I live in Switzerland. Here, around 70% of the active population works in the service industries. Services are everywhere and are the heart of our economy. Is it like that only in my little country? In its “World Development Indicators,” the World Bank Group explains that the service sector continues to dominate in high-income countries. The service sector accounted for nearly 75% of the GDP of these countries in 2014. 

But Service Design is still obscure. The way we set up human interaction between humans and services is obscure. The way we can design the experience between you and your bank, church, and hospital is pretty obscure. This little handbook gives 100 tiny and simple principles, ideas, or advice to help design better services.

The hypothesis of this course is that you don’t need to understand the full extent of Service Design to improve the user and customer experience. You don’t need to understand all the theory to create great services. 

This hypothesis is inspired by a study by Alejandro Drexler, Greg Fischer, and Antoinette Schoar. They wanted to figure out the best way to help micro-entrepreneurs learn the basics of accounting. They had three groups of entrepreneurs. The first group received classical teaching, like in a university. They received complex knowledge, which they had to master. The second group studied accounting with simple rules like “Keep personal and business money in different drawers.” The third group didn’t receive any instruction. Interestingly, the first group, which received complete instructions, and the third group, which didn’t receive any, performed at the same level.
But the group that received simple rules of thumb increased their sales by 25%. This group had also managed their accounting and cash in a much better way. 

That’s why each principle in this course is summarized in a simple rule of thumb. These simple rules of thumb should be enough for smart learners. Each principle is explained in a short video that has a little story, an example, or a study. This additional content can help you turn this principle into action.

I gathered the principles of this course over the years from many different sources. I collected them in my own experience as a Service Designer and also used my experience as a user of different services. Many principles are also inspired by psychological studies, behavioral economics experiments, and other readings. All these principles try to help you build services that are less shitty for the humans who have to use them.