Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Adam StJohn Lawrence on December 27, 2009 at 12:16

Hi Marc,

Great idea!

My first impression is that the graphic design, while attractive, puts aesthetics above usability. The abundance of white space looks great, but means that the text is small, blocky and rather difficult to read.

Also, some subtitles or bolding within the text would - sure - look messy, but would help us find our way around better. An extreme form, which works brilliantly from the usability point of view, is Tom Peter's "Re-Imagine". Messy as hell, but, it is really easy to see what is important, what leads to where, and what you can come back to later. Better service design, I think.

In short, I'd rather have less Zen and more readability.

Put another way, perhaps more service and less design? ;)

Adam

Permalink Reply by Marc Stickdorn on December 30, 2009 at 11:34

Hi Adam,

thanks for both your contribution and your comments! Your previous post was more regarding to the layout - what do you think about the content? Does it cover more or less the field in an easy readible language?

Honest comments are very welcome! :)

Many thanks,
Marc

Permalink Reply by Jakob Schneider on December 30, 2009 at 13:29

Hi Adam,

thanks for your reply. Of course, we’ve discussed very much about the balance of "service" and "design" within this book. I totally understand and subscribe to your critique. However, these are just a few pages from the book. They are this simple and empty and clear because they deal with the very basics of the book that will guide you through other texts later on.

Especially when it comes to longer texts, we make use of many different visualisation and structurisation techniques.

Just had a look at your example from Tom Peter – which’s made me smile: I didn’t know that one, but have a look at another preview of some text pages below (only dummy text, don’t try to read it ...) Just for your interest. :)

Again, thanks for your comment.

Best,
Jakob

Permalink Reply by Adam StJohn Lawrence on December 30, 2009 at 13:54

To be honest, Marc, it's simply too small to read on my 13 inch macbook. :(

Is there a simple text file / doc / zoomable PDF somewhere?

Adam

Permalink Reply by Matt Currie on January 1, 2010 at 9:12

Hi Marc. Submitted some thoughts via panoremo. I hope you get them ok.

Generally I like the chapter, and the concept of principles of service design thinking. I wonder how the chapter might benefit from the addition of a more basic and explicit description of what service design is? Perhaps this might complement the principles, in a scene-setting kind of way - so the reader can say "ok I know what service design is, now I'm going to read about the principles of service design thinking"...

By the way, who's the intended audience for the book?

Permalink Reply by Marc Stickdorn on January 2, 2010 at 11:12

Hi Matt,

thanks for your reply! Unfortunately, I can't find your spots on our panoremo site. Did you submit your responses at the end?

There will be a collection of very short definitions of service design before this chapter. It is followed by a variety of professionals with different backgrounds explaiing their own idea of/contribution to service design. After the part on methods/tools we'll present a few case studies to exemplify how it works.. Hence, the principles are just a basic introduction to the field in general.

The intended audience are all people wo want to know what service design is about and how it works, e.g. students or workshop participants. On a wider scale of course also those who run workshops/lecture service design and need a fast and easy readible reference.

Permalink Reply by Matt Currie on January 3, 2010 at 4:46

I'm sure I remember pressing the submit button - are there any known browser issues with panoremo? I was using Chrome...

Anyway, as I contemplated re-doing my responses I noticed that you'd said the intended audience included 'all people who want to know what service design is' and thought that instead of trying to retrace my thoughts from the first submission attempt I'd offer another angle for you - that of the person who has no view on service design and is approaching the topic for the first time. So I tried to forget my pre-existing views and knowledge on the topic and re-read the first couple of pages. I've jotted down a 'think aloud' kind of narrative of my thoughts and actions.

Would you like me to share this? If so where should I send it. I'm not confident re-submitting through panoremo, but I'd be quite happy to post it here.

Matt

Permalink Reply by Marc Stickdorn on January 3, 2010 at 11:37

Hi Matt,

I just discovered some problems with panoremo. The hotspots-site only shows the first 10 respondents.. I just hope the saved the other respondents as well!?

Great idea to read it with the angle of a "newbie". Yes, please feel free to post it here!Thanks a lot and I am curious about this..

But first have a good time at the beach! ;)

Marc

Permalink Reply by Marc Stickdorn on January 4, 2010 at 8:43

Hi Matt,

the bug got fixed. Your feedback is now visible! Many thanks for the hint!

Marc

Permalink Reply by Matt Currie on January 10, 2010 at 22:06

Here's the think aloud sample from my attempt to read as a 'newbie'. Hope it is useful to you.

So I read the title page, 'what is service design?', 'basics' - OK so this chapter's all about a basic definition of service design...hmmm second page reads 'what is service design?', '5 principles of service design thinking' - now I'm thinking where'd 'service design thinking' come from? I don't even know what service design is yet! Alright, read on. '...inter-disciplinary approach..'? inter-disciplinary approach to what: service design or defining service design thinking? '...ignoring single points of view...' sounds like a good thing to avoid. 2nd page now, nice to see a diagram early on and it's easy to understand at a glance. Hang on, 'This is the story of an innocent user...', wonder what 'innocent' means here? What's the user innocent of? And there doesn't seem to be any connection between all the people in this diagram. Next page: Q - 'What is Service Design?' A - 'It is user-centered' - hmmm, seems like a strange way to answer the question, almost avoiding it rather than answering it. OK, reading the italicised intro paragraph, what does 'homogeneous' mean again, think it means 'same', check dictionary.com to confirm...

Permalink Reply by Marc Stickdorn on January 4, 2010 at 10:24

Great to see the feedback developing. Please feel invited to add further comments:
http://www.susagroup.com/marcstickdorn

I want to use this chance to reply to a few points:

-> The English is not perfect - simply becourse English is not my first language and this is just a draft version, which has not been proofread yet. Certainly the final version will be better!

-> A legend for all used icons can be found on a foldout page. I guess this will clarify the illustrations a bit more.

-> I like the idea of starting with an overview of the principles. However, I am not sure if this really helps to understand them more. But I'll try it..

-> A few comments question the interchanging use of service and product. I have to admit, this is just due to my background (tourism products are services..). I will consistently use services.

-> Some comments referred to missing theory and references. I would agree on this if it was an academic paper, but the aim of this introduction is to recap service design in a more illustrative manner, providing an easy access to the field - also for those with no previous knowledge. We'll have a whole chapter covering recent academic research & publications on service design as well as many (academic) guest authors from various disciplines explaining their point of view in a more academic way. Therefore, we'll also have a lot of theory and references in the book. And this is exactly why the introduction should have less.. Do you agree?

-> I understand that some of the principle titles are overused (like holistic) and also the wording might not be perfect. I think most agreed on co-creative, but some criticised:
- user-centered should be customer-centered.
- the "-ing" form used in evidencing and sequencing.
- sequencing could be also mapping or journeys (Although I still prefer sequencing since it describes the idea more generally..).

How would you name them? What would you suggest? Many thanks for all your feedback and help so far. It is simply great to work with such a motivated community and although co-creating a book is quite a lot of work, I think it is the right way to establish a common language. Please see also Fergus Bisset new blog post "an introduction to the fundamentals of motivation".

Thank you!
Marc

Permalink Reply by Matt Currie on January 10, 2010 at 22:45

I've had a go at re-framing the principles as a prototype of mantra/commandments for service designers. I just throw this out there to maybe spark some tangential thinking on your questions above - I'm not suggesting that this be what appears in the book.

Design the service:

- for the people who will use it (user-centered)
- with the people who will use it (co-creative)
- so that all its elements are well connected (sequencing)

I didn't try and include 'evidencing' in this just yet, because I'm still trying to get my head around what it means. Also on re-read I felt that the chapters' descriptions of 'holistic' and 'sequencing' were similar enough to group those two principles together.

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