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Service
Design
Service Design Basics:
Research two: Synthesis
Daniele Catalanotto
Illustrations: from the Milano set by Streamline HQ
Licence: this work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
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Service
Design
Introduction
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Service
Design
Great to see you
again lovely
human.
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Service
Design
The mindset that
sums it all up
As Service Design practitioners
we are curious humans
who love to make shit happen and
still can talk about their feelings.
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Service
Design
Emotional weather
30 seconds per person
• Say how you feel today so that others
know how to best interact with you
today.
• Translate it in a weather report style:
sunny, rainy, tsunami ahead, etc.
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Service
Design
What we
do today.
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Design
What happens today?
Program
• 2 Shit ideas review
• Reading about Synthesis
• 3x learning loop
• Learn by teaching
• Pro tips and Q&A
• Practice exercise
• Debriefing
• Case study
• Assignment and conclusion
• Timing
• Lunch around 12:00
• End at 17:00
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Service
Design
Why do we do this?
Program
Using the best way to learn
Teaching is one of the best ways to really learn
something.
Synthesis is the magic part
Researching is « easy » making sense of it is
what is hard. That’s why we spend a full day on
turning research into elements that can inspire
action.
Case study
As you asked, you’ll see through a real-life
project how what we explored today is used in
the professional world.
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Service
Design
What happens next
How does this course build with the rest?
When What Topic
November 7th Business Design Introduction Service Design for People, Public and Planet
November 28th Research 2 Service Design Basics
December 5th Service Design Principles Library Service Design for People, Public and Planet
December 12th Storytelling Leading Conversations
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Service
Design
How your feedback shaped this
Program
Different media
To help those with dyslexia, there is a
larger mix of different « learning
materials »: video, slides, and texts.
Case study
For those who ask themselves: but how is
this used in a real project, I’ll share the
behind-the-scenes of a project where the
practices we share today were used.
Resources to go further
For those who want to go deep in a
specific part of what we explored there are
recommended resources at each stage to
explore (books, tools, websites, etc)
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Design
Questions
before we start?
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Design
Shit ideas
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Design
Shit ideas tour
5 minutes per person
• Present the idea that gets you most
excited at this time
• Present the idea that scares you the
most at this time
• As a listener on sticky notes share
stars and wishes
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Service
Design
Course
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Service
Design
Get the
knowledge
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Design
The challenge
Learn new skills and
theories by teaching
them back to your peers.
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Design
Read and teach back
Dive deep into the topic in subgroups
using the given resources.
Your tasks as a group:
• Divide the material between your
team members
• Build a 10-minute presentation to
answer the question of your group
• Upload the presentation on
Sharepoint.
01_Core module > SD > Module deliverables > Today’s date
11:00 including break
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Service
Design
Where you’ll find the information
Pro tip
Subfolders are for content that comes from the
same author around one idea but shared in a
different format (slides, video, article).
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Service
Design
The knowledge of your group
Group 1:
What are Synthesis
and Insights?
Best for people with dyslexia
as there is lots of video in this topic
Group 2:
What are tools that
can help me do a
Synthesis?
Group 3:
How can I use a
Service Blueprint for
Synthesis?
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Enjoy a break
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Service
Design
Topic 1:
What are Synthesis
and Insights?
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Service
Design
Peer teaching
Learn from the teachings of your
peers and share tips.
We do a tour of the table where each of
us can share a tip based on personal
experience. You can either:
1. Share now: Share your tip
2. Share later: Share your tip at the end
of the round.
3. Pass: If you don’t feel you have
something to share that’s okay.
10 minutes
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Service
Design
Three pro tips
Ask continuously:
What does it mean?
When you review data from your
own research, articles, case
studies, etc. ask yourself: what
does this mean for my project?
How does this help me in my
project? « It’s interesting » isn't a
an answer to that question.
Have a place to
capture the different
sources to build
insights
Use the tool of your choice (like
Notion, Dovetail, Miro) to mix
together pieces of different
sources to create learnings and
insights.
Once you have a lot
zoom out and link
elements together
Once you have a lot of learnings
and insights bundle them together
to synthesize even further.
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Service
Design
Three pro tips
Have a place to
capture the different
sources to build
insights
Use the tool of your choice (like
Notion, Dovetail, Miro) to mix
together pieces of different
sources to create learnings and
insights.
2
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Design
Solo Practice
Create insights by mixing
different things you learned,
observed and experienced.
• Link it to a specific topic
you are exploring for your
Master Thesis
15 minutes
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Service
Design
Debriefing and Q&A
15 minutes
What did you learn
in this way of working?
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A great book by Jon Kolko
that goes deeper on this idea
of Synthesis and shares
more theories and methods.
swis.ac/magic
Go further
Resource for those who want to go deeper
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Service
Design
Topic 2:
What are tools
that can help me
do a Synthesis?
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Service
Design
Peer teaching
Learn from the teachings of your
peers and share tips.
We do a tour of the table where each of
us can share a tip based on personal
experience. You can either:
1. Share now: Share your tip
2. Share later: Share your tip at the end
of the round.
3. Pass: If you don’t feel you have
something to share that’s okay.
10 minutes
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Service
Design
Three pro tips
Canvases and
templates help
Using pre-existing canvases like an
Empathy Map, Persona, etc. can
be helpful starting points to create
a summary of your findings.
For research I often force myself to
use a one sentence, three ideas
summary.
Making a
presentation forces
sense making
Creating a presentation of what
you’ve learned forces you to select
what is important and to show why
it’s important.
Use analogies,
visual metaphors
and visual stories
To summarize complex emotions
and dynamics it can be helpful to
use visual images.
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Service
Design
Three pro tips
Canvases and
templates help
Using pre-existing canvases like an
Empathy Map, Persona, etc. can
be helpful starting points to create
a summary of your findings.
For research I often force myself to
use a one sentence, three ideas
summary.
1
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Service
Design
Three pro tips
Use analogies,
visual metaphors
and visual stories
To summarize complex emotions
and dynamics it can be helpful to
use visual images.
3
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Service
Design
Solo Practice
Turn the insights you have
into a visual form, visual
analogy or metaphor
• You’re allowed to add new
insights
• If you map do it like a
geographer: It’s about
« summarizing » not
showing all the details.
30 minutes
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Service
Design
Debriefing and Q&A
15 minutes
What did you learn
in this way of working?
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Service Design Tools is a
library of tools that you can
easily filter.
swis.ac/tools
Go further
Resource for those who want to go deeper
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Service
Design
Topic 3:
How can I use a
Service Blueprint
for Synthesis?
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Service
Design
Peer teaching
Learn from the teachings of your
peers and share tips.
We do a tour of the table where each of
us can share a tip based on personal
experience. You can either:
1. Share now: Share your tip
2. Share later: Share your tip at the end
of the round.
3. Pass: If you don’t feel you have
something to share that’s okay.
10 minutes
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Service
Design
Three pro tips
Building it in a
kanban tool makes
it fast and easy.
Trello or notion are great tools to
create Service Blueprints fast.
Create your own
blocks.
Each project has different needs
and therefore can have different
building blocks in a Service
Blueprint.
Don’t create one.
But multiple ones.
Description
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Service
Design
Three pro tips
Building it in a
kanban tool makes
it fast and easy.
Trello or notion are great tools to
create Service Blueprints fast.
1
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Service
Design
Group practice
Create a Service Blueprint of
an experience you hated,
using the practical blueprint
blocks
• Show the « as-is » state
• Invent at least one new
block that you find helpful
30 minutes
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Service
Design
Debriefing and Q&A
15 minutes
What did you learn
in this way of working?
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My personal collection of
templates, courses and tools
to create Service Blueprints.
swis.ac/blueprint
Go further
Resource for those who want to go deeper
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Design
Case study
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Design
Assignment
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Design
Assignment for next time
10 shitty ideas
• Re-interpret the 10 shitty ideas
exercise.
• Use the time you would have used to
generate shitty ideas to do something
that makes you progress in your
project and life.
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Design
Conclusion
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Design
Bravo!
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Design
Learnings from
the day
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Design
What are tips that make synthesis easier?
Learnings from the debriefing
Use inspiration
from the
scientific
method
• Set a hypothesis and
verify it in the data you
gathered
• Explore diverse sources
of data
• Doing line-by-line
coding of the interview
Start early
• Do summaries during
and right after the
interviews
• Boomark key elements
of a conversation whil
recording it.
Listen to your
guts
• Look for the strong
emotional pieces of
data instead of the
average
Use technology
to get first drafts
• Use generative AI tools
to categorize parts of
interviews and find
themes
• Use local AI tools like
jan.io for better data
privacy
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Service
Design
Tips for visual synthesis
Learnings from the debriefing
Rule of thumb
• If you can’t draw it,
maybe you didn’t
understand it yet.
• Making it visual clarifies
what you understand
Tools for visual
synthesis
• Visual collage
• Internet Memes format
• Use metaphors
• Remix, mashup
existing visual
metaphors
• Canva has a lot of base
material to play with
• Use the tool you are
comfortable with
Visuals help
summarise
• Visualizing helps me to
select the most
important thing to say
• It’s easier to summarise
with visuals than with
words.
Qualities of
visual synthesis
• Visuals are a great
show where I am and
what I see
• Visualising makes the
biases clearer
• Visualising can help
you change
perspective
• Visualising shows well
the hierarchies that
exist in a system
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Design
Tips for Blueprints as a synthesis tool
Learnings from the debriefing
How to
approach a
Service Blueprint
• Start with a complex
blueprint then simplify
• Service Blueprints can
look very different and
very creative
• Don’t take it too
seriously
What to include
in a Service
Blueprint
• Add an emotional layer
Qualities
observed in your
blueprints
• The visual transmits the
emotion (making it
messy gives the
emotion of it’s messy)
• Including time spent or
waited
• Choosing a focus for
the Blueprint
• A suggestion block
with early ideas.
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Design
The summary.
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Service
Design
What happens today?
Program
• Reading
• 3x learning loop
• Learn by teaching
• Pro tips and Q&A
• Practice exercise
• Debriefing
• Guest Q&A
• Assignment and conclusion
• Timing
• Lunch around 12:00
• End at 17:00
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Service
Design
Why do we do this?
Program
Using the best way to learn
Teaching is one of the best ways to really learn
something.
Synthesis is the magic part
Researching is « easy » making sense of it is
what is hard. That’s why we spend a full day on
turning research into elements that can inspire
action.
Case study
As you asked, you’ll see through a real-life
project how what we explored today is used in
the professional world.
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Service
Design
The mindset that
sums it all up
As Service Design practitioners
we are curious humans
who love to make shit happen and
still can talk about their feelings.
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Service
Design
What happens next
How does this course build with the rest?
When What Topic
November 7th Business Design Introduction Service Design for People, Public and Planet
November 28th Research 2 Service Design Basics
December 5th Service Design Principles Library Service Design for People, Public and Planet
December 12th Storytelling Leading Conversations
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Service
Design
Let’s wrap up.
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Design
Stars and wishes
1 minute
• Write down one star (an element you
loved today).
• And one wish (an element that could
be improved).
• One element per sticky note.
• Place them on the wall and group
them by similar ideas.
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Service
Design
Thanks for
today!
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Service
Design
See you soon
Daniele Catalanotto
Illustrations: from the Milano set by Streamline HQ
Licence: this work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International