Service Design: Moving beyond UX for Mobile App Development

Mobile apps are the front and center of digital transformation. They no more mere pieces of software anymore; they have become a way of doing business. You can find almost anything by just a single click. There are millions of app by which you can do almost anything. From checking time, shopping for groceries, managing finance, entertainment or controlling heaving machinery.

Businesses are getting digitalized at break neck speed. More and more traditional business are moving into the digital realm, the emphasis is on what can be digitized to improve the customer experience.

Business owners understands that mobile apps are now not just their virtual store fronts but calling cards, advertisement bill boards all bundled into one.

However, there is a critical piece that is being left out in this quest to digitalize. It is the alignment of employee and backend processes which makes the digital function possible.

Emphasis on customer journey, the related form factor and the user or customer itself. This is overshadowing employee experience and the processes which makes the customer experience happen. It seems in the race to digitalize the backstage has been completely forgotten. This backstage realignment needs to be considered and it is which form the first step towards service design.

But we already do UX Design?

The UX focuses what to improve where as Service design focuses on how to improve.These are different but overlapping concepts and have a crossover between them.

Service design is an emerging field that majorly focuses on creation, curation, and implementation of service ideas and their probable experiences. Service design encompasses both customer touch points, internal processes and employee realignment within an organization.

Why adopt a service design?

Imagine a superb digital ticket sales experience marred by 3^rd party employee at the venue simply because they were not aligned for delivery via digital. Service design enables you to see these pit falls.

Service design makes employees experience a key priority, while at the same time ensures improved customer experience.

Service design includes the strategic, operational and people management. Developers and engineers have to be concerned about how to provide the superb customer experience and for them to be able to do this they need to follow a design pattern which can only produce with the help of service design.

If you plan to digitalize, then you should take into account the experience of both; customers and employees of the organization. By focusing on both these aspects, you will create structure that is more aligned for  a great end-to-end experience.

Service design and user design collectively set grounds for the digital transformation of a business or entity. Business Managers should pay attention to both the approaches to get the best results from the mobile applications they are building or any other digital channels.