The crucial element in service design: user feedback

Service design isn’t a new concept in the design world. To put it in simple words, it is designing service in such a way that it meets users’ requirements.

Service design involves the proper organisation of people, infrastructure, and material to design a service based on users’ expectations. It consists of developing the best practices of service that are within the capabilities of the service provider and at the same time, meet the needs of users.

General principles of service design

Every product manager or UX designer has a slightly different approach to service design, but some general principles form the foundation of most processes.

• The service is designed based on a genuine understanding of the purpose of the service, the user demand for it, and the ability of the service provider to deliver that service.
• The service is designed to deliver a unified and efficient system rather than separate components. This has a dramatic impact on overall service performance. 
• The process should always involve inputs from the users, in the form of user feedback, for example. 
• A model of the service should be prepared before developing it in full. This helps to pinpoint mistakes and correcting the same before spending a lot of time and money.
• It is an interdisciplinary and collaborative process. All relevant stakeholders, both external and internal, should be involved in the design and delivery of the service. 

Why is user feedback so important?

User feedback is the foundation for the success of any service design, and it is important for the following reasons:

• User feedback helps in clearly understanding the drawbacks or flaws of the service. This allows designers to take the necessary corrective action.
• User feedback helps to determine how satisfied the users are with the service. This has its direct bearing on the market share and revenue of the company.
• Collecting user feedback for design improvement ultimately provides them with better user experience. This encourages users to be loyal to your brand.
• User feedback provides product managers with necessary information not only for the design but also for taking other crucial decisions for the project.

The process doesn’t stop after the collection of user feedback. It requires product managers and UX designers to actually act on the data. The first thing is to figure out areas where improvement is needed. The UX designer will then make changes in the design to meet the user’s requirements.

Once the necessary changes are made, the service is presented to the users again to determine if it meets their requirements. If the revised service design blends in well with the users’ expectations, the service design process is considered successful.Epiphany is a qualitative research tool that helps you make sense of what your users are saying. It identifies patterns in unstructured data so you can start using your user feedback to build things that your users want.

Try our beta today to explore all the features we offer.

Learn more about how you can apply it in your projects over here how to understand customer needs?