Learning Service Design in a bar? - Newsletter of June 18th 2023

This is a copy of the Service Design Newsletter I sent on June 22nd 2023. You can join the Service Design newsletter here to get future updates directly in your inbox.


Hey lovely human 👋

Here's a recap of all the new Service Design content I produced this week:

  • 1 short reflection about the language 🍺 we use to teach Service Design

  • 4 answers with video to common Service Design questions about mentoring 💡, service blueprints 🗺️, portfolios 📢 and collaboration 🫶

  • 2 new Service Design Principles and 1 updated

  • 1 new backstage blog post


Greetings from Switzerland,
Daniele 🧔🏻‍♂️
p.s. all the links are below 👇






I prefer to learn from a friend in a bar than from an academic paper. 

What do I mean by that? 

Most academic papers are written in English, but not in a very accessible way. The people who wrote them use very fancy and complicated words, making them hard to understand for people like me. 

But what if we taught Service Design in the same way we talk to friends in a bar?

We get excited, maybe swear a little, and in the end, the ideas get across without using complex language.
 
Instead of using "stakeholders" and other jargon, we just say, "These are your partners. These are the people you work with". We use the same language we use between friends.
 
This simple language makes learning quick and accessible both for the beginner and the expert.
 
Even better, when we use simple words, we make sure that people from all around the world, who just speak a little bit of that language, like me with English, can learn!

This tiny article is inspired by one of the “Seven Powers of Principles” I mentioned during my Service Design Webinar of December 2022. You can rewatch the full thing for free if you are curious.


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.

New principles

  1. Give an example of what you mean with that term

  2. Ask yourself: what if it was easy?

Updated principle

This Service Design Principle has a new draft. Once you open the link, scroll to the bottom to see the latest version.

  1. Let me choose how you reach back


Service Design Questions

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

New questions

  1. Where can I find a Service Design mentor or coach?

  2. Can I make a Service Design Portfolio with Notion?

  3. How can I make a Service Blueprint less overwhelming?

  4. What are some best practices for collaborating with a service designer on a project?


Backstage blog article

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. How long does it take to make a video Q&A?


My question for you, the curious mind

If you made it so far in the newsletter, it's that you are a curious human! Might I ask you: how do you feel about the addition of video to the the Service Design questions and answers? Do you watch them? Or do you still read the text?