Kann man Service Design lernen?

Many people have little idea of what service design is. How did you feel about it?

LS: The term itself sounds self-explanatory at first - but what are services? At what point do you "design" them? I only realized this when I was able to work actively in the field.

GG: Actually, I hesitated briefly with my application. I was unsure whether I had already had enough contact points in service design.

What skills should one have for the topic of service design?

GG: First and foremost, you should be curious and open to new topics as a designer. Thinking with others, empathizing with others and putting yourself in other people's shoes are skills that are important in day-to-day work. It is also an advantage to have a talent for project management and structured work.

LS: I also think that empathy and flexible thinking in particular are important. Service design is user-centered and viewpoints are as diverse as people. You have to be able to engage with that. The projects also vary greatly. Sometimes creative approaches are needed, sometimes you have to be more analytical.

GG: I find this mixture very exciting and challenging. Because we also work in an agency where many transmedia projects are created, it's all the more fascinating.

To what extent did your studies prepare you for practice?

LS: Service design projects are slowly becoming part of the curriculum - that's new. But even without being able to participate in one, the study programme gives you something. Teamwork and respect for different approaches are important points, but also openness to topics that you may not have dealt with before.

GG: Good teamwork is very important and indispensable for larger projects. Finding out where my strengths lie and how to realise them in a team was a great learning experience for me. Studying also allowed me to experiment and took away the shyness to tackle things.

What was your highlight project during the internship?

GG: For me, it's clearly the cooperation with the DBSV (German Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired) and the adlerschmidt agency. Unfortunately, inclusion is still far from being a matter of course in design. It is so important for designers to sensitise themselves, to listen carefully and to respond to all needs! Doing user research for an audio branding process for the DBSV was therefore enormously instructive and inspiring for me.

LS: We were able to study the Alexa skill of a large German company and revise it for user guidance and accessible language. Voice assistants are a big topic of the future and the insight into UX/UI in this area was extremely exciting for me. How is such a skill built and how natural can and should a voice assistant sound? Do we even want to include irony and humour in such a dialogue? These are questions I hadn't thought much about before and the project inspired me a lot.

What was your biggest aha moment?

LS: Not so much an "aha" experience as a very impressive one: in user research for the DBSV, a colleague and I accompanied a test person for a day through the whole of Berlin and in various public transport vehicles. It really became clear to me how car-focused and exclusive parts of our cities are. Public design often only has a certain kind of people in mind.

GG: The project also showed me what an important influence sound can have in design and inclusive design. I listen even more carefully now.

Would you say that you approach projects differently today (e.g. Bachelor) and if so, how?

GG: I question topics or processes more. That's not always an advantage. Sometimes I work too much in my head and go around in circles. But that's just part of it. But I've always found projects more exciting and profound when they have a strong concept or touching storytelling - be it art, music or even design.

LS: My time in service design showed me that it's perfectly okay to toss your topics and perspectives back and forth ten times. But you also have to draw conclusions and get to the point at some point. A lot of analysis doesn't help anyone.

Giulia and Lea are studying design at HTW Berlin.