Refine your service design with these essential tools

"The best tools give you new ways to think, new ways to create, and new ways to see the world."– John Maeda, designer, technologist, and author

As a service designer, your work goes beyond simply optimizing touchpoints; it's a mindset that shapes how people experience the world and influences how service providers and product makers create it. Not an easy task! And, it’s an inherently complex and creative one that can quickly become too much to handle — without the right tools to organize, map, prototype, and refine your ideas.

To be great at your work, you must embrace service design thinking, follow a structured service design process, and apply the service design methodology that works best for you. Each of these areas is supported by specialized service design tools that facilitate and enhance the design process.  

In this article, we’re going to explore the essential service design tools that can help you with all three of these areas — and ultimately turn your creative complexity into elegant, user-centered solutions. We’ll highlight the features of each tool so you can choose the best ones for your service design toolkit. Let’s begin.

What is Service Design?

Service design is the strategic process of orchestrating interactions, systems, and touchpoints to create seamless, customer-centric experiences. It aligns business goals with user needs, ensuring every service component; digital, human, and operational, works cohesively.

Unlike UX design, which focuses on specific interfaces, service design considers end-to-end experiences, bridging frontstage (customer interactions) and backstage (business operations). It involves journey mapping, service blueprinting, prototyping, and iteration to refine and optimize service delivery.

By integrating human-centered design, data-driven insights, and cross-functional collaboration, service design enhances efficiency, engagement, and long-term customer satisfaction, driving innovation across industries.

Our List of Essential Service Design Tools

1. Journey mapping tools

Journey mapping is the foundation of the service design process, offering a detailed visualization of the customer’s experience — pinpointing pain points, uncovering opportunities, and refining critical touchpoints to optimize and enhance it.

TheyDo 

When it comes to journey mapping, TheyDo is a standout service design tool. It’s specifically designed for service designers, offering an intuitive interface that allows you to integrate both qualitative and quantitative data. This means you can create detailed, interconnected maps that provide a comprehensive view of all your customers’ journeys. And because it’s built with collaboration in mind, your entire team can contribute and iterate in real-time, ensuring that every insight is captured and acted upon in your single source of truth.

Miro 

A flexible digital whiteboard that’s great for journey mapping, especially in the early stages of a project. It offers a variety of templates and tools that help you visually organize thoughts and map out customer experiences. Its simplicity and versatility make it a go-to tool for brainstorming and initial journey-mapping exercises.

Smaply 

Focused on creating detailed journey maps with persona integration, Smaply allows designers to visualize the customer journey from multiple perspectives. It’s a useful tool for understanding how different user types interact with a service.

Related: How to optimize the insurance customer journey in 5 steps

2. Service blueprinting tools

Once you’ve mapped out the customer journey, the next step is to dive deeper into the processes that support those touchpoints. This is where service blueprinting comes into play. Service blueprints provide a detailed view of both the customer-facing and internal processes, helping to ensure everything is aligned for a smooth service experience.

TheyDo 

TheyDo shines again in this area with its integrated service blueprinting capabilities. The tool allows you to seamlessly transition from journey mapping to blueprinting, ensuring that your frontstage (customer-facing) and backstage (internal) processes are perfectly aligned. This holistic approach helps you maintain a clear overview of the service while also managing the finer details.

Lucidchart 

If you need to create complex diagrams and flowcharts, Lucidchart is a powerful option. While it’s not specifically a service design tool, its versatility makes it useful for creating detailed service blueprints. It’s especially helpful for visualizing intricate processes that involve multiple stakeholders.

Canvanizer 

Known for its canvas-based design, Canvanizer is great for creating and sharing service blueprints. It’s particularly useful for teams that prefer a more streamlined, collaborative approach to mapping out processes.

3. Persona development tools

Personas are fictional characters that represent different user types. They help ensure that the service design process remains user-centric by keeping the focus on real user needs and behaviors.

TheyDo 

In TheyDo, persona development is integrated directly into the service design process. You can create detailed personas and link them to journey maps and service blueprints, ensuring that your designs are always grounded in user insights. This feature is particularly useful for maintaining consistency across different stages of the design process.

Xtensio

Xtensio offers customizable templates that make it easy to create detailed personas. It’s a great tool for teams who want a straightforward way to develop personas that guide the design process. While it doesn’t offer the same level of integration as TheyDo, it’s a solid option for creating and sharing persona documents.

4. Prototyping and testing tools

Prototyping and testing are where your ideas really start to take shape. These stages are critical for validating concepts and ensuring that the final design will work as intended in the real world.

TheyDo 

While TheyDo is primarily known for its journey mapping, Journey Management, and blueprinting features, it also supports the prototyping phase. By linking prototypes to specific steps in the journey map, you can see how your designs fit into the overall service experience. This contextual approach helps teams understand the impact of each prototype within the larger service ecosystem.

Figma 

Figma is a versatile design tool that excels in both prototyping and real-time collaboration. It’s particularly useful for teams who need to create interactive prototypes that can be tested with users. Figma’s integration with other tools, like FigJam, makes it a powerful choice for designers who want to keep everything in one place.

InVision 

Known for rapid prototyping and design collaboration, InVision is a popular choice for creating interactive prototypes that can be easily tested and iterated upon. Its strong collaboration features make it ideal for teams working on tight deadlines.

5. Collaboration and feedback tools

Collaboration is at the heart of the service design process. With so many stakeholders involved, it’s essential to have service design tools that facilitate real-time collaboration and feedback, ensuring that everyone is on the same page.

TheyDo 

TheyDo’s collaboration features are one of its strongest assets. Whether your team is working remotely or in the same office, TheyDo enables seamless collaboration throughout the entire service design process. Feedback can be directly linked to journey maps and blueprints, making it easy to iterate and improve designs based on real-time input.

Miro 

Miro is another excellent tool for collaboration. Its digital whiteboard format makes it easy for teams to brainstorm, share ideas, and iterate on designs. It’s particularly well-suited for workshops and collaborative sessions, where multiple people need to contribute simultaneously.

Mural and FigJam 

Both Mural and FigJam are designed to maximize collaboration across various activities, offering features like sticky notes, voting, and timers that are useful in workshops and brainstorming sessions. They’re user-friendly and integrate well with other design tools, making them versatile options for teams.

Slack

While not a service design tool per se, Slack is an essential communication platform that integrates well with other design tools. It helps keep conversations organized and ensures that team members can quickly share updates, files, and feedback.

6. Human-centered design tools

Source

Implementing human-centered design methods is a critical aspect of service design thinking, and having the right tools to support this approach is essential.

LUMA Workplace 

LUMA Workplace is the go-to tool for implementing human-centered design methods within the service design process. It offers a rich library of templates and activities that guide teams through the various stages of design thinking, from research and ideation to prototyping and testing. LUMA Workplace’s focus on human-centered design makes it an invaluable resource for service designers aiming to create user-centric services.

Why TheyDo stands out

Among the many service design tools available, TheyDo stands out as a comprehensive platform that supports every stage of the service design process. From journey mapping and service blueprinting to persona development and prototyping, TheyDo offers a seamless, integrated experience that empowers service designers to create exceptional and impactful services.

Holistic integration: TheyDo’s ability to bring together different aspects of service design into one cohesive platform is what makes it truly unique. By integrating qualitative and quantitative data, TheyDo provides a complete picture of the customer experience, allowing for informed, data-driven decisions.

Collaboration features: In today’s world of remote work, real-time collaboration is more important than ever. TheyDo’s features enable teams to work together effortlessly, ensuring that every voice is heard and every idea is explored.

Actionable insights: TheyDo doesn’t just help you map and blueprint; it also turns insights into actionable steps. This ensures that every part of the service design process, from ideation to execution, is covered.

Get started with TheyDo

As a service designer, your preferences and working style are as unique as the users you design for. We understand that there's no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution when it comes to selecting the right service design tools. However, if you’re looking for a platform that truly covers all the bases, we highly recommend starting with TheyDo— and not just because it’s our product (wink). TheyDo stands out as a comprehensive, user-friendly platform that supports every stage of the service design process, from journey mapping to blueprinting to company-wide Journey Management and beyond.

TheyDo also offers a variety of free service design templates to help you hit the ground running. And the best part? TheyDo’s free-to-use product allows you to explore its features without any financial commitment, making it an accessible option for both novice and seasoned service designers alike.

Join the service design network

Staying connected with a community of like-minded professionals is one of the best ways to keep up with the latest trends and tools in service design. TheyDo’s community offers a vibrant platform where you can connect with fellow service designers, share insights, and collaborate on projects. It’s an invaluable resource for expanding your network and learning from others in the field.

The final word

Choosing the right tools for your service design projects depends on your unique approach and the specific needs of each job. Your service design toolkit should be a reflection of your style and methodology as a designer. That said, TheyDo offers the versatility and comprehensive support that can help you excel in your work. Ready for a more elegant way to design your exceptional customer experiences?