Service Design YAP

Send us a textIn this bonus episode we speak to  Yvonne Tran, product design director at the  New York Times,  AND  Shipra Kayan,  Miro's Chief Design Evangelist, AND  Shelley Evenson, a founding SDN member and Berkeley Design Fellow.So many stellar guests can only mean one thing:  Service Design Global Conference is around the corner.  Each speaker gives us an exclusive peek into their conference keynote and shares their views on what skills and knowledge Service Designers need to gain to thrive in our rapidly transforming world.  You can still book your virtual ticket to the conference here and use the YAP discount code YAPSDGC  to get 10% off.Service Design YAP is developed and produced by the Service Design Network UK Chapter.Its aim is to engage and connect the wider Service Design community. Episode Host: Stephen Wood Production Assistance: Jean Watanya

Send us a textMark Howell, has had a rich and varied career.  He's the only person that I know that has a PhD in IVR.In this episode Mark shares  his approach to service design leadership. He talks about intentionally crating a culture underpinned by rituals, how modelling the positive behaviours and carving out time to do Individual Contributor, hands-on work means that he never loses touch with the changing shape of service design practice.  He also talks about the "secret work of service designers" - service designers are “spanners”. Mark talks about how we span the gaps to draw on our powers of empathy and orchestration to bring together multifunctional stakeholders to define and deliver services.  This is a high stress task that can lead to burn out if not actively monitored and managed.    Sources listed in this episode:Liminal Thinking - Dave Gray (interviewed here)True Belonging according to Brené Brown The other Service Design Podcast that Mark loves: The Service Design Show The Power of 10 with Andy Polaine.Finding our Way with Jesse James Garret and Peter MerholtzService Design YAP is developed and produced by the Service Design Network UK Chapter.Its aim is to engage and connect the wider Service Design community. Episode Host: Stephen Wood Production Assistance: Jean Watanya

Send us a textDesign research is tricky.  When you work with a great design researcher you get to see the skill and subtlety involved in executing research that avoids biases and reveals fresh insights.  When your research participants are neurodiverse the task of the design researcher becomes even more complex, but this is where this episode's guest, Ashley Peacock has developed her expertise. Ashley shares her career story and talks about the tactics that make design research more inclusive.  Key take-aways are that there's no perfect approach and you need to  be kind to yourself as there will be mis-steps to learn from.  We hear about the power of Autemojis and fall in love with  Weird Pride. About AshleyAshley works primarily on AbilityNet’s inclusive user-research practices. Her expertise lies at the intersection of cognitive science, AI and technology.Ashley previously led a company for four years, specialising in tailored assistive solutions for governments, businesses, and charities. This included creating 3D autism simulations, collaborating with the NHS on a mental health triaging tool during the COVID pandemic and engineering custom software to help people with neurodegenerative conditions to read again, working in partnership with UCL.As a neurodivergent professional she continues to make an impact in this field through public speaking, writing and research.Episode LinksDamian Milton's Double Empathy Gap Article. Ability Net Weird PrideLearn about Dinah MurrayService Design YAP is developed and produced by the Service Design Network UK Chapter.Its aim is to engage and connect the wider Service Design community. Episode Host: Stephen Wood Production Assistance: Jean Watanya

Send us a textIn this episode we speak with Lyle Sandler. I met Lyle when he was CDO at Aon, the mega-insurance firm, and it was clear from the off-set that  he was a natural story teller.    As you'll hear, he doesn't think that he's a natural storyteller. He's learned tactics and religiously rehearses his stories so that they land and create the right impact.Lyle has bottled 100 of these tactics in his new book  Universal Principles of Storytelling for Designers, which will help both Narrative Newbies and Tried and Tested Tale-Tellers to up their games.   Enjoy.About LyleStories ignite design, and design inspires stories, creating a dynamic cycle that propels human progress and sparks innovation. Lyle is a storyteller and designer. The story/design connection became an "aha" moment during his undergraduate days at Hofstra University, where I shuffled between theatre, design, and anthropology, three disciplines that seemed to join forces effortlessly. His storytelling and design journey deepened at the American Film Institute's Center for Advanced Film Studies, art directing in Hollywood, crafting theatrical sets in New York, working in illustration, and  designed high-end window displays.At Merrill Lynch, he redesigned how analysts communicated with the patrons of Wall Street, and at Goldman Sachs,  he pioneered UX and data visualization. He began to explore and create innovative techniques that enable humans to interact with large volumes of data efficiently, discerning hidden characteristics, patterns, and anomalies within dynamically changing information spaces (non-language, data-centric, progressive storytelling). Later, he co-founded Brew, a design and innovation consultancy that assisted organizations to think differently, innovate, and design unique consumer experiences.His career has spanned global design leadership roles at NCR and Aon where he has applied design approaches to create impact and value; staying true to his  roots in storytelling and anthropology, ensuring that my designs and innovations always delivered meaningful value to the people they were created for.Currently, as a consultant, he help organizations transform and grow through storytelling, design, and "storythinking" – powerful drivers for developing new forms of value in anticipation of future human needs.Links:David Foster Wallace: This is Water commencement speech. Learn more about Hitchcock's Production Director, Robert Boyle here.Service Design YAP is developed and produced by the Service Design Network UK Chapter.Its aim is to engage and connect the wider Service Design community. Episode Host: Stephen Wood Production Assistance: Jean Watanya

In this discussion, John Lynch, founder of Context Studio in Dublin, shares his insights on integrating design into diverse environments. He highlights the challenge of advocating for design in places that undervalue it, emphasizing collaborations that enhance public services. John discusses the balance between innovation and renovation, and the importance of engaging marginalized communities. He also reflects on the role of playful facilitation in co-design workshops and the significance of aligning design with strategic outcomes in public health.

In this conversation with Ben Reason, founder of Livework Studio, listeners discover the transformative power of design in business. Ben shares insights into his firm’s six pillars of design-led transformation, illustrated through collaborations with Adidas and the NHS. He discusses the shift in government design roles and emphasizes the importance of user experience over technology. Engaging employees in participatory design processes, he outlines how cultural rituals can enhance organizational change, driving a more human-centered approach.

Send us a textTubes, trains, boats, trams, bikes, busses and even a cable car combine to make Transport for London (TfL), a system that helps 9 million Londoners and a few tourists navigate the world's greatest city.Designing the digital tools that help people to turn complex logistics into practical travel plans is no mean feat, but that's exactly what Hanna Kops and her team did with the TfL Go app.    In this episode Hanna tells us the story of how the  TfL Digital Experience team collaborated with a complex matrix of stakeholders and launched an app that's now on every Londoner's phone. We also talk about:The formative role that playing games with her family had on Hanna's development as a designer and reflect on how the shift to screen-based play will shape tomorrows designers.How the singleminded pursuit of "scale" often strips the value out of designed experiences.  If you're curious about the vintage "Mind The Gap" sound bite in this episode and are in the mood for a romantic story, then click here. About Hanna Hanna Kops is Head of Experience at TfL Digital.Over the last few years, she co-built TfL Digital, the team behind the TfL Go app and other future digital experiences. TfL Go includes an innovative new approach to digital maps, was shortlisted for a D&AD Award and won multiple industry awards, including BIMA, The Drum and Design Week.Hanna is also a Visiting Lecturer at the Royal College of Art.Before joining Transport for London, Hanna led design teams, innovation projects and culture change for a wide range of organisations in the UK and USA. She also co-founded a design studio.Service Design YAP is developed and produced by the Service Design Network UK Chapter.Its aim is to engage and connect the wider Service Design community. Episode Host: Stephen Wood Production Assistance: Jean Watanya

Send us a textWhen the Scotland consolidated its police forces it saw an opportunity to add a Service Design team to the new organisation.  Not only would this team make a material contribution to Police Scotland's radical transformation, they would also become a core part of the force's new ways of working. In this episode we're joined my Chris Muir, who tells the story of how he discovered service design and how he and the Police Scotland Service Design team work with officers at every level to discover, design and deliver services that keep people in Scotland safer. Chris talks about the benefits of running a design studio in a 14th century castle, once owned by the Blackadder family and of how the design team's six principles helps the to build trust and deliver value through their work. We talk about how spending time out on patrol with officers helps Police Scotland's designers to create services that meet the needs of officers whether they're in high population density Glasgow, or in the rural extremes of the Highlands & Islands.References from this episode. Radical Candor. https://amzn.eu/d/h04WOyVNine Lies About Work https://amzn.eu/d/7m9vFq2This is Service Design Doing https://amzn.eu/d/3DCngOvBeyond Sticky notes: https://amzn.eu/d/j0RFTrHGood Services https://good.services/homeMcDonalds removes AI from their sites https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c722gne7qngo#:~:text=McDonald's%20is%20removing%20artificial%20intelligence,orders%2C%20was%20announced%20in%202019.Service Design YAP is developed and produced by the Service Design Network UK Chapter.Its aim is to engage and connect the wider Service Design community. Episode Host: Stephen Wood Production Assistance: Jean Watanya

Send us a textIn this short, bonus edition of YAP we spend time thinking about and playing with AI. Most designers state that AI will become the most powerful design tool of the decade, enabling them to mine the world's data, to find inspiration and to create better products and services. Designers who remember sign painters being replaced by naff vinyl sign printing machines see AI as a cut-price competitor rather than a tool.  ( Sign Painters  is a great -if niche- documentary) So,  how will the design profession evolve in the face of AI?In the spirit of exploration we  just asked AI... and we also wondered if we could use AI to create an entire episode of YAP.We also saw this experiment as a way to find tools that could help designers to build audio mock ups, or provocatypes; thought provoking artefacts that you don't want to spend too much time on, but which land better with the target audience if they have good production quality.   Let us know what you think of the episode and where you think that designers are under estimating the impact AI in the design process at the moment. To create this episode we used:Chat GPT to collate content. The tool gave us deeper case study content, but failed to really bring any new concepts to the table.Jelly Pod structured and create the podcast audio. Jelly Pod's text editor will really help designers looking to create audio provocatypes as its quick and easy to use.  The custom voices also make audio mock ups really compelling.Suno was used to create the new closing music. Its simple and even simple prompts generate quality outputs aligned with expectations.  Adobe Firefly to create the episode cover. This needed the most rework and lags behind tools like Mid-journey.Service Design YAP is developed and produced by the Service Design Network UK Chapter.Its aim is to engage and connect the wider Service Design community. Episode Host: Stephen Wood Production Assistance: Jean Watanya

Send us a textIn this festive bonus episode of Service Design YAP, we sit down with Adam St John Lawrence to understand how he uses tactics and techniques from theatre in his design work.Adam, the goatee sporting GOAT of Service Design, draws on an "eclectic" background that includes farming and psychology (plus some bouncing and stripping), to offer some radical challenges to design’s dusty  “best practices”.  He a natural raconteur who  tell stories and shares insight that everyone will find funny and enlightening in equal measure. Enjoy your break, how ever you spend it.Let us know what you think about the episode on our Insta account ; tell us which podcasts are inspiring you and  who you think  we should interview next. https://www.linkedin.com/in/stickdorn?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_appThe YAP team will see you in 2025.  Please note, no rubber chickens were harmed in the making of this episode. Links from this episode:https://www.thiagi.com/game-designhttps://www.appliedimprovisationnetwork.org/Adam, Marc Stickdorn,  Markus Hormeß and Jacob Schneider’s book This is Service Design Doing.Service Design YAP is developed and produced by the Service Design Network UK Chapter.Its aim is to engage and connect the wider Service Design community. Episode Host: Stephen Wood Production Assistance: Jean Watanya