Service Design

Service Design: In Full Swing

The tertiary or “services” sector is undergoing considerable growth due to growing use of digital technologies. In 1960, services represented only 40% of goods consumed. Today that percentage is 60%. Businesses are working to transform consumer objects into “supports” – sensitive objects that interact with their environment.

Service design is based on understanding user behavior. The relationship with the object is pragmatic and service designers develop not only new concepts linked to social needs and economic changes, but modify the object itself, domesticating it.

Examples of success in this domain are ever more numerous: automatic tellers at banks, train ticket terminals, the Paris subway system’s Navigo Pass, the Imagine’R card, etc.

Service designers work on interfaces, navigation, and the service relationship between the user and the product.

Among the most famous examples of service design, Apple’s iPod and iPhone are iconic. The question Steve Jobs answers with various Apple objects is “What does this do for the user?” Once again it is a question of building a rationale based on the user: messages are simplified, the experience improved, including allowing the user to do without manuals. Use is becoming intuitive.

Service design is based on establishing creative scenarios for a succession of events, actions, and results. It is a design activity that organizes information and situations in order to increase efficiency, perception, and quality.

Service design applies to a new society where the value of use has replaced that of possession. The relationship with possessing objects is changing. Possessing certain objects no longer has priority. These changes in habits lead to rethinking the notion of service.

In his book “The Age of Access” economist Jeremy Rifkin defends the thesis that capitalism is no longer founded on property but on access to experiences. Consumers no longer purchase objects but moments of emotion.

Concrete translation: Paris’ Vélib’ system. Bikes are no longer purchased or rented. You pay to use, for a limited time, a means of transportation available at anytime, where you need it. Vélib’ communicates the value of its service and the return for purchasing the service. Vélib’ is a successful illustration of an urban service built around use. It is one of the reasons for its significant appropriation by users. The consequence of this implication is spontaneously translated by strong participation and creation around this new object which has received design awards.

Service design’s vocation is to develop in businesses and local authorities and constitutes a major leverage for competitiveness in businesses.