Rapid service prototyping
Notes on approaches to bring services to life
When I talk about prototyping a service, I’m usually referring to creating artefacts that represent either (1) a specific touch point or (2) a service/process flow.
Touch points are points of contact or interaction between a user and the provider of a service. Examples include digital (websites, apps, email), physical (shop, spaces), human (service or delivery staff), mixed (self-service kiosk at store), etc.
Service/process flows are a series of steps that happen within the journey of a service. A service/process flow may include multiple touch points e.g. a job recruitment process may mean interactions between the candidate and the company through their website, video calls, email, and involve various departments like HR, finance, etc. A service/process flow shows how these different parts come together to form a coherent journey.
Rapid prototyping is about figuring out the quickest way you can show or test something using the least amount of effort possible. Because services can be complex, I find rapid prototyping to be helpful for zooming in and exploring specific questions that we have about a service.
In this article, I’ll be sharing some examples of rapid prototyping for digital, physical/mixed, human touch points, service/process flows and policies.
Prototyping digital touch points
A digital touch point is one where we interact with a service through a digital medium. When we talk about digital prototypes, we often think of wireframes or screen flows. While this is common, it’s important to consider: do you really need a digital prototype to test a digital touch point? Quite often yes, but not always. It depends on where in the design process you are at — early concepts might be better explored through sketches and diagrams.
(For more on when to use what prototypes, have a look at the first part of this series “An introduction to prototyping”)
Build only what is necessary to explore the most important questions at each stage. If you are testing a concept for a completely new digital product or touch point, consider using existing tools rather than spending time creating your own assets e.g. using Google forms, chat apps, social media, etc.
If you want to understand people’s experience of using the digital product or service over time within their home environment or other contexts, consider adding a diary study or a follow-up survey/interview.
When communicating digital touch points, you can also use video prototyping to show the context of use, not just wireframes or screens. Here’s another great example of using a webcam and a giant printout of a phone to demonstrate the concept for an app for children.
Prototyping physical or mixed touch points
We often experience services through physical or mixed touch points e.g. at a restaurant while ordering through a self-service kiosk.
Where there is a spatial aspect to the product or service you are creating, body storming is a great way to explore movement and interactions within a physical space without needing to create anything. In fact, this was one of the methods used by designers at Microsoft to prototype the experience of mixed reality during the creation of HoloLens.
To test something that needs to continuously work in a specific location over time, try placing sensors in the space to collect data and transmit feedback. You can do a lot with sensors and an Arduino or Raspberry Pi.
If you have a 360 camera, you can easily create an immersive experience that is viewable through an AR headset or Google Cardboard. Add some sensory input by using heat lamps, fans, carpet, etc to really bring the experience to life.
While this involves increasing levels of complexity, other ways of prototyping mixed physical-digital touch points include projection mapping and machine learning.
Prototyping a human touch point
Some parts of services involve human-to-human interaction without the need for any digital or physical channels mediating them e.g. calling a support staff for help.
Ever wondered what it feels like to be a customer service officer? Or a customer who uses your service? This is your chance to put your acting chops to good use!
All you need to get started is a scenario and some prompts or a script. You can do this in different contexts e.g. a call, in person, videoconference, etc. Role playing can help us uncover how different people see a particular issue or bring up aspects that we didn’t consider.
This is also something that you can easily involve your team and stakeholders in, allowing them to experience firsthand what it feels like to be the person interacting with customers or delivering the service.
Other ways you can represent or document these interactions are through storyboards, animations and videos.
Prototyping a service or process flow
A service or process flow is essentially a series of touch points or steps combined in a coherent journey.
The key to service prototyping is to identify the most important touch points that define the service and to prototype these first, so that you don't get overwhelmed especially if the service is complex.
Brochures and landing pages are great to explain services and explore considerations like price, desirability of options, etc.
Creating small scale events can be a way to test the actual experience and understand some of the backstage processes involved in making it happen. For instance, if you’re planning an online workshop, don’t wait until the day before the actual workshop to do a trial run. Prototype parts of it with your colleagues as you iteratively plan and create materials.
When you need to depict the entire service or process flow in a cohesive way, you can use storyboards, videos, models or diagrams to stitch together the key touch points of the service.
Service blueprints, journey maps, ecosystem maps are often seen as deliverables or visual artefacts, but they can be extremely useful tools for prototyping the flow and interactions of a service when the focus is on the process of collaboratively creating and iterating on these artefacts rather than the end output itself.
Prototyping a policy
A policy, in broad terms, is a set of principles, procedures or practices meant to guide decisions towards an outcome.
There are several dimensions when it comes to prototyping policies: the policy itself (the wording of the policy, how it is communicated, supporting changes or tasks that need to be implemented at the same time) and the experience of that policy.
Policies have wide-reaching implications that may not come to mind immediately. To bring the experience of these policies to life, consider creating secondary artefacts e.g. fictitious news articles, slice-of-life videos, official documents, instruction manuals or touch points that may emerge as a result of the policy.
Service blueprints, journey maps, ecosystem maps can also be used to highlight parts of a system or service that policy artefacts are focused on.
A word of caution: The reality is that systems are complex and policy prototypes can only help us understand their short term effects on some parts of the system. Nonetheless, it is still a useful way to explore people’s sentiments and potentially shed light on unintentional consequences that might emerge.
This article is meant to be an overview of some approaches that I have personally found useful, not a definitive guide on rapid prototyping. Additionally, services exist within ecosystems and prototyping components of a service may not be enough to fully bring out the nuances and implications of a single intervention in these wider ecosystems.
Consider using tools and frameworks from other fields like systems thinking that could provide a more holistic perspective of interconnections, cause-and-effect, feedback loops, etc when designing services.
Having a broad range of tools helps us make more nuanced decisions in how we can explore questions and directions in design.
I hope this inspires you to experiment with new tools to test and communicate your ideas!