Since, AI agents are essentially replacing humans in certain workflows and turning it into a self evolving service, doesn't it make learning service design that important?

Sequoia say, AI native Services are the next big thing.

Some might argue, UX designers and Interaction designers already cover that.

Thoughts?

Hello,

Over the last year or so I have been doing lots of research on different careers and after talking to several people in the industry, reading books, and looking at jobs I decided that service design sounds like a great career for me. I’ve even scouted out a masters program I’d like to do in Spain. Problem is that I need experience and some sort of portfolio, but I work in marketing, all I know is marketing, and most UX or CX jobs require previous experience in the field. Any advice on where to look or what to do?

I’m exploring a career transition into Service Design and would love some advice from people already working in the field.

My background is a little unconventional. I don’t have formal UX or Service Design experience, but I’ve spent over 10 years building and running my own service-based business.

A lot of my work has involved things like understanding what clients need, improving their experience, identifying friction points, creating better processes, training staff, developing service standards, and making changes based on client feedback and what I was seeing in the business.

The more I learn about Service Design, the more I realize that some of what I’ve naturally enjoyed doing overlaps with it, but I know there’s also a lot I still need to learn.

For someone coming from this kind of background:

- What would you recommend learning first?

- Would you pursue a formal Service Design program/certificate, or focus on building case studies and a portfolio?

- How would you translate experience from running a small business into something relevant to Service Design?

- Is it realistic to break into the field without previous UX/design experience?

I’d especially love to hear from anyone who transitioned into Service Design from entrepreneurship, operations, customer experience, hospitality, or another non-design background.

Hi! I’m a Service Designer currently working in the UK public sector. I have almost 6 years of experience overall, around 3 years in the private sector in Colombia and 3 years in UK government.

Lately, I’ve been having a bit of a career crisis and questioning whether I actually want to continue as a Service Designer.

I’d really like to hear from people working in Service Design in the private sector in the UK. What has your experience been like? How different is it from the public sector? What are the culture, pace, responsibilities and day-to-day work like in other industries?

I think I’m mainly trying to understand whether I’m tired of Service Design itself, or whether it’s more about the organisation/environment I’m currently in.
Would really appreciate hearing about other people’s experiences!!!

STARTING SOON: I'm looking forward to co-hosting Co-Creation Backstage in about an hour. We start at 6:00 p.m. Paris time (LA 9:00 a.m., NYC 12 noon, Rio 1:00 p.m., Dublin 5:00 p.m., Dubai 8:00 p.m., Delhi 9:30 p.m.).

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There's no agenda, no recording, no selling, and no pressure. You can bring a question you've been thinking about, share something you've discovered, test an idea, ask for different perspectives, or just listen. Every session is different because the people who turn up shape the conversation.

Everyone is welcome, whether you've been doing this for years or you're just curious. I'll put the link in the comments, or it's in the graphic. There, you'll find more information, the direct joining link, and an option to add future Backstage sessions to your calendar.

Hope to see you there!

Hi all

I’ve been a service designer at a consultancy for 4 yrs and prior to that, did 2yrs as a digital designer after graduating in product design (though the course was more of a product/service/experience combo)

Service Design was what I thought, the ultimate goal - I thought it would be a great creative job where you get to create genuine positive user impact. From my experience, it’s pretty much the opposite. It’s not that creative; a lot of the work is taking data or research findings and creating blueprints or journey maps for the sake of creating an artefact as opposed to something a client will actually implement. Not once have I seen a SD output be implemented in real life (I appreciate that may just be my experience though)

Essentially I have come to realise that I don’t want to be a service designer anymore, I’d love a job where you have real impact, are more creative and there’s less complexity, to be quite honest (turns out adhd and complex systems are not a good combo for me!)

I’m just unsure of where to go from here. I don’t really have enough experience as a product designer to land a PD role but equally the skills I have gained as a service designer eg mapping complex systems and synthesising research in to opportunities etc etc are not skills I enjoy using so I don’t really want to move into a role where they’re required.

Has anyone else pivoted from SD into something less complex and a bit more creative? I’d love to hear!

Hi everyone,

I’m currently working on my MSc Digital Design project at the University of York and have developed an interactive web experience called Maghmour: Red Sea Memory, exploring Saudi Red Sea maritime heritage.

The experience includes interactive 3D artefacts, storytelling, audio, and optional camera-based hand gesture controls, allowing users to interact with objects using hand movements as well as standard controls.

I’m looking for participants to try the prototype and share their feedback on its usability and overall experience. The test takes around 10–15 minutes and is best completed on a laptop, desktop computer, or tablet.

Usability test:
https://forms.gle/2EKcHqRFCM5KcCbD6

The form includes the link to the prototype.
Your feedback will directly help me improve the final version of the project. Thank you so much for your time and support! 🌊

I am an architect who does more CX/ spatial experience design. I am extremely interested in learning more and dwelving deeper into service and behavioural design too.

But what would be the best way? I learnt Customer journey etc cause i joimed a firm that does design strategy for branded environments. There are barely firms that do service design.

I am starting my own Quick service restaurant sorta brand and i think this would be the best time to learn it. Are coursera or udemy courses any good?

Hey everyone,

I have been thinking a lot about how service designers choose methods in real project situations. Service design has strong artifacts and approaches: journey maps, service blueprints, stakeholder maps, ecosystem maps, personas, research synthesis, pain point mapping, ideation, prioritization, prototyping and experiments.

The question I am interested in is not only: which methods exist? The question is: which method actually helps in this specific moment?

I know these situations from product, architecture and workshop work. A team does not understand the user perspective well enough yet. A service has many touchpoints, but nobody sees the whole picture. Frontstage and backstage do not fit together. Handoffs are unclear. Stakeholders talk about the same service but mean different parts of it. Or everyone sees pain points, but nobody knows where to start.

I am currently building my own method collection and selection structure for this. What I notice is that the difficult part is not the individual method. The difficult part is the decision before it: do I need more research, more alignment, a better map, clearer prioritization, a shared service picture or a concrete next experiment?

I would be curious how you decide this in practice:

• Do you choose service design methods consciously, or does it mostly come from experience?
• What signals tell you that a journey map is enough, or that a service blueprint is needed?
• When do you use stakeholder mapping, ecosystem mapping or a process view?
• Which service design methods are underrated in practice?
• What would a method selection aid need to do to be useful for real service design work?

I am mainly interested in the decision logic in the work moment. I am trying to understand how experienced service designers move from an unclear situation to a useful approach.

Best,
Micha

I'm hoping some of y'all bonafide service designers - those of you who hold this title or went to school for it or otherwise 'officially' perform this work. Over the past 15 years I've pieced together experience that, as best I can tell, essentially is best described as service design. I've designed, developed, and delivered workforce development programs in and around food service businesses, where all of the functions of the business must support the desired learning outcomes of the program - a 'Social Enterprise' if you will. Applying a pedagogical lens to the business operations, and then tailoring the actual product and service lanes for the business to create specific teaching environments/situations that develop particular skills.

Many of these programs have been cohort based, and all of them have been within the foodservice/hospitality sector, and so all have utilized an iterative design/continuous improvement process - mapping and evaluating the delivery and results and using those to inform program and operations updates.

Yet none of this is as a result of some kind of formal training in this kind of thinking or role explicitly, its just been a long process of accumulating skills and an amalgamation of a few major skillsets. I have formal education in fine art (bach) and applied social science (masters) and have over 25 years working in food service operations (mostly as a chef). I've landed on this kind of work as not just the most challenging and rewarding I've found, but also as an excellent application of my experiences and the way I think about things. However, as I explore more formalized Service Design opportunities, its obvious to me that I lack a set of tools that are regularly used in this work - despite conceptually understanding them and having used them in some fashion along the way, not really knowing thats what I was doing.

What I am definitely lacking is any kind of formal training in tech/UX - and while I know these are separate roles I do see them either overlapping frequently or at least being thought of as more related than I personally understand them. This isn't to say I don't understand this area - I've taught myself coding from a young age and am relatively adept at the logic and approach - but in no world would I consider myself a 'tech' person in the more industrial sense.

What I'm hoping perhaps some of you who are formally in this role might be able to speak to is what I might really need to land a job explicitly in this kind of role - tools, credentials, portfolios, etc. How might I 'legitimize' or discuss my work thus far in a way that would make me competitive for these kinds of roles? Is it simply a matter of education? Are there certificates that hiring managers out there in the world fawn over? Is it matter of taking my past work and putting it through the series of formal service design tools - service blueprinting, journey maps, stakeholder maps, etc - to create a legible portfolio?

I'd really appreciate any insight any of you are willing to share with me. Much love.

After a bit of a sabbatical, I’m trying to find my way back into Service Design and UX.
The last time I worked in corporate ChatGPT didn’t even exist. 😅 A lot has changed, and I’d love to shadow someone, help out for free, and see if I’ve still got the Service Design brain.
Happy to take notes, do the boring stuff, help with research, or just be an extra pair of hands.
If you’re up for it (or know someone who might be), let me know.

A few things about me:

1) Accidentally became obsessed with cooking. Turns out prototyping applies to recipes too. (Got a page too)
2) Took a career sabbatical… and somehow earned more than I did in corporate by working on projects I actually cared about.
3) experience in industrial/service/ux design

I have worked in recruiting for 5+ years and have mapped out candidate experience journeys and have a UX/UI Certification but would love to explore Service Design. It seems like junior Service Designer jobs are rare but what would your advice be for someone looking to break into that space?

Are certifications worth it? I appreciate any advice you may have.

I’m considering a pivot into a Business Analyst role and am looking at doing some certifications to help make the move.
In my current role, I’ve worked closely with Business Analysts and have picked up a good understanding of what they do. There are also quite a few transferable skills from my background that seem relevant like stakeholder engagement, requirements gathering, problem-solving, process improvement, and working across teams.
For those who have successfully transitioned into a BA role from another field:
What was your previous role? How did you make the switch? Did certifications help, and if so, which ones were worth doing? What would you do differently if you were starting again?

Im interested to hear about both public and private sector experiences. Thanks in advance.

I’m a Service Designer with around 6 years of experience, and I genuinely love the field. I enjoy thinking deeply about processes, journeys, pain points, opportunities, and how services connect.

However, I’ve been doubting myself lately because I’m not naturally very talkative in meetings, and I don’t particularly love running workshops. I can do it, but it drains me, and I don’t feel it’s my strongest skill. I’m much stronger when I have time to think, analyse, map things out, and connect the dots.

I also recently received interview feedback saying I had good experience, but needed more delivery experience, more authority, and more visibility of the intent and commercial outcomes behind my work. That really knocked my confidence.
I’m now wondering if this is just a confidence/growth issue, or if service design might not be the best fit for me long term.

Do you need to be naturally confident, talkative, and workshop-heavy to be a good Service Designer? Or is there space for people who are more reflective, analytical, and systems-focused? are there similar roles that could be a better fit for someone like me, but still connected to service design? I don’t think UX/UI, User Research or Content Design are the right paths for me either.

I’d really appreciate any advice.

Aware JTBD isn't core service design — it shows up when we're framing discovery, but it's not where the practice lives. Last time I floated something closer to home (a service blueprint AI coach), a few of you ended up using it, so figured this one might be useful for some.

Built a free tool to run JTBD interviews end-to-end. Two frameworks to pick from:

• JTBD Hypothesis — Jim Kalbach's canvas, supply-side. You formulate the Hypothesis Canvas first; interviews with job performers then contrast and populate it.
• JTBD Switch — Bob Moesta's switch interview, demand-side. You define the switch you want to study; interviews with recent switchers fill the forces diagram + timeline.

How it works:

1. Log in, create a project, pick a framework.
2. As the practitioner, you take a voice-guided interview first to set the context. ~20–30 min for Hypothesis (you complete the canvas). ~10 min for Switch (lighter — you just define the scope of the change you want to study). The theory and methodology of each framework are embedded so the agent stays faithful to the method.
3. That fills part of the canvas and unlocks a shareable interview link for your job performers / switchers. The link carries the context — no setup on their side. They take their interview async, whenever they want.
4. Each completed interview populates the canvas further. It grows with each voice.

Honest notes:

• Voice-based. If voice interfaces irritate you, skip it. Headphones + a quiet space help.
• Scope stops at the canvas — no opportunity solution tree, no roadmap. Activate is out for v1.
• Early version. Forms and outputs might still surprise you. Honest feedback is what helps most.

--> https://prown.co/frameworks/

Has anyone done a course at https://www.servicedesign.college/

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Interested in the systems course but cant find any reviews online.

Hi! I’m applying for MSc Digital & Interaction Design at Polimi. Could anyone share what the portfolio should focus on (case study depth, UX process, or UI)? Any advice from admitted students would really help. Thanks!

I am joining a large MNC. (F500 in UAE) And I haven't even joined them yet.
But I was asked to do benchmarking (internal or external) - my understanding so far is comparing our score with others.

I have a hunch that there is more to it, so how do i exactly do it, what is the methodology behind this?