Despite me not being present during this weeks class (as I was currently out of the country), looking over the lecture notes was pretty easy to understand, with a lot of very helpful and interesting information.
Quite a bit was covered, with a focus on Service design, what it is, who it’s aimed at, what does it do, the impact it has, and why it’s important to know about.
I found it really interesting just how important and impactful service design actually is, and never really knew about it or how it affects me until now. I really like how an example of creating/ using an app aimed as part of a users GP is just designing for the product (the app) but I would also be designing as part of the service too.
Giving the user the ability to ‘experience’ a quick and easy way to book an appointment with their GP isn’t just good product design, but also good service design.
The difference between service and product design is, product design is considered ‘Tangible’ or better described as a physical object you can hold own, touch, like a laptop. Whereas service design is considered ‘Intangible’ described as an experience, sort of like getting a haircut, or riding a roller coaster.
For me a really helpful way to see the difference between the two would also be seeing the product as consistent like buying the same brand of chocolate will always be the same. Whereas for service design the experience is always going to vary or be completely different like playing a game of football.
After looking more into this, I needed to understand the difference between Service design and User Experience, as they sound pretty similar to one another. After a quick understanding, the best way I can describe the difference would be, UX seems to focus on the users interaction with a digital product, providing smooth and easy interactions on the likes of apps.
Whereas, Service design seems to focus on the whole aspect of a user journey from start to finish. How a ‘product’ may effect that user and what their experience was like.