Service design, as well as Ux design, are an integral part of the design thinking journey. One must be well aware of their definition, similarities, points of difference before using any of the two in the product development. Let us have a look at each of them in-depth.
What is UX design?
UX is all about the user's interaction with a product and their experience with it. It is all about the client. The client's expectations, experience, and feedback are at the top-most priority. The main focus of UX design is to create products that provide relevant and meaningful experiences to their customers. UX is responsible for the smooth navigation across the platform and working on the feedback given by the users. As a UX designer, you have to put yourself in their shoes and experience the product from a third-person perspective.
What is Service design?
Interaction with the users, touchpoints, service personnel, backed providers all come under service design. A service designer's job is to align the activities of the front stage (customer experience) with the activities backstage (what service providers and partners do for improvising user experience). The service designer has to plan and arrange infrastructure, communication, and smooth integration between the service provider and the user. It's a crucial part of the product journey to maintain a good relationship with the client.
One could say that service design is a part of UX. There are some minute differences that separate service design from UX design. User experience focuses on what the end-user encounters whereas service design primarily focuses on how that user experience is internally created. UX design includes all the aspects of a user's interaction with a company. It is responsible for anything and everything like an app, a website, a mailer, etc. Service design focuses on planning and tracking business resources like people, props, processes, etc.
In short, user experience or UX design is the 'what' of the design thinking process. It's all about 'what' the users encounter as they interact with the product or brand. The service design is the 'how' part of design thinking. It's about 'how' the user experience gets created and the smooth working of the processes to deliver that experience.
Take, for example, you have a query that needs you to contact the customer care of a company. You look up the number and contact customer care to meet with the company's executive. You explain your query and interact with the company's executive to reach a conclusion. Here, right from making a customer care number available to you to solve the doubt, all comes under service design. If the service is inadequate, the customers are not going to be satisfied with the company. It is one of the main reasons service design is as important as UX design in the Product journey.
Optimising UX and service design is the best way to go forward. It's important to look after the smooth navigation of the product or brand. It's also crucial to logistically examine how that experience is delivered to the user. Undesirable user experiences are most often due to a dysfunctional process. Lacking efforts in organizing and tracking the user's feedback could hamper your growth to a great extent.
Ultimately, you need a strong UX and service design to create and deliver exceptional experiences to your users. You have to take into account the user's visions, thoughts, and expectations from the product. If you don't consider the user's perspective, you end up making something that end-users don't need or can't use. Hope this article helped you get a clear idea about UX design and service design. If you want to add anything more, please do so in the comment section below!