Service designers love simple solutions

Service designers love simple solutions

Simple solutions are also innovation

Repackaging things that exist is one type of simple innovation but there are many other types as well. I’ll quickly go through two practical examples with you. These show that stupidly simple solutions can also have a real impact.

Want a simple solution to lower your cleaning costs by 8%? Do what the Amsterdam Airport did. Just put a silly fly sticker 🚽  in the urinals. Men will stop peeing everywhere and will aim at the fly sticker. Boom! 8% less cleaning costs!

Do you want to have 100% more conversion on your website? Do what Telenor of Norway did. They removed 90% 🗑 of their website content and their conversions went up like crazy.

In my course 100 Service Design principles ⚡️, I have a whole chapter with the complete details on these examples and many more. This chapter is titled “How to Do Service Design Without a Budget for It?”. This chapter covers 20 simple solutions that have a real impact.

What does this mean for service designers?

Okay, what does all of this mean for service designers. One thing they must do is to put their egos aside.

By doing so, they automatically accept to go ahead with the unsexy, simple solutions ✅, even if they look pretty dumb to everyone else. What matters is that their solutions work. The difficult part here is usually not to come up with a solution that works but to convince people, clients, partners that even if it’s simple, it has a lot of value and potential.

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!