, from a sort of service design perspective.
Daniele: It's amazing when you reflect on the fact that many SaaS companies or software as a service They do that, if you go on on the tools many tools will say, oh, we compare like that to Notion, Notion offer that, we offer that.
And then obviously, it's biased, but you at least read it in a way where you're like, ah, okay, where do they say they, they are less good? Usually that's, at least that's how I read these kind of charts, but I'm looking, okay, where do they think they suck? And that's a good information for me because then I know, okay, is this.
The place where they suck, is this something that is important to me or do they suck at the right place where I say, Oh, this is something that I don't care about. So it's fully okay. I would love to try it. Yeah. And this comparison, I'm amazed how little they exist and how it's now, other companies that have started to create this comparison sites, where you're like, but why wouldn't you do that as a company itself?
Say So we are this insurance we know it's, at least in Switzerland, we have each often, we, everybody changes health insurance because prices changes, so we all change and then we all know we're going to compare. So why are you not, as a company, saying if you are in the premium sector or in the low cost sector?
The other low cost guys are blah, blah, blah. We are that much cheaper, or we are more expensive, but we're much nicer, we have customer support they don't have, which is okay to say. So I'm amazed about the fact that not many services do that
Linn: in a way. Yeah. And it brings to mind, I guess that's when you have services that emerge to fill that need, right?
The I think particularly in insurance, there is, Compare the market dot whatever or I, I don't know the specific names, but there's all of these services that then become aggregators that try to help you do an apples to apples comparison. And I think in this kind of systems thinking world, that's the idea about how do you, a lever in the system is aggregating and Democratizing or opening access to information and comparison, right?
So I think this is an interesting one, like where there is information asymmetry. I don't know if this is economics or, but, that's an opportunity.
Creating comparison to educate people about technical stuff
Daniele: Yeah, and I think you, in the example of your project, you did another thing, which is very smart with this comparison, you're giving people, the knowledge of, oh, when I'm streaming, this is important, that's I'm more looking at upstream, downstream, this kind of upload, download.
Okay, so now you have to look at that number. This one needs to be higher than that, because then you can stream and say, Okay, now I got it, and I know my kid wants to stream on Twitch. I don't know anything about it, but he he told me stream Twitch. I saw the logo. Now I know if I want to make my kid happy, I need to have that thing, and it's okay.
Yeah, and
Linn: I feel like that's such a huge opportunity and role for service designers is we're being translators between how an organization thinks about or conceives of its offerings and how lay people or regular people think and talk, right? And of course, it's hard when you're a specialist, when you're an expert.
Service designers are definitely guilty of this, jargon, language. We laughed at the start about how hard it is when someone says, what do you do? And I'm just like, Oh, don't even ask, not saying we have it all figured out, but that translation opportunity, I think is a cool one.
And what's so nice is in the design process, we get to listen to how people talk about these things and what their considerations are when we, do research and then we can use those, that language and words, so it's cool. I love that part.
The bad stuff
Daniele: I said in the intro, you're good at critiquing, so I'm going to switch gears and I love, so I'm very excited about that part. That's usually the part that I'm more, the most excited about, because obviously, my ego feels very flattered by people saying, telling that the principles are good.
But the place where I learned the most is when people disagree, that's where it starts to be very interesting. So I'm quite interested, what are the principles that you say I don't agree with that. I would have a different take on that. Yeah. So I
Linn: maybe have two, one that's not so much an outright disagreement, but a tweak.
And then I have one that's like maybe something I think might be missing. Cool.
The bad stuff: show me how it compares
Linn: Yeah. So the little tweak that I brought was I think the principle of show me how it compares, we've just had a, chat about that, a long chat about its importance. However, my little critique is I felt that the example was more about service usage than reassurance before joining.
So I think the example you have is about comparing VO2max from your Fitness Tracker, Apple Watch, or, something similar. Which is, I think, a great example, but the pedantic person in me was like, but this is about when you're using it, not about reassuring me before I join. So that's my little, that's my one little critique.
I'll pause there.
Daniele: Which is a very good critique indeed. Which is a very good critique. What example would you give where you say this is a maybe a stronger example to show that, like
Linn: before usage? Yeah, so I guess we've talked about some and one from a project and I was trying to think about this and I was thinking about car sharing.
So we use Zipcar which is car sharing service. I think there's many similar kind of models out there. And They do a good job of comparing, like we talked about, it's not only about comparing within a company, but it's also about the broader option. So Zipcar has some really great blog posts that are like Zipcar versus car rental, Zipcar versus owning a car and so I think that could be an example of how do you help people to compare their options before they join a service and acknowledging when you think about the kind of jobs to be done, right?
I love this classic jobs to be done story about the milkshake, have you heard this one? sO the job the milkshake's really doing is people need something that they can have on their commute that, that takes time to drink and fills them up, right? And so it was like this thick milkshake was the solution.
And anyway, I guess the point I'm trying to make there is just thinking about people might be exploring options beyond the obvious solution set. And so how can we support that comparison? So Zipcar knows that they're not just being compared against other car sharing, they're being compared against, hey, what if I just rented a car?
What if I just buy my own car? What Uber? And this is also a really good opportunity. to help people understand when your service is the right fit. So for example, Zipcar isn't going to be super cost effective if you're going on a road trip for two days because of the way that it's set up.
Although we, and this is where you get into people hacking the service. So we we ended up using Zipcar for a long trip, which was quite expensive because we left it too late and there were no other options. So we used the service for something it's not really designed to do. But that I think could be an example of how do you do the comparison before someone's joining and to reassure them.
Compare with competitors and alternatives
Daniele: I love the advice of saying, don't just compare with competitors. But compare also with alternatives, meaning if it's car, compared to public transportation, compared to a bike if it's a, you are a consultancy, that's the one that I often do in my freelance work, I say, okay.
There are several ways of doing it. There is the way of not doing it, not doing anything. That's always a choice, and what's good about it is we're going to save a lot of time, we're going to save a lot of money. Dangers are these and these. Then you could hire me, that's one possibility, or we could have a one hour free coffee where I tell you this is how we could do it and you could do it yourself.
Because it's not fucking magic, sometimes you need a bit of help, but it's not magic. And then, usually, sometimes people say, oh just tell me the few tips, because in the end, we have very competent people. Could you just chat with Dan? He's super smart. Yeah, sure. And then you're giving the right service to the right person.
As you said, it's just making sure that people get in for the good, for the right. So that once they are in, they are not like, oh, I'm tricked, I was tricked, and now I'm in this relationship, but based on a lie, so I want to get out of it. The kind of a typical thing where, you know, you met someone online and then you go to the bar and you say, okay, you're very different than what you said and what you're talking about is very different about what we were texting.
So I'm going to leave now. So it's basically the same idea. And I think it's very powerful, this, not thinking only about competitors, but also alternatives.
Linn: Yeah. And that's where that kind of, jobs to be done type theory can help us to get to the root of, agnostic, every, every company, every organization thinks that they're the center of their customer's world. And it's no, newsflash, you're like Pluto out on the edge of the solar system, if you're lucky. I'm exaggerating a little bit, but and so understanding what else might be in that solar system And thinking, down to first principles about what someone is trying to solve for, I think is powerful for sure.
So then I'll give you my little addition. It's actually a really good segue the meeting people. We're good with transitions. I know. I'm like, wow. Cause I was going to say my little build was what about a principle around giving people an out? And so what I mean by that is. What does it look like to break up?
What does the end look like? So before people have even joined and again, I think we could debate about where does it fit? Is this the right section? But that was a little bit for me of for example, so many services these days are subscription services, and we know that there's dark patterns around.
You can sign up so easily in one click, but to unsubscribe, you're going to have to, I don't know, like hike to the top of this mountain and call a specific phone line between 3 and 3. 30 and a blue moon, and it's just so brutal, right? So Can you reassure people by saying, hey, if you want to leave, this is what it looks like.
Missing principle: Show me how to get out of it before I get into it
Linn: And that's a little bit, I think, not exactly, but you touch on it with tell me how many automated emails you'll send me. So you're at least setting this expectation. But could we go further and say, Before you even start, hey, don't worry, like this is the level of commitment and this is what it looks like to get out of this if it's wrong for you.
Daniele: I love it. It's like a, so I'm going to sound very strange, it's like when we were dating with my wife, I was like that, I was very clear on, okay, we are in this together for now, but let's be clear, we can get out of it in that way.
And. No worries. It's gonna, it's gonna work, we don't have to make a scene of it. So we are at this stage where this is possible and this is the art that exists. And and it's a very reassuring thing, even for such serious stuff. Yeah. anD especially, the biggest the bigger the subscription or the prices, the bigger comes the question of, okay, but if I don't like what happens, how long will I have to wait? What's, and and giving like a bit of a, of an example, say, Oh, that's how easy you can, you can unsubscribe within two minutes. Having a number or so, or in two steps, where you say, okay, if it's in two steps, sounds reasonable, knowing that Amazon or other people, you have a 15 steps and the dance that you have to do and you then have
Linn: to go through you leaving?
Is it? Because of, Matt, I'm like, okay, I see what you're doing here. I understand that you're trying to identify the root of the objection and then be like, but wait, we have a cheaper plan. Or you can have your delivery only come every two weeks or, and I'm like, yeah, but I just don't want to pay full price and I'm over it.
So no, you know,
Daniele: And, but I think it's definitely a very good way of doing it. I, and especially for this kind of more expensive stuff and There is a good example that builds on that, which was in the previous book, which was this idea, of setting a moment where you get the chance to get an out.
For example, this is something that so my wife is a pastor in a church that is called Salvation Army, and they have a thing that they do very well. which they have this yearly membership renewal thing. Being in a church is a bit more serious than being in a soccer club, but still they do this kind of thing where they say, okay, we're going to celebrate memberships.
And so we get to ask people, do you want to renew your membership? Do you still want to be part of this spiritual family? And it's a very good thing because it's it helps them, to, to catch people once they're drifting, but they didn't say anything, and then they can voice something and say, I don't feel comfortable anymore, or.
It doesn't cover my needs, or, now that we have more kids I feel the kid service is not so good, so we're looking for the options, and then you can then help people transition either to another service, which is the best way, for people to then go forward. Say, hey, this was a very lovely church.
They recommended me to another church. It was lovely. Or just, fix problems. Yeah. Or just let people, go out in a way that they, many people are in a situation, especially with stuff that is very tricky, like spirituality or this kind of stuff where you don't feel it's ever a good moment to talk about it.
Like saying, I don't feel right about it. And so having these moments where you say, are forced moments where you say, Hey, just to check in. wOuld you still want to be in a relationship? Is this something we're still, we still care about? And small companies do that well. Also with renewals, where they call you and say, Hey, we're going to renew your accounts.
It's going to happen next month. Is this something that you still want or would you like me to cancel the thing for you? And then you say, Oh no, I'd love to stay. I just completely forgot about it, but now I want to stay, which is very different from just getting a bill and say, Oh, we renewed your
Linn: subscription.
Bye bye. Yeah. I love that idea. You're creating that dedicated space to check in and then not seeing the renewal as, something that has to be combative or. But as an opportunity to just check in, make sure it's still the right fit and yeah, I love it. Yeah. It's
Daniele: Of a date night for where you say, okay, how are you darling?
Oh it's good. Oh, I hate you these days. Okay. That's fine.
Linn: Yeah. Love it.
Resources to go further
Daniele: You said you're nerdy. . And I want to get some more nerdiness out of your brain. What are things that you think would be a very good companion to either this topic or the book in general, what would you recommend to people to
Linn: go for? Yeah, I have three to share.
Book: Good Services
Linn: So one is Good Services by Lou Downe really fantastic book.
And I, I see some similarities in how you and Lou write in terms of, very accessible, clear, great everyday examples. And. I think it also came to mind because it's also a set of principles principles for good services. So that one came to mind as a really great companion. Another one I thought could be fun.
Blog article: Service Design Heuristics
Linn: So again with, similar ideas being out there in the zeitgeist. In 2014 2015, very early in my Service Design kind of explorations. I wrote with a collaborator, Nick Crampton. We were working at a company called Usability Matters in Toronto, which is no longer sadly but. We wrote a set of service design heuristics inspired by the kind of UX heuristics.
And so I think that one is fun to revisit because some of these principles, we had ones around setting expectations, clarity of service offering, and there's some fun kind of, examples from 2015. So it's fun to look back. So you can find that on the Nate Manifest blog.
Book: Designing Ends
Linn: And then, The other one that came to mind for the critique around how do you give people an out or, could we add something around making it easy to break up or what does it look like if I want to leave Joe McLeod has a book called Ends Ends.
Which is all about the end, and what I really this is almost Daniele, it's like a full circled moment when we're, of course we want to think about the beginning and the joining, and then we want to, even in that time, even before it's begun, we want to be setting ourselves up for a good end.
There's a classic I think it's Mad Men quote, and one of Don Draper's girlfriends. He's leaving her for another woman. And she says, I hope she knows that you only like the beginnings of things, right? Oh, salty zing. And can we have a companion to this chapter around, ends?
So that was one that came to mind as well.
The different levels of principles
Daniele: Awesome. I love how the two first recommendations for me, are. One step above these principles, the principles in this book are very granular. There are very small, tiny things, that the, and that's why there are so many, and I love how your heuristics, that you made, there are not two thousands of them, they're just a few dozens, I think, if I remember.
That's
Linn: right. And. It's so funny because I think this is the, this is like the synthesizer in me, right? Like even reading the chapter, the synthesizer in me, I think as service designers, we're good at chunking up and down and we need things at all those levels, right? It's awesome to have really specific, really granular.
And then it's also interesting and fun to say, can we generalize this to the level of I think they have 10 so we can play with this level of zoom, level of granularity. And yeah, it's just really fun to think about.
Daniele: Yeah. And this is definitely something, that's, I would highly recommend to people, this knowing at which granularity level you want to go and then picking resources based on that.
Yes. And also to not be stuck in one, obviously we all are biased towards a direction where we say, Oh, I want the tiny nitty gritty or I want to do very philosophical things, and knowing where these different things are is very helpful. And I think having a, a reading where you say, okay.
I know a bit the tiny little things. I know there's bigger principles like Lou's or yours. And then, even being a step above, what are like these very first principles where you can just say, okay, maybe there are two or three maximum, and these are mindsets that change everything and that englobe everything.
And then you can say, okay, now. I can be very clear on, if I want to be, to summarize what we're doing, these are three ideas. Okay, how do I check that we are on the good way? These are the ten biggest criteria. Okay, and how does it look like in practice? Okay, now We have hundreds of possibilities of doing that.
I think having that is very strong.
Linn: Completely agree. And I think something that you do so well, that's so powerful, is having the specific examples, right? I find that really inspiring. And then It gives you this opportunity to practice the muscle of how do I generalize from the specific. It's actually, I think it's generally easier to generalize from the specific, right?
Than to have these very kind of big general things and then try to go specific. But, regardless, as you said, you want to practice. Both. And I love how you also include like questions or prompts to say, how could you apply this, right? And so I think that's it. We want the spectrum and we want to practice and then we don't want to know what our tendency is, right?
I am the kind of synthesizer tendency who wants to go to the like philosophical first word. And then it's okay yeah. But come back down to like reality, get grounded.
Daniele: Yeah, absolutely. But it's, I think you said a very important word, which is this. Spectrum words, also knowing that, there are people who prefer to go from bottom to up, and people who prefer to go from up to bottom, and knowing it, then gives you the ability to know, okay, what type of resources I'm looking for, and obviously add sometimes a little provocation that is not natural to you, just to get a little bit uncomfortable, but but knowing it makes you save a lot of time, not reading stuff that you will say, ah, if only I knew that in fact, I'm more a bottom up person, then it's a different reading list than the people who you say, okay I want just to have for this very big philosophical principles.
And then I can go into it and it's different readings. And I think this is a very important thing to, before you buy any book, just to feel. What type of, how do I come to learning, is it from practical example to then I do the generalization or give me the big idea and I will find the practical example.
Daniele. It's not the same authors, it's not the same books and, but knowing it then helps you
Linn: to get there. Completely. And Daniele, it sounds like, how do you reassure yourself before you buy a book or sign up or join?
Mixing principles together
Daniele: I had a mental bookmark which I found very interesting. You were reading the chapter and you said, Oh, I'm mixing these principles together. Could you just maybe give a little bit more on that idea?
Linn: This goes actually exactly to what we're saying. So to me, there's almost the synthesizer brain says, okay, reassure people before they join. This is all about, clarity, and these are the. I'm referring a bit to the heuristics we wrote back, way back, but it's clarity of service offering, and then it's setting expectations.
And so then to me, the principles become a little bit of how. So you might show someone the before and after, whether that's with your awesome tagline like dinner solved, or with, some of the things we talked about. It might be. Giving people ways to compare their options and you might layer in an example or a trial or a taster so I think that's what I was referring to was this idea that you can pick and mix and these They're very interconnected.
For example show me an example of what I'm getting into, really, to me, connects very directly with tell me how many automated emails you'll send. It's okay, Daniele, for example, we're going to send you A, B, C, D email. I think that's what I was referring to was the way in which you want to pick and mix and layer, and I see them as all Very interconnected.
And that's probably just the synthesizer brain.
The importance of picking principles
Daniele: Awesome. And this was interesting to me. And especially what you're saying now is because I hear these elements where you're saying pick, this is a verb that I really like, which means. When there are these books where there is a lot in it, it's the opposite of the book of Lu or Heuristics, where you try to just have what's really useful, for almost everyone.
Here it's like the opposite, where you have to pick, and I think this is a very good reminder to people, just to say, hey, don't do everything in depth, because You will be fucking overwhelmed. Just pick the ones that at the moment feel smart, feel useful, and then you do your shopping list.
It's like
Linn: a And that it's also context specific, right? And I think this is also where you talk about, what skills do we bring? What perspective, what magic from service design? It is that selectiveness, the curation, the knowing what to experiment with or try or apply, we don't always know how it's going to go, right?
Rather than blanket, just dumping everything or and so practicing that critical thinking and discernment, right? And this is in your principle that we haven't talked a lot about, ask and share only the information absolutely needed. And Again, to draw a comparison, I think in heuristics we talked about right information, right time.
So there's this idea that we can't actually reduce complexity, we can only move it to the right place. And so this is part of the discernment of which things am I going to apply? To your point don't just go, oh my god, I have to do everything and it's a lot here. But, some stuff, you just throw it out the window, no problem.
And then some stuff, you're like, ooh, that gives me an idea. I wonder if we could try x,
The importance of picking knowledge
Daniele: Thanks so much, your view of this pick and match, I'm going to steal that.
Oh, please. Because I find it's very interesting. The wording is so clear. And not just for that book, but in general, when it comes to design methods, when it comes to basically any service design knowledge that is shared, it's just. It's reminding people, hey, you can choose, it's a, it's an offering.
And I had this question once, and that's why I'm reacting so strongly to that. I had someone who was a bit younger telling me, Daniele, there is so much stuff. When I go on LinkedIn, there are every day, there's a new tool, a new method. I Get overwhelmed because I'm thinking I, do I need to know all of that?
Should I try all of it? And I'm like, God, no. It's we just share, everybody shares what he loves, but as everybody's different, it's a bit overwhelming. And then I had to remind that person to, in the end of, in the end, for example, my practice. I don't use that many methods, I have my few favorites that I always reuse and sometimes, I get in a bit of an uncomfort discomfort zone where I say, let's try something new, and see if it sticks, if it doesn't stick, what's good to try something new, and then maybe I'll add it to my core toolbox.
It's basically the same with any knowledge like that. With time, you're building your kind of core sets. And then with time, you bring new elements, you refresh. Don't get overwhelmed by the amounts of stuff that is out there. You can always pick and
Linn: choose.
Set a theme to avoid being overwhelmed by knowledge
Linn: I love that. And something that I had said to someone once, I think it was in a mentoring session, but was just this idea of, something that helps me is Pick a theme or a topic that you want to go deep on or that is your current question or exploration and use that as a bit of a filter because I relate too, right?
And, as people who are curious, who are constant knowledge seekers it's easy to get overwhelmed or feel like there's so much stuff out there and you want to read more and learn more and go to more conferences and blah blah. And then I have to remind myself It's okay for things to take time.
It's okay to have one or two things I want to experiment with. And then, like you said, have my core approach or knowledge. And then remembering to that, Nothing substitutes doing the work or having the experience. That's where we really learn and really integrate. Of course it's great to get inspired, but then just pick one thing you want to try in practice,
Daniele: kind of setting a theme for the year, especially now we are in December, so it's a good thing to maybe say, Hey next year I'm going to go in more complexity or sustainability, or I want to look at I don't know, oh. Maybe I'm going to look at quantum physics and how I could relate that to service design.
It's okay, cool. Or reading more PhD stuff because I hate it. And maybe it's going to bring me some new way of thinking. I love that as a way to have a bit of a more information diet where automatically you can say. Oh that's not for now. And if it needs to come back, it will come back.
Linn: Yes. Yes. And trusting that. Oh my gosh. Thinking about what, I love that information diet. What's the information diet, the information environment we're setting up. And it's so hard because we live in a time and a culture where information is everywhere. And yeah, so I think it's really good.
How can we practice like information self care?
Join Linn's newsletter
Daniele: Perfect. So you gave a lot to people today. You shared a lot of information you gave a lot to me also. And I'd like to ask, what's a call to action that you could share with the community, in a way that they can give back to you after this the, this moment where you say this was great.
What can I do for
Linn: them? Yeah if it resonates for folks, the invitation is to sign up for Ask a Service Designer newsletter. I would love to see you there. You can do that at mademanifest. com. So it's made-manifest.com and then if you have a question that you'd like advice or a reflection on, you could submit a question.
Those would be Those are really fun because, as we talked about, that's the opportunity to share, practice, engage in dialogue, Yeah, just build that connection and knowledge and community. So I'd love if people are up for that.
Daniele: So we'll join the newsletter and send a question.
Closing words
Daniele: Is there anything that you wanted to share or say that we didn't cover yet?
Linn: I don't think so. I do want to say a thank you, Daniele. This was really fun for me and I really enjoyed my chapter and reflecting on it.
So thank you for hosting and facilitating and sharing your audience and platform and creation with everyone, I really admire that and it's fun to get to talk to peers. Yeah,
Daniele: yOu're the queen of transitions. It's awesome. It's the perfect time for me to say exactly the same.
I'm copying. Sorry. It's been really lovely, to be with you and as I said, before we had the call, I said, the one thing that I value the most for me is my time and every time I get to ask someone, to give me, an hour of their time, it feels to me like asking two millions of them, and today you gave me two million so I'm super thankful for that and not just because you gave me a lot, but also the way you interacted the way we chatted is what was extremely lovely.
I'm super thankful for that. And also super thankful for what you do with, for the community with newsletter, but also all the rest where you engage. So thank you so much for that.
Linn: Yeah. Thank you, Daniele. The feeling is mutual and I hope folks get something out of it. And we inspire some other folks.
Daniele: Absolutely. Thanks so much and have a lovely evening. Take care. Bye bye.