Category: definitions

  • What is a Service? What is service?

    Previously, I have described a service like this: A service is the seeking and receipt of a specific outcome of a customer across a range of interactions and touchpoints over time. It’s a bit dry and analytical, but it has always worked when I’ve applied/used it in public service or community service settings. During the…

  • Six Principles of Principles

    I love a good principle. They’re fundamental in nature. Sometimes simple, often deep. They guide behaviour. They help make decisions in the complex world of multiple decisions required. They’re better when there are more than one – because nothing is ever black and white (if is it then they’re rules not principles). So when I found this…

  • What has two thumbs (down) and doesn’t care

    This designer! I recently saw Design & Thinking, the movie. Warning: if your life changed from seeing this movie don’t read on. My life didn’t change. In fact, I’ll never get those 75 minutes back. Some of my favourite things in the world are documentaries and design. I previously waxed lyrical and was genuinely energised…

  • Businessifying Design (Whating the what?)

    NB: A version of this post, written with Justin Barrie, is also published at DMA/We Think I recently saw ‘Design the New Business’ I’d heard about the movie for many months and finally had the opportunity thanks to Damien Kernahan from Proto Partners and the Canberra Service Design Drinks to see it.   A quick…

  • Schrödinger’s cat or: how observation causing nature to collapse is good information design

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOYyCHGWJq4] I just watched this video by Henry Reich from MinutePhysics* and: Discovered why I’ve struggled to write my all encompassing seminal infodesigngraphatainment post I’ve wanted to write ever since I started this blog Feel like Neo saying “I know kung fu” only I’d say “I know quantum physics” (and then I’d quickly qualify before…

  • I don’t need a vacation, I just needed my vocation re-energised

    Yesterday* something great happened that reminded me why being a designer is my vocation, not my job. A colleague in Washington DC, Leslie Tergas, attended the Transform 2011 Conference at Mayo. She presented us her highlights. The gist of Mayo, innovation and the conference: Here’s a leading organisation – good at what they do –…

  • Collaboration – that’s the name of the game

    Oh, no wait – that’s multiplication. But in a funny way, it still works. Cue quote: “The range of our collective vision is far greater when individual insights become one” Andrew Carnegie. Amen Andy. As designers we espouse the value of collaboration. But what I’ve noticed in my years in the game is sometimes a…

  • Emergence: revelations, percolations, bunnies & unicorns

    There are three notions my design mind oft returns to: ‘Time’ in the service design context – time taken, time spent, time saved (both from the design process and within the delivery of a service) Design evaluation – what is it, how do you do it What’s different about design in business that makes it…

  • I heart frameworks

    My most popular post is about customer experience maps – it gets about 50 hits a day (I’m blogging plankton in the scheme of things so 50 is a lot for me). I’m chuffed about that because maps and frameworks are just about my most favourite thing in design. They’re even a form of info…