This is a copy of the Service Design Newsletter I sent on April 8th 2023. You can join the Service Design newsletter here to get future updates directly in your inbox.

Hey lovely human 👋

This week I've published 10 new answers to Service Design questions, 3 new Principles and I shortly explain why I believe more in rules of thumb than classical academic learning.

Happy Easter and greetings from Switzerland
🐰🧔🏻‍♂️

Be empathic is a shitty advice

I believe that the best way to learn Service Design is not to focus solely on learning all the existing theories and tools (although if you want that, here is a course that provides just that). Instead, I believe learning rules of thumb based on real-world examples can be much more effective in mastering this new discipline.
 
So, what is a Service Design Principle?

"A Service Design Principle is an idea, tip, advice, or principle that improves the human experience in a simple way."

A good Service Design principle is often a tip that can be summarised as advice shared by the user of your service. For example, when it comes to making the research part of Service Design practical, here are two very down-to-earth principles:

• Eat Your Own Shit

• Don't Ask, Observe Behaviors

Instead of general advice like "be empathetic," which might leave you thinking like a philosopher but not doing anything, these practical principles can be put into action the same day you learn them.

That’s the type of principles I’m sharing in my 5-week Service Design course that starts in May.

Changelog of new Service Design content

New Service Design Principles 

1. Separate simple answers from complex answers

2. Make it clear I need to do some shit

3. Give it a start and end

Service Design Questions

Imagine there was a place where you could find an answer to all your Service Design questions. What would you search for?
 
It's now a few years since I have answered questions asked by the community and tried to give short, simple, imperfect answers that already give a sense of direction.
 
Today I've hit a pretty nice milestone: I published the 200th answer 🤯 to a Service Design question! Yes, it feels good.
 
You can help me make this library of questions and answers even better by telling me: 

What's your question about service design?

 
Just hit reply, and I'll try to answer slowly but surely :)

In the meantime, here are the latest I’ve added:

New category: Presentations and Service Design

Research reports, pitch decks, workshop slides. As a service designer, presentations are an important tool to master to share information, test ideas and motivate people. In this new category, you'll learn how to create better presentations with a touch of Service Design.

1. How to create presentations that work for multiple stakeholders?

2. What are tools to create presentations faster?

3. When should I create a presentation and when not?

4. How can I fix a presentation that goes all over the place?

5. What are good storylines I can use to structure a presentation?

6. How can I use a presentation as a prototype?

7. How to create quickly summaries for presentations?

Other new questions

1. Should feedback be free?

2. Should Service Design have another name?

3. Can I study or work in Switzerland if I don’t speak German, French or Italian?