Explore the World's Best Ideas
Join today and uncover 100+ curated journeys from 50+ topics. Unlock access to our mobile app with extensive features.
This is the one ‘intentional’ dead end your user might face – where someone has a situation that simply doesn’t fit your service. For example, someone lives too far away for you to deliver to them, or doesn’t meet the criteria your service has set out for another reason.
Although your service might not suit them, try to deal with these dead ends as elegantly as possible, providing onward links to relevant support where possible. Just because they aren’t able to use your service to reach their end goal doesn’t mean your service isn’t part of their journey to be able to do this.
43
43 reads
MORE IDEAS ON THIS
A service, simply put, is simply something that helps someone to do something. The parts of a service might be provided by a number of different organisations but, to a user, a service is one continuous set of actions towards that end goal, regardless of who is providing it.
65
548 reads
Services are made of small pieces, but they are more than the sum of their parts. How many steps your service has and how quickly your user goes through them is often as important as what those parts do.
The number and pace of the steps within your service can be designed in a way that best...
45
51 reads
Some of these dead ends will be for legitimate reasons – for example, a person who isn’t qualified for a place at a certain university won’t be able to get a place at that university.
But some happen because we failed to account for a particular situation a user might be in – for example, t...
43
56 reads
44
48 reads
Sometimes dead ends happen more gradually than simply giving someone no option to continue. Services that are very simple for those on the ‘happy path’ often hide complex and hard to navigate side routes that don’t necessarily ‘stop’ a user from doing something, but slow them down to the extent t...
43
44 reads
Common barriers within your particular service
44
43 reads
The service must work in a way that does not unnecessarily expose a user to the internal structures of the organization providing the service.
43
61 reads
The service must be able to be found by a user with no prior knowledge of the task they set out to do. For example, someone who wants to ‘learn to drive’ must be able to find their way to ‘get a driving licence’ as part of that service unaided.
67
321 reads
What your user expects from your service when they arrive at it is very often not the same as the service you provide.
What’s important isn’t the scope of what you provide, but whether or not the part of the journey you provide helps your user to reach their ultimate goal.
54
79 reads
You won’t need to explain universal expectations to users when they sign up to your service. You will need to monitor these closely, though, because if any universal expectations aren’t met at any point, they will have the most severe effect on your user.
64
99 reads
Sometimes how your service works is almost as important as what it does.
Who is able to use it?
How is it paid for?
Is it a subscription or a one-off purchase?
How quickly can you do the thing you’re offering?
What is it about the way your service works that makes it...
66
151 reads
While it’s vital for services to be consistent, they are also complex and varied, and some parts of your service will need to look and behave differently from the rest.
However, consistency is very often mistaken as uniformity, where we aim for a service experience that is exactly the same ...
43
47 reads
The service should encourage safe, productive behaviours from users and staff that are mutually beneficial. For users, the service should not set a precedent for behaviours that may put the user at harm in other circumstances – for example, providing data without knowing its use. For staff, this ...
38
48 reads
A good service helps the user to achieve a goal – be that start a business, learn to drive or move house – in as much of a seamless stream of events as possible. This starts from the moment that a user is considering doing something to the moment they have achieved their goal, including any steps...
62
96 reads
The service must be usable by everyone who needs to use it, regardless of their circumstances or abilities. No one should be less able to use the service than anyone else.
38
41 reads
We need to think about:
44
56 reads
A service should not work in a way that assumes any prior knowledge from the user.
44
68 reads
Where your user starts will depend on how much they’re already aware of what services might be available to meet their needs. Your job is to make sure that they can get from this goal to the service you provide, without having to resort to support.
63
296 reads
The only person who gets to decide what the service is, is the person who has the goal they need to achieve – and that’s your user. It’s your job to orchestrate all of the pieces of this service in as seamless a journey as possible, even if you don’t provide the whole service yourself.
66
367 reads
Purpose of your service =
what your service does +
why it does it +
how it does it +
who it’s for
70
206 reads
A service should direct all users to a clear outcome, regardless of whether the user is eligible or suitable to use the service. No user should be left behind or stranded within a service without knowing how to continue.
44
48 reads
There is a simple rule: the number of steps in your service should be equal to the number of decisions your user has to make, no more and no less.
Don’t just design the steps of your service, design the space between them.
45
52 reads
Crucially, though, changes to expected ways of working in your service require a critical mass to be usable by all users. The bigger the shift from the norm, the more ubiquitous this will need to be for users to become familiar enough to be able to or want to use your changed service.
44
56 reads
46
58 reads
People base their understanding of the world on previous experiences. If there’s an established custom for your service that benefits a user, your service should conform to that custom. But be mindful that not all customs benefit users – some have been put in for the benefit of the organization r...
45
59 reads
What it also shows us is that when we try to solve one small part of a user’s problem with one small slice of a service, we often don’t achieve the results we set out to achieve.
Often, the perceived cost saving we think we will achieve in providing a smaller part of a whole service is outw...
53
75 reads
A good service must clearly explain what is needed from the user to complete the service and what that user can expect from the service provider in return. This includes things like how long something will take to complete, how much it will cost or if there are restrictions on the types of people...
64
116 reads
Rather than using the words your organisation uses to describe the tasks it has completed, try to find out some of the words your user would use to describe what they’re trying to achieve.
67
216 reads
In reality, although there are points in a journey where failure has more of an effect than another – being able to complete a service from start to finish is far more important than having a great experience in one moment, then not be able to complete the rest of the journey.
43
50 reads
This is why we need to go beyond thinking about accessibility, with all of the inherent biases that come along with creating a baseline of ‘normal’ versus those with ‘access needs’, and start to think in terms of ‘inclusion’ of a full spectrum of needs instead.
With services, it’s also impo...
38
42 reads
Inclusion is a scale that progressively means that your user can not only use your service but also feel safe, welcome, and, – importantly, use it in a way that makes them feel equal to all other users who might need to use that service.
It’s equally important to remember that inclusion doe...
38
42 reads
Whether that effect is big or small, knowing what to expect helps people to plan and take control of their situation. It gives them power – and in some cases the ability to make another choice if what you’re offering isn’t going to work for them.
Most people base their expectations on past ...
65
108 reads
A good service requires as minimal interaction from a user as possible to complete the outcome that they’re trying to achieve. Sometimes this will mean proactively meeting a user’s needs without them instigating an interaction with your organisation. This may mean occasionally slowing the progres...
43
55 reads
Universal expectations. These are the things about your service that are fundamental to what you’re delivering and are universal to almost all users because other similar services work in the same way.
Assumed expectations. When someone do...
66
111 reads
56
73 reads
43
45 reads
Without understanding what our users are trying to achieve, and reinterpreting our services in language that our users can understand, we often place users in a situation where, to find something, they need to know exactly what they’re looking for.
The less you know about the situation you’...
63
221 reads
Separation of data. Review what data flows through your end-to-end service, who collects it and who has access to it.
Incompatible processes. This can be one part of a journey that takes a certain amount of time, and doesn’t match up with the deadlines of a...
44
51 reads
There is a delicate balance between working in a familiar way, and breaking out of this to set a better way of working.
Try to do something new without properly testing it with users, and you risk creating a ‘new’ way of working that is unusable because users have no prior experience of it....
44
62 reads
Just as you have done with the things you presume your user can do, the first task is to identify all of the things you assume your users will have access to at any given point in their journey, and analyse what happens when they don’t have access to these things.
As a rule of thumb, you sh...
43
41 reads
Clearly express what the service tangibly does for your user. Be factual, avoid marketing promises. Stick to the functionality.
What outcome will it achieve for the user?
63
175 reads
This will probably be obvious to your user if you express what the service does and how it does it well enough, but you’ll also need to explain that it’s not possible to use the service to users who aren’t eligible or suitable for the service so that they can be moved out of the journey as soon a...
64
141 reads
45
47 reads
Many of our stereotypes about who has and who hasn’t got access to the internet are simply wrong. However, much more damaging is our presumption that access to the internet is stable and predictable.
43
42 reads
The purpose of the service must be clear to users at the start of using the service. That means a user with no prior knowledge must understand what the service will do for them and how it will work.
64
191 reads
Possibly the most crucial of all: make sure you explain to your users why your service exists and what outcome it will achieve, both personally for the user and for society.
Clearly communicate this to users – through things like the service name, description and even the interface of how i...
65
135 reads
When we build a minimum viable service, we should be aiming for a service through which most of our users will navigate to achieve the goal they set out to do. Starting from the point of view of a minimum viable service rather than ‘product’ forces us to think about which areas need to be in plac...
43
50 reads
38
44 reads
CURATED FROM
IDEAS CURATED BY
An effective communicator and business analyst with an inquisitive mind, strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making skills
Services in the internet age are not only defined by the user who’s looking for them but composed of ‘small pieces loosely joined’
“
Other curated ideas on this topic:
Sometimes dead ends happen more gradually than simply giving someone no option to continue. Services that are very simple for those on the ‘happy path’ often hide complex and hard to navigate side routes that don’t necessarily ‘stop’ a user from doing something, but slow them down to the extent t...
Just as you have done with the things you presume your user can do, the first task is to identify all of the things you assume your users will have access to at any given point in their journey, and analyse what happens when they don’t have access to these things.
As a rule of thumb, you sh...
Inclusion is a scale that progressively means that your user can not only use your service but also feel safe, welcome, and, – importantly, use it in a way that makes them feel equal to all other users who might need to use that service.
It’s equally important to remember that inclusion doe...
Read & Learn
20x Faster
without
deepstash
with
deepstash
with
deepstash
Personalized microlearning
—
100+ Learning Journeys
—
Access to 200,000+ ideas
—
Access to the mobile app
—
Unlimited idea saving
—
—
Unlimited history
—
—
Unlimited listening to ideas
—
—
Downloading & offline access
—
—
Supercharge your mind with one idea per day
Enter your email and spend 1 minute every day to learn something new.
I agree to receive email updates