If the service you've designed goes against the existing socials structures it's bound to fail. That's why it's essential that from the very first moment you're aware of these social structures and use them in your design process.

But how you might wonder... Josina Vink has done a lot of research on this topic and in this episode she shares her most important learnings.

One of the reasons social structures are so important in service design is that they dictate interactions between people.

Organisations are, for a large part, made up of social structures. Explicit but mostly implicit ones. If you can understand these structures and shape them you're basically designing the way an organisation operates. Which is really powerful if you want to turn ideas into reality!

In service design we pride ourselves that we're always thinking about the user. But we rarely if ever design for the user as part of a larger collective. A collective like a family or a sports team. Which is quite strange if you think about it.

A user, including you and me, are always part of larger social groups. When we encounter services that are be good for us but fail to align with the needs of other people in the group, these services will not be as effective as the can be.

So when you're designing services it helps to at least be aware of the principles you need to take into account from the perspective of the collective.

The final question we address in this episode is: Can you really design a service? Or can you just design the context for the service? And if that's the case who is the one designing?

If you enjoyed this episode don't forget to share it with fellow practitioners who might find it helpful as well.

That way you'll help to grow the community and help me to invite more inspiring guests like Josina.

Remember. Every. Share. Counts. :)

--- [ GUIDE ] ---

03:10 - The first encounter with Service Design.

05:20 - How can we become aware of social structures and intentionally shape them in our service design process?

13:00 - Why aren’t we already considering collectives in design?

20:15 - Who is designing?

28:00 - Big question: how can we get everyone more literate in design?

--- [ LINKS ] ---

* https://www.twitter.com/josinavink

* https://www.linkedin.com/in/josinavink/

* https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Josina_Vink

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patch_Adams_(film)

* SDGC 19 | Dr. Josina Vink: In/Visible - Shaping Hidden Social Structures Through Service Design / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCfK03drxbA

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