Service Design Reading Guide

[UPDATED May 1, 2022]

Service Design can be many things. Personally, I prefer to see it as a multi-disciplinary platform of expertise. There is a lot of interest in Service Design, and there is tons of information to digest. In this post, I have focused on books and articles that I found useful during my years in the field. (There are tons of podcasts and great talks on YouTube and Vimeo, but that’s stuff for another post.)

Make sure to check out my Skillshare class on Customer Journey Mapping if you find this topic interesting.

So, here we go:

Level 1. Primers

Super-fast introduction to three common concepts: Design Thinking, Customer Experience, and Service Blueprints:

• Design Thinking 101 – Nielsen Norman Group
• When and how to create customer journey maps — Nielsen Norman Group
• “Blueprints are the gateway drug to Service Design — Adaptive Path’s Guide to Service Blueprinting
• Service Blueprints definition — Nielsen Norman Group
• McKinsey (2017). Customer Experience: New capabilities, new audiences, new opportunities.

Level 2. Getting Warmed Up

Armed with the primers, I suggest you start reading these articles from Interaction Design Foundation:

• Interaction Design Foundation (2017). The Principles of Service Design Thinking — Building Better Services | Interaction Design Foundation
• Service Blueprints — Communicating the Design of Services | Interaction Design Foundation

For a catalogue of tools, methods, and techniques, these three are great resources:

• Service Design Tools
• Stickdorn, M., Hormess, M.E., Lawrence, A., Schneider, J. (2018). This is Service Design Doing.
• Kimbell, L. (2014). Service Innovation Handbook. BIS.

If you’re still into it and want to properly start studying the subject, I suggest these classics:

• Polaine, A. et al. (2013). Service Design — From Insight to Implementation.
• Penin, L. (2018). An introduction to service design: Designing the Invisible. Bloomsbury.
• Stickdorn, M., Schneider, J. (2012). This is Service Design Thinking.

And if you’re comfortable reading Swedish, this new book is a great read:

• [SWEDISH] Holmlid, S., Wetter-Edman, K. (2021). Tjänstedesign – principer och praktiker. Studentlitteratur.

At this stage, I would also encourage you to read up on design and information technology history. In order to see the trajectory of the future, you need to reach back in time to see the historical vectors. Two very quick ways to get an overview are the following pieces on medium.com, and the original Service Blueprint article that got the whole started by Shostack in the 1980s:

• Szczepanska, J. (2017). Design thinking origin story plus some of the people who made it all happen.
• Service Design Magazine (2018). A Tiny History of Service Design.
• Shostack G. L. (1982). How to Design a Service: European Journal of Marketing: Vol 16, No 1

Level 3. Into the Wild

Alright — now you’re ready to look for more material on your own. These suggestions (in alphabetical order) could be good starting points. They range from journal articles on service design theory to storytelling and using design for address wicked problems:

• Brown, Tim, and Barry Katz. 2011. Change by Design. Journal of Product Innovation Management 28 (3): 381–83.
• Diller, Steve, Nathan Shedroff, and Darrel Rhea. 2005. Making Meaning: How Successful Businesses Deliver Meaningful Customer Experiences. New Riders.
• Diller, Steve, Nathan Shedroff, and Sean Sauber. 2016. Blind Spot. Rosenfeld Media.
• Goodman, Elizabeth, Mike Kuniavsky, and Andrea Moed. 2012. Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research. Elsevier.
• Heath, Chip, and Dan Heath. 2007. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Random House.
• Heath, Chip, Heath, Dan. 2017. The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact. Simon and Schuster.
• Kalbach, James. 2020. Mapping Experiences. O’Reilly Media.
• Kolko, Jon. 2012. Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving. Ac4d Austin Center for Design.
• Lichaw, Donna. 2016. The User’s Journey: Storymapping Products That People Love. Rosenfeld Media.
• Lusch, Robert F, and Stephen L Vargo. 2014. Service-Dominant Logic: Premises, Perspectives, Possibilities. Cambridge University Press.
• Martin, Roger, and Roger L Martin. 2009. The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking Is the next Competitive Advantage. Harvard Business Press.
• Meroni, Anna, and Daniela Sangiorgi. 2016. Design for Services. Routledge.
• Pine, B Joseph, and James H Gilmore. 2011. The Experience Economy. Harvard Business Press.
• Quesenbery, Whitney, and Kevin Brooks. 2010. Storytelling for User Experience: Crafting Stories for Better Design. Rosenfeld Media.
• Risdon, Chris, and Patrick Quattlebaum. 2018. Orchestrating Experiences: Collaborative Design for Complexity. Rosenfeld Media.
• Sangiorgi, Daniela, and Alison Prendiville. 2017. Designing for Service: Key Issues and New Directions. Bloomsbury Publishing.
• Torres, Teresa. 2021. Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products That Create Customer Value and Business Value. Product Talk LLC.
• Welchman, Lisa. 2015. Managing Chaos: Digital Governance by Design. Rosenfeld Media.

Level 4. And then…?

Service Design is a field that moves fast and evolves contiunously. So there is no way this list can be complete and up-to-date at all times. As a Level 4 player, you have the power to search and find great stuff on your own. If you want to stay in the forefront, keep an eye on academic journals in various fields, such as Marketing, Informatics, HCI, Business Management, and more. That’s the beauty of an interdisciplinary field!

Good luck, and keep in touch if you have any tips on readings you think should be listed here.