Service Design
This page positions service design tools not as methods or workshops, but as cognitive extensions that help designers see, reason, and decide better.
Inspired by Maggie Appleton's concept of tools for thinking — the idea that tools shape not just what we do, but how we think.
Service Designers, Product Managers, User-Centred Design practitioners—and anyone who's hit a wall in their thinking
"Start with the kind of thinking you need, not the method you already know."
Rather than browsing tools alphabetically, begin by asking: what kind of cognitive work am I trying to do? Each category below represents a different mode of thinking that service design requires.
Tools for Clarifying and Understanding
These tools help you see what already exists but remains invisible—making hidden structures, relationships, and patterns tangible enough to reason about.
Tools that externalise hidden structures, relationships, and assumptions that shape services but remain unseen in conversation alone.
Separates what users see from what makes it possible
When the service feels fragmented, when teams don't understand how their work connects to customer experience, or when handoffs between departments create friction
Reveals how a service exists within a web of actors and relationships
When designing services that involve multiple organisations, when policy intersects with delivery, or when understanding who influences whom matters more than what the service does
Turns informal networks into visible patterns of influence and interest
Before making changes that affect multiple groups, when politics matter as much as design, or when the hardest work is securing buy-in
Tools that transform temporal experience into visible structures, helping designers reason about sequence, duration, and change.
Converts lived experience into a shared timeline for reasoning
When different teams describe the "customer experience" differently, when timing and sequence matter, or when emotional impact shapes success
Extends attention across longer durations than single journeys
When services span long timeframes, when understanding lifecycle matters more than individual touchpoints, or when you need to design for sustained relationships rather than single transactions
Makes desired futures concrete enough to work towards
When strategy needs translating into design direction, when teams need alignment before detailed work begins, or when the gap between current and desired states needs clarifying
Tools for seeing patterns of interconnection, understanding feedback loops, and reasoning about how parts influence wholes.
Reveals how components interact to produce behaviour
When problems keep recurring despite fixes, when cause and effect seem distant, or when understanding dynamics matters more than mapping structure
Traces how value moves and transforms through a system
When designing multi-sided platforms, when questioning what people exchange (beyond money), or when understanding incentives and motivations
Makes implicit interdependencies explicit and manageable
During implementation planning, when coordinating work across teams, or when a single failure point could cascade through the service
Tools that externalise individual perspectives, enabling groups to think together and build shared understanding.
Turns stakeholders from subjects into co-thinkers
When people closest to problems should shape solutions, when buy-in matters as much as the idea, or when expertise is distributed rather than centralised
Converts individual mental models into negotiated shared representations
When teams use the same words to mean different things, when integration across silos matters, or when the act of mapping is as valuable as the map
Transforms research data into actionable shared insights
After research, before design—when findings need becoming insights, when teams need unifying around evidence, or when data exists but direction doesn't
Tools for understanding what makes services valuable, how value is perceived, and what people are really trying to achieve.
Shifts focus from what users do to what they are trying to achieve
When user requests conflict with each other, when adoption is low despite meeting requirements, or when you need to understand the "why" behind behaviour
Makes value creation explicit and testable
When positioning a service, when prioritising features, or when articulating why someone would choose your service over alternatives
Connects activities to intended changes in people's lives
When defining success, when measurement focuses on the wrong things, or when you need to justify why a service should exist
Tools for making constraints visible and productive—turning limitations into design parameters rather than obstacles.
Transforms vague limitations into specific design boundaries
When 'it can't be done' dominates conversations, when distinguishing real limits from assumed ones matters, or when constraints need becoming enablers
Makes trade-offs between desirability and viability explicit
When everything seems equally important, when resources are limited, or when deciding what to build first
Converts beliefs into testable hypotheses
Before committing resources, when opinions clash, or when you need to reduce uncertainty without building everything
Tools that make abstract concepts tangible and testable—enabling learning through making rather than discussing.
Tests service ideas before building infrastructure
When stakeholders need convincing, when major assumptions need testing, or when "talking about it" has stopped producing insights
Enables stakeholders to feel services rather than just understand them
When stakeholders are removed from user reality, when emotional impact matters, or when you need to demonstrate rather than explain
Separates testing user experience from building technology
When technology is expensive or uncertain, when testing demand before supply, or when user testing needs happening now
Tools for designing transitions—helping services and organisations move from current to future states.
Focuses on the journey of change, not just the destination
When changing existing services, when legacy systems constrain the future, or when transformation spans years not months
Makes organisational capacity for change visible and addressable
Before transformational initiatives, when previous change efforts failed, or when organisational dynamics matter as much as service design
Bridges old and new without service disruption
When replacing legacy services, when users cannot all move at once, or when 'big bang' launches are too risky
Tools for Breaking Stuck Patterns
The tools above help clarify what already exists. The tools below help you see what does not yet exist—by deliberately disrupting habitual thinking.
These tools deliberately disrupt habitual thinking. They help you escape stuck patterns and see genuinely different possibilities.
Uses deliberately provocative statements to escape stuck patterns
When your team keeps proposing the same safe ideas, when competitors all solve the problem the same way, or when you need to break through to truly different thinking
What if we charged customers more when the service fails?
Forces connections between unrelated concepts to spark new thinking
When brainstorming feels circular, when the team is too close to the problem, or when you need fresh perspectives on a mature service
How would we design this service if it worked like a music festival?
Steps back from solutions to explore alternative ways of achieving the same purpose
When stuck on implementation details, when the proposed solution feels forced, or when you need to validate you are solving the right problem
Instead of improving appointment booking, what if we eliminated the need for appointments entirely?
Uses weak or incomplete ideas as stepping stones rather than judging them immediately
When someone proposes an idea that feels wrong but interesting, when stuck between options, or when you need to keep ideation flowing
That idea would never work because it is too expensive - but what if cost was not a constraint?
Questions why things are done a certain way, not because they are wrong, but to explore alternatives
When services have been "this way" for years, when everyone accepts certain limitations, or when you suspect there is a better way no one has considered
Why do we require users to create an account? What if we did not?
Breaks services into smaller parts to find what can be changed, removed, or enhanced
When services feel bloated, when trying to identify what to improve first, or when you need to understand which pieces actually create value
What if we removed every second step from this service journey?
Inverts normal service logic to reveal hidden assumptions and new possibilities
When conventional thinking dominates, when competitors all follow the same pattern, or when you want to differentiate radically
What if users paid us to make the service worse?
Identifies and escapes the central assumption that constrains all thinking about the service
When all proposed solutions feel similar, when stuck in industry conventions, or when ready to fundamentally reconceive the service
What if this was not a service at all, but a product? Or a community? Or nothing?
Good service design tools don't just document reality—they change how we perceive it.
These tools are not neutral recording devices. They actively shape what we notice, what we prioritise, and what becomes thinkable. The choice of tool is itself a design decision—one that influences every decision that follows.