{"id":4037,"date":"2021-11-12T08:34:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-12T08:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/?p=4037"},"modified":"2021-11-15T10:15:06","modified_gmt":"2021-11-15T10:15:06","slug":"the-truth-of-designing-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/","title":{"rendered":"The Truth of Designing Services"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this blog Sam Ernstzen, Digital Service Standard Assessor within Scottish Government’s Directorate for Internal Audit and Assurance, and Serena Nusing, Senior Service Designer, based within Scottish Government’s Digital Directorate share with you five truths about designing services.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Being experienced service designers we see very common things across projects. We thought sharing what we see will help others design better services. We call them \u2018The Truth of Designing Services\u2019. They are relevant for any type of service no matter if you\u2019re designing a public service for citizens, developing an internal service or improving an existing service interaction.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In this blog we will share with you five truths about designing services. We will also offer a reflective question for you to ponder about your own service and tips on how to identify how to see where this is impacting you in your organisation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a01. Everybody needs to have needs for your service<\/b><\/h3>\n

We consider the needs of all users in a service, this includes, frontline staff, partners, service owners as well as end-users.\u00a0 In order for a service to perform, it needs to work for everyone. Understanding why your service exists and the outcomes it needs to achieve for all users is the foundation of creating a well performing service.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Question:<\/b> Do you know who all your users are, their needs and the outcomes they want to achieve?<\/span><\/p>\n

Tip:<\/b> Reframe objectives and needs as outcomes for each user group, don\u2019t forget internal users!<\/span><\/p>\n

2. People choose the path of least resistance<\/b><\/h3>\n

Humans tend to be hardwired to follow the path of least resistance, cutting out things that they don\u2019t understand or perceive as necessary. The same is true for users of your service, they want to avoid any form of complication and will try to find a way that has the least effort for them. The amount of effort users need to perform to get their tasks done, impacts how positively they will experience it – it will in turn impact the performance of your service.\u00a0 Introducing increased numbers or transactions, through errors, confusion or clarification all create resistance in your service that needs to be eradicated.<\/span><\/p>\n

Question:<\/b>\u00a0 How are you creating resistance in your journeys and or services you offer to customers?<\/span><\/p>\n

Tip:<\/b> Look for the things you think customers get \u2018wrong\u2019 all the time e.g. incomplete information or eligibility criteria? Look for the errors in applications or frequently asked questions. Make sure users can access, use and exit your service.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Any issue a user encounters will all negatively impact the performance of the service<\/b><\/h3>\n

Every service operates as part of a wider ecosystem – think about buying a house and all the different people that are involved in this to make it happen. A service weaves through an organisation\u2019s system and depends on the integration of relevant resources, structures and people for its success. Any friction or issue a user experiences when using your service, will negatively impact the performance of your service. If you only look at the parts you are responsible for, the other parts may not work or join up properly, which would mean the overall experience using the service is still poor. Building a shared understanding of the breadth and complexity of the ecosystem of your service early-on will help you to not only improve the user\u2019s experience but also the performance of your service. You might not have responsibility for any issues but it is your problem.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Question:<\/b> What are all the parts of your organisation that your service touches?\u00a0 Are you aware of what happens when any part of your process encounters any interface, even if it is not technically your responsibility? How do these processes influence the overall\u00a0 performance of your service?<\/span><\/p>\n

Tip: <\/b>Focus on the handover points in your service – these tend to be the weakest points, where there is the greatest chance of confusion and poor experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 A good idea, a good technology or processes alone will deliver an experience but not the ones you want<\/b><\/h3>\n

Many projects start with a new idea, replacing old technology or reviving processes that are out of date. These legacy technologies have been driving the user and staff experience – which often means they are delivering a poor user experience, think about all the workarounds you may have implemented or the repeat processing or disconnect between online and offline processes. This is not sustainable and can cause low customer satisfaction, complaints as well as low staff engagement. We can also get fixated on the latest technology – but we need to understand how it will help our organisation deliver a better service and better user experience. Technology, processes and ideas rarely work in isolation and are just one part of the whole service experience you need to design.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Question:<\/b> What new technologies, ideas or processes are you implementing?\u00a0 How do you know it will improve the delivery of your service and user experience?<\/span><\/p>\n

Tip: <\/b>Look deeper at new initiatives you are implementing, check in with the people who are impacted by this change. Will it help them to achieve their outcomes?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

5. More time for designing leads to less time fixing later<\/b><\/h3>\n

It\u2019s easier and quicker to iterate a designed service than trying to make major rebuilds to an existing one. Making sure you understand the pain points and gaps in your service and forging short term mitigations and fixes is the best way to prevent major re-works post launch. You may not have the complete answer but having a list of fixes and implementing a plan for continuous improvements will make sure that you stay one step ahead.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Question:<\/b> What insights do you have that could be explored deeper?<\/span><\/p>\n

Tip:<\/b> Test ideas with users, especially ones that you are not sure about. It will take you a little bit of time to get set up but it\u2019s absolutely worth it as it speeds things up later. Good services are designed – they don\u2019t just happen.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Keep these truths in mind when you\u2019re designing\u00a0 services. They will come about anyway but it\u2019s up to you if you just let them happen or if you consider them in the service experience you\u2019re creating.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you have any questions or want to know more about service design, please feel free to get in touch via email:\u00a0\u00a0Samantha.Ernstzen@gov.scot<\/a> or\u00a0Serena.Nusing@gov.scot<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this blog Sam Ernstzen, Digital Service Standard Assessor within Scottish Government’s Directorate for Internal Audit and Assurance, and Serena Nusing, Senior Service Designer, based within Scottish Government’s Digital Directorate share with you five truths about designing services.\u00a0 Being experienced service designers we see very common things across projects. We thought sharing what we see…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":597,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166,5,181],"tags":[19,297,59,115],"class_list":["post-4037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-digital","category-digital-public-services","category-user-centred-design","tag-digital","tag-service-delivery","tag-service-design","tag-user-centred-design"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Truth of Designing Services - Digital<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Truth of Designing Services - Digital\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In this blog Sam Ernstzen, Digital Service Standard Assessor within Scottish Government’s Directorate for Internal Audit and Assurance, and Serena Nusing, Senior Service Designer, based within Scottish Government’s Digital Directorate share with you five truths about designing services.\u00a0 Being experienced service designers we see very common things across projects. We thought sharing what we see...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Digital\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-11-12T08:34:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-11-15T10:15:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"deborahamzil\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"deborahamzil\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"deborahamzil\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/#\/schema\/person\/bb87d49c6192151dc162be5604fc7aab\"},\"headline\":\"The Truth of Designing Services\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-11-12T08:34:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-11-15T10:15:06+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/\"},\"wordCount\":1077,\"commentCount\":0,\"keywords\":[\"digital\",\"service delivery\",\"service design\",\"user centred design\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Digital\",\"Digital Public Services\",\"User-Centred Design\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/\",\"name\":\"The Truth of Designing Services - Digital\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2021-11-12T08:34:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-11-15T10:15:06+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/#\/schema\/person\/bb87d49c6192151dc162be5604fc7aab\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Truth of Designing Services\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/\",\"name\":\"Digital\",\"description\":\"Updates from the Scottish Government's Digital Directorate\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/#\/schema\/person\/bb87d49c6192151dc162be5604fc7aab\",\"name\":\"deborahamzil\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/author\/deborahamzil\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Truth of Designing Services - Digital","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Truth of Designing Services - Digital","og_description":"In this blog Sam Ernstzen, Digital Service Standard Assessor within Scottish Government’s Directorate for Internal Audit and Assurance, and Serena Nusing, Senior Service Designer, based within Scottish Government’s Digital Directorate share with you five truths about designing services.\u00a0 Being experienced service designers we see very common things across projects. We thought sharing what we see...","og_url":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/","og_site_name":"Digital","article_published_time":"2021-11-12T08:34:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-11-15T10:15:06+00:00","author":"deborahamzil","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"deborahamzil","Estimated reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/"},"author":{"name":"deborahamzil","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/#\/schema\/person\/bb87d49c6192151dc162be5604fc7aab"},"headline":"The Truth of Designing Services","datePublished":"2021-11-12T08:34:00+00:00","dateModified":"2021-11-15T10:15:06+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/"},"wordCount":1077,"commentCount":0,"keywords":["digital","service delivery","service design","user centred design"],"articleSection":["Digital","Digital Public Services","User-Centred Design"],"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/","url":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/","name":"The Truth of Designing Services - Digital","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/#website"},"datePublished":"2021-11-12T08:34:00+00:00","dateModified":"2021-11-15T10:15:06+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/#\/schema\/person\/bb87d49c6192151dc162be5604fc7aab"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2021\/11\/12\/the-truth-of-designing-services\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Truth of Designing Services"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/#website","url":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/","name":"Digital","description":"Updates from the Scottish Government's Digital Directorate","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-GB"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/#\/schema\/person\/bb87d49c6192151dc162be5604fc7aab","name":"deborahamzil","url":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/author\/deborahamzil\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/597"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}