Category Archives: Design-led change
A routemap in uncharted territory
The activity of designing services, especially those that address difficult challenges in new ways, requires creative leaps – not incremental tweaks to existing products or systems. These leaps are often imagined to be the preserve of ‘creatives’: eureka moments that … Continue reading
Fixing the London cycle hire scheme
Making the most of existing technology Everyone knows why Boris Bikes are good (if you don’t, please see the bottom of the blog post). But there are some large, much-discussed problems. The alternating tides of commuters leave many stations either … Continue reading
The glamorous side to service metrics
Although metrics, measurement and target-setting may seem linked more to service management than to design; metrics have an important role to play in achieving the vision of a service. Service metrics define how a service will be built and how … Continue reading
Increasing capabilities in business
Becoming service-ready is not just about process – it’s a state of mind. That’s the word we’re aiming to spread with our next seminar for the DMI (Design Management Institute), Service Design for Business: Key Methods and Strategies for In-House … Continue reading
The New Content
What this adds up to is an evolving relationship between us, these items and the channels to using them. Continue reading
Four systematic approaches to business improvement
I was thinking about user-centred design as an idea at the hear of service design practice and the extent to which ‘starting with the user’ actually makes sense to businesses looking to improve their performance. We work with organisations that use one or more of four systematic approaches to improving business performance. Many organisations identify one of these in particular, experience-led approaches, as a gap in their capabilities. However design thinking and methods has something to offer to all four approaches. Continue reading
Nice idea – but how do we make it?
When chatting with my partner about her old life in Palo Alto as a mechanical engineer, she recalled much of her time was spent negotiating with designers. Product designers would work in their individual silos creating ‘beautiful’ designs before handing … Continue reading
The shift from infrastructure operator to service brand in the air industry
We’ve worked with a number of airport operators, helping them to respond to passengers and to design and deliver great services – critical steps to ensure profitable and sustainable growth. Below are nine factors that we see as significant: Continue reading
A bit of drama
As a director will both understand the nuances of a character, the nuances of the actor required to deliver the performance and the intricacies and politics around production, funding and marketing of a play, a service designer must reconcile the differences of a company’s function and structure with the role of frontline staff and the needs and requirements of the user. Continue reading