Service designers are not the experts, others are

Service designers are not the experts, others are


Service designers focus on a human-centered approach. This means that they want to create services that people will enjoy using 🙂.


If you need to make users happy, you as a designer are not the expert anymore. This is because you don’t know everything about the users you are trying to serve. But the users that you are serving, they know pretty much all about themselves, right? 


That’s why service designers don’t consider themselves as the experts. They believe that the users are the experts 🧠 of how a service makes them feel. Service designers believe that employees are the experts about how it feels to do all the hard work to serve clients.


Service designers know they are not the experts but that others are. That’s why they will use plenty of methods, tools, and approaches to better understand what people want and need 🔎. 


Arguably, if they have one expertise, it’s the one of extracting the information they need from other experts. These experts are often the end users, employees, and other stakeholders 👫. But definitely not the service designers themselves.

Free Course: What is the Service Designer mindset?

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About this course

  • Why I created this course
  • What you’ll learn

1. Service designers focus on a human-centered approach

  • Introduction
  • Service designers believe everyone is a user
  • Service designers are not the experts, others are1
  • Recommended course: 100 Service Design Principles
  • Service designers believe perception is key

2. Service designers love to make shit happen

  • Introduction
  • Service designers prototype instead of talking
  • Service designers love to fail
  • Service designers go from low fidelity to high fidelity

3. Service designers are lazy

  • Introduction
  • Service designers steal and adapt tools from smarter people
  • Service designers look for lazy solutions
  • Service designers repackage older ideas
  • Service designers love simple solutions

4. Service designers don’t think in terms of silos but in journeys

  • Introduction
  • Service designers believe services are like icebergs
  • Service designers think in journeys
  • Service designers aren't focused on just one company

5. Service designers deal with uncertainty

  • Introduction
  • Service designers accept that they are weak
  • Service designers understand the phases of a design project
  • They separate divergent from convergent thinking
  • Recommended Article: The Design Process: What is the Double Diamond?3
  • Service designers know that innovation is a mess
  • Recommended Reading: The Design Squiggle Story
  • Service designers know that change needs many steps
  • Recommended Reading: Understanding the Kubler-Ross Change Curve
  • Service designers make step-by-step decisions2
  • Recommended Video: An Introduction to Assumptions Mapping with David J. Bland1
  • Recommended Video: Introducing the Eisenhower Matrix
  • Recommended Reading: How to Use Dot Voting Effectively1
  • Service designers summarize what they learn
  • Recommended Reading: Affinity Diagramming for Collaboratively Sorting UX Findings and Design Ideas
  • Service designers verify what they have learned from different angles

Going further

  • Bravo 👏
  • Resources to go further1
  • 💌 Your next courses and your personal coupon code
  • Thank you!