Service Design can be used as a general term to describe the planning and organisation of people, infrastructure, communication and material components. It was only in my lecture this morning that I actually learnt this term for the first time and it got me thinking about where I could find examples of this.

Usually, service design can be used as a broad organisational tool for projects or companies. It is a visual way of seeing the links between people within an organisation, but also can benefit the customer too to show the inner workings of a company.

I was trying to look for an example that would be relatively clear for me to discuss and pick apart, and I found that larger companies have some elements of service design within their ‘about us’ pages.

I finally decided on looking at the major supermarket, Tesco.

The Tesco PLC website shows various visualisations of service design within their content.

The most obvious one to start with is their ‘Meet the Board’ page. Here, the website holds pictures of their members of the board, or the different personas, as mentioned in this weeks lecture. Not only does this help customers identify these important members, but also gives some personality to the Tesco brand. Once you click on the plus icon, more information about that particular person is shown, showing their previous experience at other companies.

Alongside this, this page also acts as a organogram, with the Non-executive Chairman as the first image you see and then filtering through to the Group Company Secretary as the last image you see.

Another visualisation method can also be seen on their site. There is a timeline from the creation of the company to the present day.

On their online shopping section, many touchpoints can be found. This can include, the shopping basket icon, the store locator button, their social media widgets and the ‘contact us’ button.

I also looked at IHG, a large hotel group that has several brands under its wing.

On this website, I found the use of icons and images to reflect the company’s values for their staff.

I also found a stakeholders map but with a difference. Usually, a stakeholders map has a user in the middle to show what you are trying to achieve for the customer. However, here you find their aim of having a 79% room revenue delivery in the middle. Around their aim holds the methods in which they would achieve that from food and beverage, sales force and the IHG Rewards Club.

There are many types of visualisations to look at in regards to service design, but these are the few that I decided to look at further. This is a great way to learn, as (hopefully) I will be able to take ideas from this and create my own style to portray the inner workings of a company.