Service Design Show

It's just not designed for me...

That thought hits me every time I'm in the kitchen, wrestling, trying to prepare a healthy meal for the family.

Reading recipes six times over, scrambling for ingredients, juggling the chaos of parallel cooking... yeah, it's a mess.

And then, there's my wife, a natural chef, gliding through it all with effortless grace. Watching her is like watching poetry in motion.

This stark contrast reinforces that the kitchen and everything in it feels utterly alien to me.

Now, as a white, middle-aged, English-speaking, physically able male, I'll be the first to admit this feeling of alienation is rare for me when dealing with most products and services. And yes, cooking is a trivial example.

But countless people who face do face this daily in situations far more critical.

Imagine navigating healthcare, financial services, or public services, feeling like they weren't designed for you. Now that's a serious problem.

Unfortunately, this is the reality for more services than we'd maybe like to admit.

Sure, from a service design (and business perspective), it's easy to justify focusing on the majority.

Time and resources are limited, so we design for the "center of the bell curve," the biggest group or the most profitable users. If that means excluding some, well, that's just business, right?

But our guest, Jess Kessin, argues that good design does not exclude.

She proposes an alternative approach: inclusive design that's both effective and cost-efficient. In fact, she insists it pays for itself.

So, how do we bring more inclusive practices into our design process? How do we make the business case? And what are some practical starting points?

We dive into all of that and much more in this episode.

As I've often said on the Show, making our services inclusive is our responsibility as a design community.

Even (especially) when no one is asking, it should be our own professional standard for good design.

Enjoy the conversation, and as always, keep making a positive impact.

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00Welcome to Episode 224

03:30 Meet Jess

05:15 Discussion of D-School

06:30 Barriers to Implementing Inclusive Design

08:30 The Business Case

11:00 Addressing Stakeholder Profit Concerns

13:30 Prototyping Inclusive Design

15:00 Identifying Key Focus Areas

17:00 Living up to design standard

22:00 Engaging "Edge Users"

25:00 Designing for Extreme Users

29:00 Expanding Design to "All" of Humanity

32:00 Community-Driven Design

33:00 Untapped Market Potential

35:30 Misconceptions Among Design Students

41:00 Blind Spots in Design Education

44:30 Learning from Users with Disabilities

45:00 Discovering Insights from Outliers

46:00 Importance of Good Design

49:00 Practical tips for designer

51:30 The Future of Inclusive Design

55:00 AI as a Tool for Inclusive Design

58:00 Taking Leadership in Inclusive Design

1:00:00 Food for Thought

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I try to avoid conflict... most of the time.

It creates tension that I usually find counter-productive.

But what if this tension is actually the catalyst for growth?

Have I been missing out?

Our guest Tash Willcocks thinks so.

She's a self-proclaimed former conflict avoider who now champions the idea of "running towards the conflict" to unlock its potential for positive change.

Yes, conflict creates a tension that most of us instinctively shy away from.

But according to Tash, this tension can foster collaboration and drive personal growth when channeled in the right ways.

There's just one small problem.

Conflict in the workplace often occurs when people give (or receive) feedback. But most of us aren't really great at this.

So, instead of using feedback as a constructive opportunity, things either spiral out of control, or people conceal the key message out of politeness.

In both cases, it's a missed opportunity.

The art is to find that sweet spot between kindness and clarity, where we can give and receive feedback in a way that feels supportive and helps us grow.

I have to say, Tash's journey from conflict avoidance to embracing tension is quite inspiring.

So, if you want to turn those tough conversations into moments where you learn and grow the most, this episode has you covered.

Tash made me think: What is the best feedback I've received, from whom, and what made it so powerful? What would be your answer...

Enjoy the episode, and keep making a positive impact!

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to episode 223

04:00 Embracing creative conflict

05:45 What sparked her interest in this topic

07:00 Take hard conversations

10:30 Run towards the conflict

13:00 Teaching conflict

16:00 Opening up wounds

19:00 Radical candor

23:30 Avoiding hard talks

21430 Overcoming avoidance

27:00 Feedback and timing

30:00 Giving & receiving feedback

32:30 People solve problems

35:00 Beyond reading design books

38:00 Starving artist mindset

39:15 Takeaways so far

43:30 Drama triangle vs Empowerment triangle

47:00 Creating self-awareness while drawing

49:30 Drawing as journaling

51:00 Ruthlessly curious

53:00 Piece of advice

54:45 Question to ponder

55:00 Resources

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When advice goes wrong...

My daughter is an avid soccer player.

On a recent cold and dark Saturday morning, I was standing on the sideline cheering her on at a match - the priceless perks of being a dad.

At some point, the opposing team coach was shouting to their players, "You need to defend better!"

And all I could think to myself at that moment was, "That's terrible advice."

Not because they were defending well - rather the opposite.

But, I mean, "defend better" - would you know what you're supposed to do?

Should I press higher, get closer to the attacker, make more forward runs?

This type of advice often just leads to more confusion and coordination problems.

Now, in design, we also get this type of well-intended but counter-productive advice all too often.

Want a classic example?

How about "designers need to understand business"?

No sh*t Sherlock.

We hear this ALL the time.

Very rarely does someone go beyond the surface and get specific about what "understanding business" actually means.

Fortunately for us, we have someone on the Show today who does - Ryan Scott.

Ryan has an impressive track record in design, but he also holds an MBA degree.

This combination is quite unique and gives him the ability to look at challenges from different perspectives with empathy for both sides.

So in this episode, we unpack what it actually takes to bridge the gap between business and design.

You'll be surprised to hear how many skills you already have to make this crossover successfully.

It's not easy, but it's not as hard or distant as you might think, either. MBA degree not required.

So, if you've ever felt frustrated by the lack of respect and appreciation for design from "the business side," this conversation might just hold the clue on how you can turn that around.

I've always said that designers can be some of the best salespeople.

It's really time that we start using this power to our advantage.

Because we are all selling already, every single day.

Enjoy and keep making a positive impact!

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to episode 222

03:00 Broad Designer Role

05:00 Business vs. Users

07:30 Why an MBA?

11:00 Business for Designers

14:00 People Skills & Clout

15:30 Design Gaslighting

21:00 Joining the Conversation

22:30 The Gap

32:00 Management-Led Design

34:00 Shaping Your Perspective

36:00 Sales & Brand

38:00 Biggest Roadblock

41:30 Reframing Our Identity

46:15 Adapting to the System

48:45 Imposter Syndrome

51:45 Proving Your Impact

54:00 Competitive Analysis

56:30 Design Career Path

1:01:00 Question to Ponder

1:02:15 Resources

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AI won't take over your job...

An 8-year-old girl with AI will!

I crossed a line...

Recently, while working on redesigning our online community platform, my excitement got the better of me. I dove headfirst into prototyping a few things in the backend system.

"How hard could it be, right?" (Keep this line in mind throughout the rest of the email.)

Sure, I know a thing or two about programming, and if everything else fails, there's always AI to help out, right?

Well, the honest conclusion a few days later, when we brought in a true expert developer, was that I had no clue what I was doing.

Before the developer could implement the updates properly, we had to undo all the changes I had made. So we lost time, not once, but twice.

The silly thing is, this seems to be a habit I can't shake.

And I see it a lot around me as well: saying yes to challenges that are better left to experts.

Of course, there are many situations where being confident and experimental gets things done.

Instead of waiting and debating, we build a prototype and iterate from there.

Frankly, this approach is encouraged and celebrated in our design process.

But... there's a major pitfall.

In the story above, the cost of my "how hard can it be?" approach was lost time.

That's unfortunate but not something that will cause any major, long-term damage.

Now, imagine working in a context where the stakes are much higher.

Where you're intervening in people's lives. Where your solutions impact the well-being of communities. Where your approach has the potential to reduce—or increase—systemic inequalities.

KA McKercher, our guest in this episode, argues that in those scenarios, we can't just rush in and take on every project that comes our way.

Because when we do, and we go in with a beginner's mindset, chances are high that we might end up causing actual harm to the people who need help the most.

In those situations, losing time on a project is the least of your worries. There are clearly much bigger stakes at play.

So the tough question becomes: How do we know which challenges are a good fit for our skillset and which ones should we say no to?

Especially when we want to do good and contribute to a positive outcome in those high-stakes challenges.

Having the self-awareness to know you limits and limitations is a sign of maturity and professionalism.

If you care about growing your self-awareness, this is a conversation you don't want to miss.

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 220

04:00 Good intentions are not enough

06:30 Why this matters

09:00 Lived experience aligning to design

12:30 What's good enough?

14:30 What is co-facilitation

16:30 Emotional curiosity

20:30 Being conscious of the water

27:00 What to do

30:30 Is it a yes or no?

35:00 Intentions

38:30 What's within the scope

41:00 Material based practices

45:30 Impostor syndrome

48:30 Reviews on the article

50:00 Hoping the conversation evolves

52:00 When it's out of your scope

54:30 When to step away

58:00 Question to ponder

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