In the past decades, there has been a transition from an inside-out focus on product-orientation and optimisation to an outside-in approach; centred on understanding why customers make use of a particular solution and aimed at serving them the best way possible. That is why for organisations, service design has grown in importance and has become a crucial capability to stay relevant in this service- and experience-dominant economy.
Service design is all about the design of these services, inherently looking at the customer's experience, and enabling organisations to deliver. By combining the service's frontstage and backstage, service design offers a holistic view of the organisation's interactions and their unique contexts, processes, systems, metrics, people, and tools involved. This process ensures cohesiveness and enables engagement with the organisation over time. Hence, service design increases the capacity to improve not only service experiences but also organisational design.
The course focuses on services as ecosystems for value generation in which value is co-created by all actors and stakeholders involved, not only customer-facing staff and customers but also other organisations who serve the customer as well. The course takes a systems approach to the design of services, looking at the relationships between individual elements and at the service as a whole. To help you gain this all-encompassing perspective, fields like social science, organisational design/design operations and business design are included in different lessons throughout the course.
Students will combine theory with practice during the course, including exercises and a real-world case.
You will follow a series of lessons bundled in 8 chapters. Each Monday, the lessons for that week are unlocked. Study the content, watch the videos, and do the exercises at your own pace. Because you start at the same time as your fellow participants, you will be able to discuss, exchange feedback, and work on exercises together. Learning with and from your peers is one of the guiding principles of our courses.
You also will work in small groups on a unique brief set with a client, an organisation that introduces you to a real-world case; their challenge to be solved. You will be guided by a team of tutors; seasoned design experts from fields like social design, design research, experience design, and of course, service design.
All lessons are online, and live sessions will take place via Zoom. Each group will receive expert tutoring in 6 live session. The 1-hour sessions include expert tutoring plus team collaboration and are offered in 2 time slots (morning and afternoon CET) on the following days:
Friday, March 28, 2025 - Session 1
Friday, March 4, 2025 - Session 2
Friday, March 18, 2025 - Session 3
Friday, March 25, 2025 - Session 4
Friday May 2, 2025 - Session 5
Friday May 9, 2025 - Session 6
Friday May 23, 2025 - Pitching session
This course is worth 40 SDC study points. You will receive a certificate of completion.
Service design, business design, strategic design, futures thinking, systems thinking
Download (pdf)
Diane Seaver (United States) is a Senior Service Design and Experience Lead at Philips working on service innovation projects specialising in business model innovation and go-to-market implementation.
Ariel Guersenzvaig (Argentina) teaches and writes about the philosophy and ethics of design and technology. He is professor of design theory at ELISAVA Barcelona School of Design and Engineering, where he also heads the MA in User Experience.
Bassam Jabry (UK) is a seasoned designer, systems thinker, and managing director of Chemistry, an independent strategic design consultancy, that helps organisations deliver human-centred solutions that drive positive change.
Noortje Küppers (The Netherlands) is a service design consultant at Livework studio, where she focuses on bridging urban design and service design. Her key driver is to design for wellbeing and a sustainable future.
Inge Keizer (the Netherlands) is a senior service design consultant specialised in business design, strategic innovation, customer experience and entrepreneurship with 20 years of experience.
Maja Grakalić (Croatia) is an independent foresight strategist, service designer and PhD candidate at Central Saint Martins in London. Her work merges strategic foresight with the human-centred collaborative approach.
Itziar Pobes (Spain) is strategic designer and researcher, specialised in service design and innovation with 20+ years of experience in interdisciplinary design, creativity, design research and cultural studies.
Get in touch with us for a quote!
© Service Design COLLEGE. All Rights Reserved.