Hey lovely human 👋

This is a copy of the Service Design Newsletter I sent on April 2nd 2023. You can join the Service Design newsletter here to get future updates directly in your inbox.

In this week's Service Design Digest, I have for you:

• A video instead of a story 🚽

• 3 new Service Design Principles 💡

• 7 new Answers to Service Design Questions 🙋‍♂️

• 2 backstage blog posts 📝

• And a few tiny updates about my next book, the Service Design Papers database, and a bug I'm sorry for.

Greetings from Lausanne, Switzerland,
Daniele 🧔🏻‍♂️

p.s. all links and details are below for when you're less busy 👇

🚽 Learning Service Design on the toilets is possible

I don’t have a long story for you today because I’d love you to watch this 1-minute and 30 seconds clip from the 5-week Service Design course.
In the video, I share a simple service design principle you can apply to your service or product: Ask Unnecessary Emotional Information.
 
Check it out and let me know what you think.

 

💡New Service Design Principles

“A Service Design Principle is an idea, a tip, an advice or a principle  to improve the human experience.” These are the latest principles I've been working on.

1. Take a break before reacting

2. Structure your documents with questions and answers

3. Don't create anything new first, start by giving value

🙋‍♂️ New Service Design Questions

I'm slowly building a library of answers to the most common questions about Service Design. Here are the new ones:

1. What should I pursue, service design or UX design?

2. Why am I not getting any interviews for service designer jobs?

3. What’s the best way to gain real world experience when starting in service design?

4. What are the most important things to consider when becoming a senior service designer? How can people achieve this goal?

5. Is it possible for a junior service designer to do freelance work?

6. What’s the benefit of learning service design for a UX designer ?

7. How can I bring together a marketing approach and service design approach in my service blueprint?

55% of Service Design Academic Papers categorised

For the nerds out there: now 55% of the 900+ Service Design academic papers I have in my database are now tagged with at least one topic 😓 Now there are 13 new categories to explore. It takes ages but we're slowly getting there.
 
Here are the new categories:

1. Value

2. Humour and fun

3. Community

4. Simulation

5. Science

6. Mapping

7. Foresight and future

8. Open Service Design

9. Excellence and perfection

10. Issues and problems

11. Leadership

12. Introduction and Service Design 101

13. Youth

For those interested, you can get access to the Notion database here.

Upcoming: Getting in the mind of someone hiring a service designer

I'm working on a new community project where I asked a few hiring managers to review the application material of service designers on video. I believe this will help answer the question that I get from many young service designers, which is:
 

What do the people who hire service designers want to see in a portfolio? And what happens in the mind of a hiring manager when he goes through a portfolio?

This project will take a few weeks and months to see the light of day, but it will be really helpful for the community.
 
If in the past you’ve hired service designers and want to help, let me know, and I’ll share more information with you.
 
Megan Miller, Karen Rozenbaum ,Linn Vizard, Andy Polaine, Trixy (Arundhati) Basu, Gavin Mandrelle and Wim Rampen for giving from their personal time and energy to help in this community project ❤️ They all do this in a volunteer mode just to help the community, so don't hesitate to thank them 🤓
 

Progress on the next book in the Service Design Principle series

The first 42 drafts (of 100) for my next book are visible now to all 🤫
 
I have this crazy goal of publishing five books in the Service Design Principles series before my kid goes to school. Don't ask me for a deep why.
 
This goal helped me go through the first rough days with a loud crying baby and gave me a sense of power when the rest was a bit more chaotic (diapers, every 30-minute wake-up, you all know that). Now the hard phase passed, but the crazy goal stayed 🙃
 
Last year's book was under the sign of the community. This year I'm returning to that series's origins with a more relaxed writing style and process.
 
Last year the book really got out nearly right before the end of the year. This time, I want to get ready sooner to have a less stressed end of the year.
 
If you're curious, you can already read the shitty drafts here.

Another week, another bug 🤦‍♂️: newsletter welcome message

Some of you got the automated message welcoming you to the newsletter a second time early this week. Really sorry about that bug. I’m in touch with the people at Podia to see why that bug happened and how we can avoid this happening again.
 
At least it’s the opportunity for me to tell you this: it’s really an honour to have you in this little community! If there’s something you think could be changed in this newsletter to make it even more useful to you, let me know 🙂

Backstage articles

I love to explain how I'm building educational content. I'm trying to be as transparent as possible so that it might motivate others to create such content too. These are the latest blog posts I've written:

1. Why I asked a pro photographer to create a library of portraits

2. The newsletter has a new archive page