A year as a Service Designer – what I’ve learnt

Two weeks ago, I celebrated my one-year anniversary with Perago, in this blog I’d like to share some key learning points of mine from the last 12 months. 

Having started my career in design as a web and UI/UX designer, spending the last year beginning my journey as a service designer has been challenging, yet rewarding. While the human-centred approach to service design shares many similarities with what I was previously used to, the holistic nature of it can make many things much more complex. As someone who can sometimes be a bit too focused on the details and struggles to see the wood for the trees, learning to take a step back in order to see the bigger picture and taking the time to understand how different elements tie in with each other is something that I’ve improved on over the last year at Perago and will surely continue to help me in the future. On top of this, the complexity of service design is multiplied again when working with an organisation such as a local authority, of which I have worked with multiple over the last year. These services need to be designed with everyone in mind, regardless of their demographic, which further emphasises the need for holistic thinking in this space.  

Due to Covid-19 lockdowns, I completed my final year and a half of university mainly remotely and subsequently ended up in a remote role for another two years after graduating. This made returning to in-person work quite daunting – especially in a new role. Reluctantly belonging to Gen Z, it is tempting to try and do everything online, be it in my professional or personal life. However, my time at Perago has taught me that often times sitting down in a room together is much more beneficial to the progress of a project. This has also helped me to gain a greater understanding of complicated matters; listening has always been a strong suit of mine but something that I have built on in the past year is proactively starting meaningful discussions and asking the right questions. In turn, this has helped me to build relationships with various stakeholders, many of whom have different priorities depending on their area of work. As well as stakeholders, in-person working has helped me to build better relationships with my colleagues, which has helped us to work better together as a team. 

Encompassing all of this is potentially the most important skill I have developed over the last year – perseverance. Learning what I have over the last year hasn’t come without its setbacks and challenges. Working on these sorts of big projects with broad scopes and the potential need for drastic changes can mean you are more likely to face resistance from stakeholders and animosity from customers. This understandable as change can be daunting; but it is often disheartening nonetheless. This can also be frustrating but learning to accept that things aren’t always straightforward and keep trying has been vital to my progress over the last year. This perseverance has also helped me to think in different ways and find alternative ways around issues. 

 Working on these skills during the last year has been an enjoyable and rewarding experience but this is just the beginning of my journey as a service designer and I’m looking forward to further developing these skills in the years to come.