Service Design Newsletter of August 15th 2022

This is a preview of the Service Design newsletter I sent on Monday 15th of August 2022. 


Here's a quick summary of what I have for you today:

  1. My third webinar on Service Design will be on Saturday, the 27th of August. You can send your questions in advance 🤓.

  2. You can now access 60 Service Design questions and answers for free 🎁.

  3. The writing of the book "Service Design Principles 201-300" is going well! I expect to have it ready for the end of the year. You can access all the drafts already now as a member of this newsletter 🤗 

  4. Want to help me co-create the book cover? You can discover my first prototypes below.

  5. I have collected for you one book quote, one definition and one tool that should help you in your service design practice.


Greetings from Switzerland,
Daniele 🧔🏻‍♂️

p.s. as usual, you have more details if you are curious below 👇

When will the next Service Design webinar be?

The third webinar on Service Design will be on Saturday 27th of August at 13:00 (Swiss Time). See the event time in your local time.


During this free one-hour session, you'll discover some of my favourite Service Design Principles, followed by a Questions and Answers session on Service Design.

Here are already a few community questions that people sent in advance:

  1. "How can you work in a service design job if you don’t come from a service design degree." — Joana L.

  2. "How can I show complex  Service Design work in an attractive without downplaying the efforts that went into it?" — Serene Yap

  3. "How can you show that different backgrounds contribute to the service design work in valid ways." — Joana L.


Do you have an unanswered Service Design question you'd like me to cover during this webinar? 


A tiny library of Service Design questions and answers

So far, I've collected about 60 common Service Design questions people ask me pretty often, and I've collected some quick answers in videos or writing about each of them. You can check them for free here.

Random Service Design Inspiration 

  1. Book quote: A good rule of thumb for decision making: “RISK: If risks are known, good decisions require logic and statistical thinking. UNCERTAINTY: If some risks are unknown, good decisions also require intuition and smart rules of thumb. ” — A quote from the book “Risk Savvy”

  2. Definition: Prototype: “A prototype is a model built to test a concept with end users in order to learn from. Prototyping helps understand real, working conditions rather than a theoretical conditions.” — Matthew Weprin

  3. Tool: Feedback Frames, a perfect group decision-making tool * No batteries required

New Service Design Principles

These are all the new Service Design Principles drafts I've written in the last few weeks:

  1. Observe what people don't say or do

  2. Help the newbies without slowing the pros

  3. Leave me with a physical reminder and summary of the service

  4. Ask who really has the power

  5. Offer the same service but alternative experiences that include everyone

  6. Test your idea against the ones from your competitors

  7. Make me see my progress creatively

  8. Every service, even the most simple and boring one, can add a wow factor to it.

Updated Service Design Principles

Here you find all the principles that have a new updated draft:

  1. Let me remove things your AI shouldn't use for recommendations

  2. Remember that I have multiple roles in my life

  3. Help first those who you can impact the most

  4. Let me do this for another person too

  5. Imagine the shortcuts people will take

  6. Show me you care in different ways

  7. Detect if I'm fed up

  8. Don’t be creative when it’s urgent


How's the next Service Design book writing going?

The writing of "Service Design Principles 201-300" is going well!

  • 66 drafts are already available in the community I built, where people can follow my writing journey and share their feedback.

  • 53 of the principles already have a second draft.

  • 14 Service Design Principles are based on stories shared by the community! Thanks to Caio B. Nishihara de Albuquerque, Daniel Tuitt, Patrizia Lamprecht, Swareena Johshi, Guy Martin and Romain Collaud.

  • 2 more community-based Service Design principles are already in the pipeline.


The road is obviously still long as each Service Design Principle has to go through at least 4 drafts before being able to get in the book.

Hemul Neelu Goel told me in her book review about the second book in this series: "Diverse instances from other parts of the world could offer interesting perspectives." and that's exactly what's my focus for the next months for the writing of this third book. Thanks, Hemul. Your feedback really helped shape this new book.

Book cover: first prototype

I'm slowly working on the cover of my next book. This edition has something special. It benefits from community inspiration 👬, and I'd like it to be visible already on the cover.



I haven't made the illustration yet that will be part of the book cover, but just a rough text layout.

What do you think? Should I develop rather:

✅ Option A: that still includes the description of the book
✅ Option B: which is more radical and shows the community first

It's still a long road of many months until the final book is here but working on the book cover is always a very interesting prototype that boosts motivation.

What happens next?

In about two weeks, I'll take three days of deep work to make a frog leap on the writing of the book.

After that, I'll continue to get more people to share inspiring service experiences that could serve as an inspiration for a community-inspired Service Design Principle.

If this sounds interesting to you, just reply with "I'd like to co-create", and I'll give you more details 🤓

Still here? I have a last question.

I'm playing with the structure of this newsletter. How do you feel about this longer and more focused on Service Design newsletter?