I’ve always sought to understand people. By studying Service Design, I now have the confidence and tools to identify problems in a more structured manner. The richer the information, the easier it is to meet a person’s needs.
Service Design: Elevate (Self-paced)
Online
Self-paced
Start anytime
Course overview
Service Designers aim to deliver seamless, efficient and holistic service experiences. This involves optimising the working teams, resources, processes and systems that sit behind a service.
More and more organisations are seeking to incorporate superior service experiences, with LinkedIn recording Service Design as one of the top 15 emerging job roles in Australia (2021).
This online course will equip you with a ‘ready-to-go’ Service Design toolkit so you can immediately plan and deliver optimal service experiences.
Industry-relevant content:
- Premium material built in-house by experienced learning designers, in consultation with industry experts
- 60-80 hours of learning with 6 months’ access
- Understand and map the end-to-end journey of a service across digital and offline channels
- Learn soft skills to effectively communicate and secure stakeholders’ buy in
- Leverage a comprehensive toolkit containing all the templates and tools needed to put Service Design principles into practice
Hands-on practical learning:
- This course is extremely hands-on, with multiple activities in each module to make sure you put theory into practice
- Perform research and put together a current- and future-state Service Blueprint to communicate your service strategy
- Walk away with a Service Design project portfolio containing a compelling set of artefacts to showcase your skills to potential employers
- Apply newly acquired Service Design skills immediately in your job
- Set your business apart from the crowd by delivering truly exceptional service experiences
Study at your own pace:
- Have the freedom to plan and build your development around life’s other commitments
- With no classes or set deadlines, this course is perfect if you are juggling study with a full-time job
- Complete the course on a schedule that’s convenient for you – within a few weeks, or over the full six months
Expert guidance and support:
- Though you’ll go through the course at your own pace, you’ll never be alone
- Book up to twelve 1:1 sessions with your subject matter Xi Expert and discuss course material, get personalised feedback and consult over project decisions
- Get support from a Study Coach who will help you plan your progress, keep motivated and answer any study-related questions
Easy-to-use online learning platform:
- Access course content through our easy to use online learning platform, powered by NovoEd
- It makes learning interactive and engaging, with content designed to read like a story for a seamless experience
- Your online campus also makes it possible to connect with, and learn from, other students who may be studying the course
Earn trusted and recognised credentials:
- Get a Certificate of Completion to validate your competencies and skills in Service Design
- Add an industry trusted digital credential to your LinkedIn profile
Course timeframe
You’ll have 6 months access to all course materials, enabling you to study at your own pace. Complete the course in a few weeks, or over the full 6 months – it’s up to you.
The course content takes approximately 60-80 hours. This timeframe includes working through the learning materials, tackling the course activities, finishing your assessments, creating and presenting your final project, and communicating with your Xi Expert.
What you'll learn
Understand the basics of service design and its value in solving complex problems. Learn about the nuances that differentiate the closely aligned disciplines of Service Design, CX and UX.
Topics
- Understanding Service Design, Human Centred Design and the Double Diamond framework
- Service Design minds: Strategic vs creative
- Differentiating Service Design, UX and CX
- The value of Service Design: Solving complex problems
Learning Activities
- Perform desktop research for your project
Kick off your service design project that you’ll work on throughout the course. Question the brief and define the scope as the first step towards executing your project.
Topics
- Unpacking the brief: the (human) problem, business requirements & service landscape
- Using the Desirable – Viable – Feasible framework as a project guide
Learning Activities
- Create a reverse brief
- Evaluate and map relevant trends
- Design a stakeholder map
Learn about the different types of qualitative and quantitative research techniques. Plan and carry out field interviews to support your project.
Topics
- Quantitative vs qualitative research
- Primary research: Interview guide and techniques
- Contextual inquiries and observations: Guerrilla research and ‘Fly On The Wall’
Learning Activities
- Conduct interviews to inform your design problem
- Capture and collect interview data
Synthesise your research and derive data-driven insights about customer motivations, needs and opportunities. This stage helps you to empathise with the customer and people involved in the service.
Topics
- Coding & organising data to find insights
- Synthesising data using affinity maps
- Defining & aligning on the problem(s)/opportunity
- Mapping: Human needs and customer journey
Learning Activities
Prepare the following artefacts for your project:
- Affinity map
- Empathy map
- Personas
- Archetype profile
- Jobs-to-be-Done
Understand how service blueprints can empower your business to optimise service processes. Get familiar with the elements of a service blueprint and put your learning into action using a blueprint template.
Topics
- Strategic vs operational forces: Why Blueprint?
- Blueprinting as an artefact
- Analysis Frameworks: Swimlanes; Front and back of house visibility; Analysis tracking and Emotional states
- Blueprint in action: A step by step guide
Learning Activities
- Produce your own current state Service Blueprint
Use ‘How Might We’ questions and creative matrices for ideation to step beyond the obvious and generate innovative potential solutions. Develop a service hypothesis and prepare a storyboard to communicate your vision.
Topics
- Setting a future service vision and ideating towards solutions
- Alignment through workshops: ‘How Might We’
- Ideation & inspiration toolkit
- Developing a hypothesis
- Communicating ideas through Storyboarding
Learning Activities
- Write your own ‘How Might We’ questions
- Create Crazy 8s; a creative matrix; Concept cards & posters
- Generate a service hypothesis
- Prepare a storyboard
Bring your ideas to life and test their practicality with early and inexpensive prototypes. Learn about the different forms of prototypes and how to build them rapidly.
Topics
- Introduction to prototyping: Making, visualising and failing fast
- Physical vs digital prototyping
- Rapid prototyping: Building ideas into concepts
- Role play: Acting out a real world scenario
- Defending your prototype’s value proposition
Learning Activities
- Use a rapid prototype to build out your project concept
- Understand and communicate your prototype’s value proposition
Let your users experience the prototype. Build and validate hypotheses based on user feedback and prioritise features that add the most value.
Topics
- Validating hypothesis and capturing feedback
- Testing Methodologies
- Testing Frameworks: Concepts vs Features
- Usability testing
- Ruthless Prioritisation: How to prioritise following testing
Learning Activities
- Prepare a hypothesis test card
- Create a test plan
- Apply testing and prioritising tools to your project
Build a strategic roadmap for your service that includes a desirable, viable and feasible goal and the major steps or milestones needed to achieve it.
Topics
- Introduction to Roadmapping
- Blueprinting: Choosing the right template and designing the future blueprint
- Curating your own design process
- Dealing with ambiguity
- Aligning to the DVF framework: Desirable, Viable, Feasible
Learning Activities
- Create your future-state Service Blueprint
Now that you have finalised your future-state service blueprint, learn how to communicate its vision, get stakeholder-buy in and make it a reality.
Topics
- Bringing together data and artefacts
- Building a future vision and adapting for unknowns
- Developing a compelling narrative: Storyboarding & building a deck
- What makes a great Service Design portfolio?
Learning Activities
- Create your presentation deck
- Submit your video presentation and receive feedback
Who this course is for
If you’re keen to study flexibly online and develop a Service Design skillset at your own pace, then this is the course for you.
Our Service Design Elevate Self-Paced course is ideal for professionals including but not limited to:
- Anyone working in a service-oriented role like customer service, financial services, public service, etc. who wants to make better use of their organisation’s resources and improve service delivery
- Professionals working in adjacent disciplines like UX, CX or Business Design and looking to expand their skill set and boost career prospects
- Entrepreneurs and small business owners who want to set their business apart by offering exceptional service delivery
- Anyone who wants to learn practical Service Design skills that they can apply right away
Earn a digital credential
We partner with Credly to deliver digital credentials for our graduates. Digital credentials are a graphical representation of your skills, combined with a description of the knowledge and activities it took to earn them.
Digital badges can be used in email signatures or digital resumes, and on social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
For more info, click here.
Our students' success stories
Academy Xi scored 5 out of 5, as rated by our students.
“I now have the confidence and tools to identify problems”
Sarah Forde
“I’ve really enjoyed the video content and insightful reading”
Tayla Thompson
The onboarding experience was easy and the team were super helpful. Academy Xi is always responsive and I’ve really enjoyed the video content and insightful reading recommendations. I’m really excited for what’s to come!
“The structural knowledge makes me understand the whole process of design. This is what I want to learn from this.”
Zijian Mao
I love this course. The structural knowledge makes me understand the whole process of design. This is what I want to learn from this.
“The course has reaffirmed my passion, confidence and capability in Service Design as the next step for me”
Sitara Ramakrishnan
After working in CX for over a year alongside talented Design practitioners, I was really drawn to the processes, unique opportunities and genuine social impact delivered through Service Design. It’s been the best experience curating and crafting my own design portfolio to help solve social issues I’m most passionate about. The course has reaffirmed my passion, confidence and capability in Service Design as the next step for me.
Suggested courses
elevate courses
foundation courses
Other disciplines you might be interested in
