Service design starts by understanding what customers experience before, during and after the transaction.
01 · The picture
Service design starts by understanding what customers experience before, during and after the transaction.
Follow the decisions
01Observe
02Understand friction
03Test a change
04Check outcomes
02 · The idea
How I understand it.
A customer experiences a service as a sequence of moments: discovering it, deciding, arriving, waiting, using it and leaving. Operational teams often see separate departments or tasks. Observe the journey from the customer's perspective and ask open questions about what happens at each stage. Look for uncertainty, unnecessary effort and points where the service promise breaks down. Then connect these observations to staffing, information, physical layout and process choices. Test a small change and watch what customers actually do. Interviews provide clues; behaviour and operational results help evaluate the response. An attractive idea still needs a delivery model the organisation can sustain. Repeat the process with different customer groups so one memorable interview does not become the whole design brief.
03 · A fictional example
Put it into a business.
A cinema assumes customers want faster ticket machines. Observation shows that families arrive unsure where to queue and whether food collection will make them late. The team tests clearer arrival signs and collection times. It measures missed starts, queue length and customer feedback before investing in more equipment or redesigning the entire entrance area during busy peak periods.
04 · Bring it into the room
At which moment in your customer journey does uncertainty or effort become most noticeable?
One decisionOne next actionOne way to check
Where this note comes from
An original explanation drawn from my saved learning material. The worked example is fictional.
Harvard OPM · Unit 2Course reading or session material
Module Overview - Operations & Technology (Raman)
Session faculty: Ananth Raman
PDF page 1; IDEO: Human-Centered Service Design session
These notes collect my interpretations and applications. The schools and authors retain their original teaching materials.