Route · Public Design Atlas
Design or improve a service
To understand a service end to end and change it with sound judgment.
Experience the service
Get to know it the way the people who use it do.
Service safari
A research method in which the team uses real services, their own or competitors’, and notes what works and what fails.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Choose which services to experience and what to observe.
- Use them in real conditions, taking notes and photos.
- Compare the experiences as a team.
- Output
- Notes and photos of real services, with what works and what fails
- Avoid
- Mistaking your experience for that of all users: it is a starting point, not a conclusion.
Mystery shopping
A trained person poses as a customer to experience a service and evaluate it against defined criteria, without the staff knowing they are being observed.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Define. The journey and the evaluation criteria.
- Visit. Experience the service as a customer and write it down right after.
- Compare. Contrast visits, locations and channels.
- Output
- An evaluation of the service against set criteria, seen as a customer
- Avoid
- Using it to monitor or punish specific employees.
Go-along
Accompany a person during an everyday activity in their own setting, like shopping or getting around their neighborhood, and talk about what happens in the moment.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Agree on the outing. Which activity, where and for how long.
- Go along and talk. Observe, ask, and take notes or photos with permission.
- Review afterward. Sort notes and key moments as soon as possible.
- Output
- Notes and observations of an activity seen in its real context
- Avoid
- Turning it into a tour led by you: let the person set the route.
Map the journey
Every moment and touchpoint, in order.
Journey map
A method for representing a person's path through a service, step by step, with their actions, touchpoints, emotions and pain points.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Research with real people, not imagined ones.
- Draw the journey with its emotions and pain points.
- Choose the moments most worth improving.
- Output
- A step-by-step map of the journey, with actions, touchpoints, emotions and pain points
- Avoid
- Drawing it from the office without talking to anyone: it will be the team's opinion, not the real experience.
Touchpoint
Every moment a person interacts with a service: with another person, an object, a space, or an interface.
How it’s used
Why it happens
- A service is not seen whole: it is lived in parts.
- Each contact leaves an impression of the whole.
- A single bad contact can outweigh many good ones.
- Avoid
- Improving one channel while the others contradict what it promises.
See what is hidden
What happens behind the scenes and makes it possible.
Service blueprint
A diagram that shows, step by step, the actions of the person, of frontstage and backstage staff, the support processes, and the physical evidence of a service.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Lay out the person’s steps from start to finish.
- Under each step, add what happens in front and behind.
- That reveals the failure points and dependencies.
- Avoid
- Making it so detailed that no one can read it: start with the key steps.
Frontstage and backstage
The distinction between what the person sees of a service (frontstage) and what happens behind it to make it possible (backstage), separated by the line of visibility.
How it’s used
Why it happens
- What is visible depends on what happens behind it.
- The line of visibility separates what is seen from what isn’t.
- Designing both sides avoids promising what can’t be delivered.
- Avoid
- Dressing up the frontstage to hide a backstage that doesn’t work.
Ecosystem map
A map of all the people, organizations and systems involved in a service and what they exchange: information, money, products or trust.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- List the actors: people, organizations and systems.
- Place them closer to the center the more direct the relationship.
- Draw with arrows what goes from one to another.
- Output
- A map of the actors in the service and what they exchange
- Avoid
- Drawing only your organization: the service also depends on others.
A model that explains service quality as the distance between what customers expect and what they perceive, and looks inside the organization for where it arises.
How it’s used
How it works
- Customer expectations set the bar.
- Four gaps appear when understanding, specifying, delivering and communicating the service.
- The fifth is the one the customer experiences.
- Avoid
- Measuring only satisfaction without asking what the person expected.
Redesign
Come up with improvements where it fails most.
How might we…?
A technique for turning a problem or an insight into an open, optimistic question that invites ideas: “How might we…?”
How it’s used
How it’s done
- You start from an insight or a specific problem.
- You reframe it as a question neither too broad nor too narrow.
- You use it as the starting point for ideation.
- Output
- Open questions that invite ideas
- Avoid
- Putting the solution inside the question (“How might we build an app that…?”).
Brainstorming
A group session to generate many ideas about a problem, leaving judgment for later.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Frame the problem as a specific question.
- Suggest ideas without criticizing them.
- Group and choose once no more ideas come.
- Output
- A long list of ideas about a problem
- Avoid
- Letting the most senior person speak first.
Co-design
The collective creativity of designers and people not trained in design, applied throughout the whole process. It is a specific case of co-creation.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- The design team prepares materials so anyone can create.
- People create from their own experience.
- Together, everyone interprets what was made and decides what to design.
- Avoid
- Inviting people to co-design when the solution has already been decided.
Value Proposition Canvas
A template to see whether an offer fits a customer type: on one side, their profile (jobs, pains and gains); on the other, the offer’s value map.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Describe the profile of a customer type: jobs, pains and gains.
- Fill in the value map with products and services, pain relievers and gain creators.
- Test the fit between both parts with real customers.
- Output
- A canvas with the customer profile and the value map
- Avoid
- Filling the profile with assumptions and taking it as valid.
Four Actions Framework
Four questions for redesigning an offering against its industry: which factors to eliminate, which to reduce, which to raise and which to create that nobody offers.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Draw the strategy canvas: the industry’s factors and the level of each offering.
- Ask the four actions about each factor.
- Redraw the new value curve and compare it.
- Output
- A strategy canvas with the new value curve
- Avoid
- Only adding: without eliminating or reducing, the offering gets more expensive.
Prioritize
Decide what to change first.
Dot voting
Each person spreads a limited number of dots (stickers or marks) among the displayed options; those with the most dots move on to the next phase.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Display all the options in view.
- Vote with a few dots, in silence.
- Count and discuss the most voted ones.
- Output
- A selection of ideas ranked by support
- Avoid
- Voting in turns and in full view, because the first dots sway everyone else.
MoSCoW method
A method that sorts requirements or ideas into four groups for a specific release: what must be in (Must), what should (Should), what could (Could) and what won’t this time (Won’t).
How it’s used
How it’s done
- List everything that could be done.
- Sort each item into one of the four groups.
- Agree on what stays out with whoever decides.
- Output
- A prioritized list in four groups
- Avoid
- Marking almost everything as a must.
Test the change
Rehearse it before launching it.
Desktop walkthrough
A scale prototype, made with cardboard, building pieces, or figures, on which the team moves the characters step by step to rehearse a service from start to finish.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Set up the space and the characters on the table.
- Walk through the service step by step, out loud.
- Note questions and failures, change things, and play again.
- Output
- A model of the service and a list of changes
- Avoid
- Polishing the model: it takes time away from playing.
Prototyping
Building quick, incomplete versions of an idea, from a paper sketch or a cardboard mock-up to something that works, to answer a design question before developing the idea.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Choose the question: whether it works for people, how it looks or whether it can be built.
- Build the minimum that answers it: paper, cardboard, mock-up, wireframe or code.
- Test it and decide what to change.
- Output
- Prototypes, from a sketch to something that works
- Avoid
- Polishing the look when you don't yet know if the idea works.
Role playing
The team, and sometimes users, act out a situation with simple or cardboard objects to imagine how a product or service would work.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Prepare the scene and the roles.
- Act out the situation with the imagined object.
- Discuss what worked and what didn't.
- Output
- Acted-out situations that show how an idea would work
- Avoid
- Turning it into theater without a design question.
Bodystorming
Ideating in the real place, or a similar one, and acting out the situations and ideas there with your body, instead of imagining them from a meeting room.
How it’s used
How it’s done
- Go to the place or recreate a similar one.
- Act out the situation and the ideas.
- Note what works and what doesn’t.
- Output
- Ideas tried out physically in the real place
- Avoid
- Doing it without research data: you would be acting out your assumptions.