Category: Public Sector Design

  • 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…

  • Principals talking about Service Design Practice and Research

    Here are the co-author Principal Wendy Cave, Dep-Principal Sophie Bissell, and me, talking with South Aussie Principal, Adam Wilson about the Research. It’s a snappy summary and Adam has been an enthusiastic and discerning peer throughout the research. Love his work 😉 “Check out this episode where Mel Edwards, Wendy Cave and Sophie Bissell speak…

  • Sometimes You Just Have To Shut Up

    Sometimes you talk too much and you just have to shut-up. Sometimes you don’t really know what you’re talking about so you just have to shut up. Sometimes you just have nothing to add; you just have to shut up. Sometimes, if you’re having a one-sided dialogue – that’s actually a monologue, because people can’t…

  • Customer Experience Map – Redux

    At last I have updated the high-res version of my take on a customer experience map. Prompted by a request for a high-res copy (a proper high-res, mind) I decided to review and update the original customer experience map I posted in June 2010, based on my original how-to customer experience map. Much time and…

  • A state of service design (view from the top of the world)

    This top of the world! It’s been a busy month of many dialogues, conversations, presentations, seminal decisions, great client work, painful service design moments, great service design moments. That means this post has gone through some incarnations: From love letter To surprised yet slightly reserved observation To rant (strewn with swears galore…galore I tells ya!)…

  • Earning my money where my mouth is

    Over the years on this blog I have banged on about some topics with some regularity: Service design and in particular public sector service design Collaboration Techniques such as Mapping, Blueprinting, Frameworks – and just a love of the process What inspires me especially where design is about making meaning and making a difference to…

  • Simple, elegant and dignified: my favourite service design

    It is with much surpride (intentional portmanteau) that I share this blog has just passed 50,000 visits. Wow. Whodda thunk it?! In the web scheme of things I have no idea what that means but it means a lot to me that there is a design industry out there (especially in Europe me thinks from…

  • My Top Aspirational Design Companies

    Emma Jefferies is an “an award winning researcher, designer, educator, writer and more recently filmmaker” according to her blog. She is also a very active and inspiring twitterer – which is how I ‘know’ her (or of her in the tweequaintance-sense). Her site is a great resource and repository of curated design and research sources.…

  • 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 –…