Service Design Bites Aug '24 by servicedesignindia

Dear Service Design Enthusiasts,

A note from

SDD India

Service Design Drinks India, AKA SDD India, started five years ago with the vision of strengthening service design practice through community learning and participation. Together, we have organised 20+ events and meet-ups so far.

We listen and evolve with these community interactions and engagements, and there's been an ask from the community to bring out case studies and stories from our practice.

Hence, we are launching Service Design Bites, an initiative to inspire and curate service design stories and case studies. Let's make it a success together.

Cheers!

Authors & Contributors

Service Designer who excels in aligning business strategy and user experience, passionate about cocreation, sustainability, and design education.

A seasoned Design Leader with 20+ years of expertise, crafting engaging UX strategies, leads diverse design projects, and fosters dynamic team cultures

Master's student at NID and a product designer, blends technology, sustainability, and play to create impactful innovative experiences.

Special thanks to - SnehaAkash Vidyasagar | Jami

Shreya Karmakar

Anannya Bhowmik

Saksham PANDA

Namrata DHANAK

Pramadha MOHANA

Puneeta Kashyap

Rich- in-sights

Having an in-house service design team ‘is a step towards design maturity for an organisation.

Saksham jots down insightful reflections on the experience of working as an in-house service designer.

Inside out Service Design

Service design has been around for a while and is here to stay. Slowly but surely, more organisations are realising the value of having a service design team inhouse. It’s even more essential when organisations become complex and legacy practices become roadblocks in progress.

Service design is a holistic, user-centred approach to creating and improving services. It involves understanding the needs of both customers and employees, mapping out entire service ecosystems, and designing cohesive experiences across all touchpoints. Service design combines elements of user experience, business strategy, and organisational change to create services that are not only desirable for users but also feasible and viable for the organisation.

Organisations must build service design capability to align business goals with user needs and deliver efficiently. Organisations that excel in service design are able to create meaningful, end-to-end experiences that resonate with customers and stand out in crowded markets. As we discuss the strategies for scaling in-house service design practices, it's important to keep in mind the transformative potential of this discipline and its role in shaping the future of organisations.

How does In-House Service Design look like ?

Internal consultancy

Operating as a centralised team, serving various departments on-demand

Designers integrated into specific business units, dedicated to particular product lines or services Embedded team

Hybrid Mode

Embedded in some areas and consultancy for other departments, adapting to organisational needs

A Day in Life : Service Designer

Customer Experience Impro ement

Collaborating with cu tomer ervice and operation team

Mapping current cu tomer journey and identi ying pain point

Co-de igning olution with rontline ta

Implementing and mea uring impact o ervice improvement

Product De elopment Collaboration

Service de igner partnering with product manager or di coverie and building olution

Conducting re earch to in orm product plannin

Facilitating co-creation work hop with cro - unctional team

Prototyping and te ting new concept

Business Model Inno ation

Partnering with trategy and innovation team

Applying de ign thinking to explore new bu ine opportunitie

Conducting market re earch and trend analy i

Prototyping and te ting new bu ine concept

Digital Transformation Initiati es

Working along ide IT and digital team

En uring u er need drive technology implementatio

De igning eamle omni-channel experience

Facilitating takeholder alignment on tran ormation goal

Challenges & Opportunities In House Service Design

Proving

value and ROI

Every effort in an organisation is tied to a budget. For any project you take up, someone somewhere upstream is paying for it.They need to be assured of the ROI. As service design mostly looks at journeys and connections between touch-points, often it becomes difficult to articulate the ROI.

Navigating organisational politics It’s still a taboo to talk about organisational politics, creative differences, and ego clashes among colleagues at all levels. Everyone brings their professional best to work, but at the end of the day, we’re all humans with our lived experiences, strengths, biases, and insecurities. Service design encourages questioning the fundamentals, which has consequences in a room full of “experts”.

Facilitating discussions by navigating tough inter-personal equations is one of the most valued skill of a Service Designer.

An excerpt from An Introduction to Service Design: Designing the Invisible by Lara Penin summarises this well- “Service designers need to recognise design legacies and design agendas already present in organisations whether they are good or bad, efficient or not. And in doing so, they need to develop productive dialogues with the people inside different parts of the organisation to see things from their perspective and define together which changes are needed and what are the possible ways to implement them.”

Balancing short-term demands with long-term vision

There’s always something that needed to be delivered yesterday. While it is important to do that for building trust, Service design approach requires taking a step back, visualising the big picture and identifying the root cause.

Long-term vision requires extensive work to capture all loose ends and build a solid-to-be state experience. It may or may not have immediate quick wins. It requires well-balanced quick-wins and long term vision to keep service design relevant for all forms of engagements with stakeholders.

It’s not that bad at all. There are some unique advantages of in-house teams.

In-house service design teams have great advantages to be placed with all other moving parts of the organisation. There’s real-time learning from all parts of the organisation, involvement with stakeholders and overall a deep relationship with the business. There’s a lot of scope to drive longterm, systemic changes. It also allows for the experimentation of different approaches to get the best results for the stakeholders.

Conclusion note:

How does in-house sd take part in growing the practice, a teaser introduction to horizontal and vertical scaling

The challenges and opportunities will always have some push and pull for the SD practice but it’s definitely meant to grow further.The challenges of articulating ROI, navigating organizational politics, and balancing immediate demands with a longterm vision are outweighed by many benefits that an in-house service design team can bring. Such positioning of a team gives unique advantages of real-time impact, focus on implementation, deep understanding of business, and better scope for large-scale transformations.

The service design practice need to grow meaningfully internally. It requires both the horizontal expansion to run across the organisation and the vertical one to build strong expertise immaculate service design operations. More on that coming soon! Stay hungry!

Seasoned Thoughts

An interview with

Namrata

Dhanak

Namrata is a seasoned experience strategist with a rich background in service and product design across diverse industries.

She creates customercentric experiences that seamlessly align with business goals. A former leader at Accenture and Designit, she now runs her own consultancy, helping clients to innovate.

Can you tell us about your career journey?

After graduating from design school, I worked briefly in the advertising industry before venturing into my design studio. I ran it for seven years with a team of ten people. We handled a wide range of projects, including branding, advertising, and web design. However, I realised that I wanted to focus more on strategic design rather than managing the operational aspects of a business, so I transitioned to a product company as an experience designer. I moved through various roles, quickly advancing to managerial positions in multiple MNCs and design studios, likely due to my entrepreneurial background.

How did you get introduced to service design?

Service design became a natural extension of my journey as I took on more strategic and managerial responsibilities in design. I had heard of the term "service design" before, but my deeper acquaintance with it began in 2018 when I joined Accenture which had a team of service designers as part of Fjord. This piqued my interest and gave me a first-hand experience of what service design work looks like.

A significant turning point was an internal project I led, addressing the complexities of a multinational company’s hiring process. The process involved multiple teams with little coordination, leading to chaos. This project required us to work beyond our regular duties, and many colleagues volunteered out of interest. We conducted extensive research, including interviews, focus group discussions, and workshops across different cities and teams, gathering valuable insights.

To further my understanding, I enrolled in a service design course by IDEO, which gave me more confidence and knowledge about the methods involved.

Scan to read more about this project!

Can you describe some recent projects you've worked on, where you have applied Service Design methodologies and tools?

Currently, I am handling an engagement that started as a digital product design opportunity. However, due to its complex nature, it required a holistic service design approach. It involves a health platform with two different kinds of users and corresponding apps that need to interact seamlessly. For instance, the platform collects data from wearable devices and tests it, then provides crisp and actionable insights to consumers like you and me, along with healthcare professionals.

Imagine your goal is to lose weight while mine is to sleep better. The app must simplify and personalize the data to share relevant insights with each user. Meanwhile, a healthcare professional, like a doctor, has to manage and make sense of the data from multiple patients. This complexity required a service design approach to create a coherent experience.

I developed a journey map that evolved into a blueprint to address this. This blueprint outlines how data flows from the consumer to the healthcare professional, what insights are shared, and how these insights are tailored to each user's needs. This project is still in progress, and I'm currently focusing on refining the blueprint.

After several years of design management, this experience has allowed me to return to hands-on design, applying service design methodologies to solve complex, multiuser challenges.

...integrate service level approaches and methods where needed without calling them ‘service blueprint’ or ‘service design’ as new jargon can make unaware people feel alienated...

How did you identify the need for service design? How do you convince the leadership of its value?

So, during a business development process, we engaged with a leading bank to improve their loan journey. Their initial ask was about reducing the number of screens in loan process, identified as UI scope. But we recognized this as a broader service design issue, involving multiple teams and backend processes. Instead of labeling it as ‘service design’, we created a proposal that addressed the loan journey holistically. We included problem hypothesis, and service design blueprints from other projects, and detailed our plan involving interviews, workshops, and blueprinting—all core service design activities. We presented this comprehensive approach, focusing on solving their problem rather than using industry jargon.

What advice would you give service designers interested in transitioning into or exploring service design? What skills do you look for in a service designer?

Firstly, a background in design education, particularly in service design, can greatly facilitate the transition. Research skills are crucial, especially the ability to spot insights and convert them into actionable solutions. Many people conduct research but struggle to identify key insights and connect the dots, which is essential for service designers.

A structured mindset is necessary, along with the ability to work collaboratively. Service design involves interacting with diverse audiences and presenting recommendations effectively. Conviction is key—you need to confidently advocate for your solutions, especially when working with developers or technology experts.

Many people conduct research but struggle to identify key insights and connect the dots, which is essential for service designers.

Having a presence of mind is vital since things can change quickly in dynamic settings like workshops. Being able to think on your feet and asking follow-up questions is important.

Lastly, keep yourself updated with the latest case studies and industry developments to stay inspired and informed.

What might the Service Design practice in India look like in the next 5 years?

Internationally, service design has been there as a field for a long time. India still needs to get there. There are enough use cases, but not enough demand yet.

Service design requires an analytical mind and good quality thinking which is a rare and premium skill. But sadly the payscale of service designers is similar to UI/UX designers. This needs to change in the future.

Also, project planning and resourcing with service design projects is very different and can’t be approached similar to UX projectswhich is currently the case. Service designers are needed more at the beginning of a project for sure but their role stays till the very end even if it may reduce. By adding other kinds of work on their plate- it often leads to burnout.

Look at what UX design was going through 15 years back or UX research 10 years back and look where those fields are now. Service design is also going through a similar trajectory.

Freshly Baked

In today’s world, we are surrounded by data-driven personalised services that gives us unparalleled convenience.

But, what cost are we paying for that? Mohana pens down the story of

Data Economy and the Climate Emergency

If internet were a country, it would be the third-largest country in terms of electricity consumption”

Source: Energy Consumption of Digitalizaion

By 2040, digital data storage is set to create 14% of the world’s emissions”

Source: World Economic Forum

It is 2024, and smart technology is all-pervasive. As consumers, we are now surrounded by data-collecting, internet-connected systems, which not only understand our economic, social, and emotional behaviours, but can now control these behaviours too.

These technologies, in the form of digital products and services, offer us unparalleled convenience, personalisation, and connection with the rest of the world, in exchange for our data.

But this exchange leads to many (un)intended and un(known) consequences in the physical world, which most consumers are oblivious to. We need to pay attention to the questions :

How do these technological systems operate? How does the data we create affect us and our environment?

The data that we create for businesses is used to profile and target us as consumers, optimise economic systems, and ‘predict’ future behaviours through the use of algorithms. All this and more is believed to translate into more profit. Former Amazon executive John Rossman notably wrote that “the data is the business model”. [1]

All of us who work in the tech industry are privy to the workings of these companies, and how data flows in and out of these systems. In most cases, we help create and expand them. However, the use of data as capital has several far-reaching effects on people, society, and the environment. The creation and use of these products and services is a vicious feedback loop.

Smart tech not only demands constant flows of data to operate, but it is also the machinery for manufacturing this universe of data”

Jathan Sadowski, Author of “Too Smart” [2]

This article aims to educate on the rise of the data economy, the environmental impact, and the possible opportunities. It is a partial compilation of my research on data, smart devices, and AI during my time at the National Institute of Design.

The Rise Of

ICT

Since the early 21st century, the rise of Information and Communication Technologies has led to the rapid digitization of processes and services, and the growing availability of smart devices for consumers.

At the time of this article, there are approximately 4.88 billion smartphone users in the world [3] , and 5.44 billion internet users worldwide, which amounts to 67.1 per cent of the global population. [4]

This widespread adoption of ICT, the internet, and digital services, was a result of growing consumer demand for convenience, connectivity, and access to information, along with several economic drivers that motivated businesses to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance customer experiences.

Tech & Digitalisation

There are a few technological pillars that have supported this transition to make devices more powerful, affordable, and accessible : Innovations in semiconductor technology, cloud computing, and mobile connectivity have played significant roles in this evolution, and the development of faster and more reliable internet connections, such as broadband and 5G, has further accelerated the adoption of digital services.

For real-world applications, improved microchip technology has enabled data centres to handle vast amounts of data more efficiently. This capability was crucial for the growth of cloud computing, big data analytics, and AI.

Simultaneously, these enhanced computational capabilities led to the technological trend of ‘datafication’ where information about people and processes was recognised as valuable and necessary to advance business interests. This revolutionised technological companies and allowed them to transition into ‘data companies’ by generating and analysing massive datasets derived from their users. These advancements in technology have contributed to more productivity, personalised tools, and innovations in industries like healthcare and education. But in recent years, ICT and specifically, Big Data have also been criticised for their role in environmental damage.

Technologies

Measurement & Reporting

Big Data Analytics

Enabling Technlogies

Cloud

5G Network

Blockchain

Augmented Reality

Virtual Reality

Technologies

Machine Learning

Sensing & Control Technologies

Internet of Things Drone & Imaging Automation & Robotics

FIGURE 1 : Emerging Technologies for Sustainable Applications (from Accenture)

Understanding  Big Data

Big Data, which is essentially large amounts of complex data, is collected from several data sources and continues to grow over time. It is a goldmine for businesses, offering insights into consumer behaviour and preferences. Most industries now rely heavily on Big Data analytics to drive innovation and stay competitive in today’s dynamic market landscape.

From an environmental standpoint, Big Data has been recognized for its key role in combating the current climate concerns that we face.

As the climate crisis continues to threaten businesses by damaging their assets and disrupting their supply chain, as well as consumers pressuring them to align with sustainability demands, insights from data have been helping companies move the needle and find alternative solutions.

For example, with geospatial data (information describing objects, events, or other features with a location on or near the surface of the earth — such as maps, weather, agricultural, and air quality data), it is now possible to analyse and predict the risk and impacts of climate risks to businesses.

Generation of data consumes energy

However, these interactions with data also have negative consequences. According to Forbes, 1.7 megabytes of new information is created every second for every human being on the planet.[5] This occurrence is known as ‘data deluge’ which refers to the exponential amount of data being generated from several sources like social media, digital transactions, storing photos on the cloud, streaming videos, using generative AI programs, or even sensors in our devices.

generates greenhouse gases

FIGURE 2 : How Data Deluge Causes GHG Emissions

Impact of Data Environmental

All the above activities require limited resources like water, electricity, fuel, which significantly affects our natural environment. Overutilization of these resources is the hidden cost that we pay to enjoy these conveniences. Our devices, the internet, and the digital processes surrounding them are estimated to generate 7% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2025.[6] The emergence of the Internet of Things has exacerbated this problem by introducing the possibility of new sources of data collection through sensors in our environment. The International Data Corporation forecasted that only the data generated by 55.7 billion smart devices will generate nearly 80 Zettabytes of data in 2025. The requirement of data to train AI models will only worsen these effects very soon.[7]

FIGURE 3 : The Relationship between Data, Energy, and Environment

Data centres, which house the infrastructure for big data storage and processing, consume vast amounts of electricity, contributing significantly to carbon emissions. This reliance on electricity is from power grids that predominantly use fossil fuels like coal, natural gas, and oil. The burning of these fuels releases large amounts of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The energy consumption of these data centres is a significant issue, but it is only one part of the problem. The physical processes surrounding the production, use and disposal of devices also add to the increasing emissions and consequent environmental damage.

One key issue to consider when discussing the energy economics surrounding the climate emergency is known as the “rebound effect”. It is the reduction in expected gains from new technologies that increase the efficiency of resource use, because of behavioural and other systemic responses.

That means that even if the technology for big data is improved and the energy consumption per data centre is reduced, thereby reducing costs, it will drive a net increase in the amount of new infrastructure that is demanded by the rise in a data economy.

FIGURE 4 : The Data Life Cycle of Smart Devices

The Role Of AI

According to the Gartner Hype Cycle, generative AI is expected to transform industries in the next 5 to 10 years, and will soon be ubiquitous across most digital services. The training of these AI models using large datasets is much more carbonintensive, than the use of the AI model. [8]

However, AI has the ability to transform climate solutions in a way that no other technology can, like identifying the best business decisions by analysing the available carbon information. Natural language processing can help in the capture of data across different emission types, which can provide a view of emission hotspots for companies to target areas to reduce their emissions.

FIGURE 5 : Gartner Hype Cycle for AI

Frederica Lucivero, who wrote about the ethics of technology, correctly said that “the data revolution, advocated as a vehicle to achieve sustainable development, is supported by technologies that endanger sustainability and the environment by other means.”[9]

Therefore it is necessary to consider solutions for all the above problems from a systems perspective. According to Carrie MacGillivray at the International Data Corporation, IoT is increasingly becoming the fabric enabling the exchange of information from devices, people, and processes. [10]

The advancements in artificial intelligence, and the demand for the next billion internet users, make now the right time in history to introduce a new paradigm of data use.

There are 3 important areas to tackle when solving for the climate impact of big data.

Lack of Sustainable Standards for Data Lifecycles

Creating and implementing universal standards for data lifecycles from a resource-use and emissions perspective is necessary to curb the current data deluge. The key metrics would be to reduce the amount of waste data that is generated and reduce data redundancy, while finding new ways to create value out of existing data.

Unoptimised data processes within organisations

Optimising data processes can lead to significant improvements in operational efficiency, cost savings, and decision-making. This includes optimising data storage, retrieval, processing, and analysis to reduce unnecessary data duplication, improve data quality, and accelerate data-driven insights. AI accelerators (highperformance parallel computation machines that are designed for the efficient processing of AI workloads like neural networks) can be put to the task of finding viable solutions.

Non-renewable energy sources for Data Centers

Transitioning data centres to renewable energy by leveraging solar, wind, hydroelectric and other sources can significantly reduce their carbon footprint to power operations sustainably. Google is one of the first major companies to go carbon neutral (since 2007) by matching 100 per cent of its global annual electricity consumption with purchases of renewable energy. It has now committed to operate on 24/7 carbon-free energy (CFE) across its entire global data network by 2030. [11]

What’s NEXT

As designers, product managers, and engineers in the tech industry, we must educate ourselves on the impact of climate change and work towards finding creative solutions to mitigate these problems. We have a social and environmental responsibility to do our jobs in a manner that advances humankind without harming the planet.

We can do this by integrating sustainability standards into our products, streamlining our data work-flows, optimising user interfaces, and influencing users to adopt more sustainable behaviours through our products.

1. Rossman, J. (2016). The Amazon Way on IoT: 10 Principles for Every Leader from the World's Leading Internet of Things Strategies. Clyde Hill Publishing.

2. Sadowski, J. (2020). Too Smart: How Digital Capitalism is Extracting Data, Controlling Our Lives, and Taking Over the World. MIT Press.

3. Degenhard, J. (2024, February 28). Number of smartphone users worldwide 2014 - 2029. Statista.

4. Petrosyan, A. (2024, May 22). Worldwide digital population 2024. Statista.

5. Murali, A. (2021, August 2). Understanding Generation Data. Forbes.

6. Griffiths, S. (2020, March 5). Why your internet habits are not as clean as you think. BBC.

7. Hojlo, J. (2021, January 6). Future of Industry Ecosystems: Shared Insights & Data. IDC Blog.

8. Naughton, J. (2023, December 23). Why AI is a disaster for the climate | John Naughton. The Guardian.

9. Lucivero, F. (2019, December 23) Big Data, Big Waste? A Reflection on the Environmental Sustainability of Big Data Initiatives. Sci Eng Ethics 26, 1009–1030 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11948-019-00171-7

10. The Growth in Connected IoT Devices is Expected to Generate 79.4ZB of Data in 2025, According to a New IDC Forecast. (2019, June 18). Business Wire.

11. 24/7 Clean Energy – Data Centers – Google. (n.d.). Google. Retrieved July 2, 2024, from https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/cleanenergy/

C kie Jar

Workshop

This year, until now; we have come together as a community for 10+ crosslocation meet-ups in Mumbai Bengaluru, Pune, Delhi; one workshop, and a crosscommunity collaboration event with SDN YTD.