Service vs. product design

Dan Staffer, from Adaptative Path, posted a short piece on service vs. product design a while ago (actually almost 3 years ago), but it’s still relevant.

…service design is “the field concerned with the development of services to meet specific needs” (Shedroff) focusing on “customer experiences in industries such as retail, banking, transportation, healthcare, business-to-business enterprises, and education” (IDEO). John Thackara in his book In the Bubble makes the claim that we’re moving away from designing things (products) and towards more services, more joint ownership of things. And certainly even traditional product companies like IDEO seem to be pushing service design hard.

Check the complete post here.