Name: Interviews — FlowMapp
Brand: FlowMapp
Availability: OnlineOnly

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Dribbble

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Jens is a 40-year-old Digital Designer with 15 years of experience designing unique content for screens. He is currently employed as a Senior Digital Product Designer at the LEGO Group. He has been working on various projects, such as LEGO Ideas, LEGO Kids Website and LEGO Life Magazine. Jens lives and breathes Digital Design, and he is really into UI animations and micro-interactions

Jens Nielsen, a Senior Digital Product Designer at the LEGO Group

<h3>Jens, do you remember your first design portfolio? How much time and energy did it take you to create it?</h3>I graduated from Køge Business school as a multimedia designer in 2002. Back then, no one knew what a multimedia designer was. So in the last 20 years, I created a ton of portfolios. It was my thing in the beginning. The first time I put some elbow grease into it was in 2014 when I was about to leave Kathart: I wanted to present my work in the best way possible. Back then I still used Photoshop, so exploration for me wasn’t as easy as it is today. I settled on the look and layout pretty quickly so I could get started on coding and made adjustments on the fly if I ran into problems with the code.

<h3>Do you remember why you decided to create a portfolio at the time?</h3>Kathart was my first real workplace, where I created projects I was proud of. After 7 years there, I thought it was about time to try something new. I wanted to create something cool to show off my work and to supplement my job applications. That was pretty much the main reason.

With 2346+ sites rated, I have learned to scan a page to get a sense of what works and what doesn’t. If I stay and explore this page/site a little bit beyond 1–2 minutes, that’s a good sign

<h3>After 15 years in the design industry, do you think having a portfolio is still crucial for a designer's professional success? Why?</h3>I think it's vital to have something to show, even if it's just a Dribbble profile. I think most employers want to see examples of your work. It should be able to speak for itself, while the platform should be secondary.   However, having a personal website that can showcase you as a person, as well as your unique style/brand more clearly is at least, in my opinion, a better way to go. It makes you stand out more and gives you a place to explore your creative side without any interference. You might also learn to appreciate yourself more once you start working with clients :)

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<h3>What benefits can designers get from having a portfolio?&nbsp;</h3>A portfolio gives you several benefits.&nbsp;&nbsp;<ol><li>A personal playground .</li><li>An additional exposure .</li><li>Online presence.</li><li>New skills. If you build it yourself, it's a great way to learn a little bit of code and get a better understanding of what it takes to implement a design.</li></ol>

<h3>If you don't mind sharing, how did the portfolio help you get a job at LEGO if it did?</h3>To be honest, it wasn’t the deciding factor. The LEGO Group still has its corporate office in Billund, a small town in Jutland. So when a digital designer from the agency world with 15 years of experience applies, he automatically ends on top of the pile!&nbsp;&nbsp;However, not many people provide a portfolio when they apply, so you will stand out way more if you have one, especially a creative PDF or a web page.   Having a big wall of LEGO boxes behind you during a remote interview also helps :)

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But I did put a lot of effort into my portfolio, specifically for job hunting. I was about to go on a new journey, moving away from my safe space and network in Copenhagen to a new place where I didn’t necessarily know anybody. I wanted to stand out and make a good impression on my new potential employers.

<h3>What type of design portfolio do you find the most efficient: website, PDF or profiles on platforms like Dribbble?</h3>I like to think that I have a hybrid solution where I have my portfolio landing page, a one-pager where I can express myself creatively and, through that, also communicate that I do a little bit of front-end.

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Let’s stick to Dribbble for this part, as it is my preferred platform. It serves the same purpose as the portfolio itself: a permanent presence online to demonstrate your work, a place to refer people to, a place for people to discover you. On these platforms, your work is also shown more organically, through search and algorithms. It's easy to get started, and they have tools designed specifically for you to upload your designs fast and easily.

<h3>As an experienced CSS Design Awards Judge, you've screened tons of portfolios. From your perspective, what features of a portfolio make it stand out among other participants'?</h3>It’s the little things. When you can see that every little detail has been taken care of, that nothing is left to chance. The site doesn’t need to be overly flashy as long as the core idea is solid and well-executed. With 2346+ sites rated, I have learned to scan a page to get a sense of what works and what doesn’t. If I stay and explore this page/site a little bit beyond 1–2 minutes, that’s a good sign.

Top-4 online platforms to build design portfolio:

Here the barrier to entry is pretty low. You don’t need any coding skills. It’s easy and fast

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Behance (or Dribbble)

Webflow is an online editor for creating websites. It’s the Figma of web editors. They boast that you don’t need to code. But it doesn’t hurt if you know a little about CSS and HTML and how it works unless you are OK with using templates

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Webflow

Semplice is similar to Webflow, but it is based on WordPress and relies more on pre-made elements that you tweak to your liking

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Semplice

<h3>We are approaching the end of this interview. How do you think the design industry will evolve in the next 10 years?</h3>That's a good question! I think we will see a higher level of automation in work processes. I also believe that we will see a much bigger interplay between design and development.&nbsp;&nbsp;I’m sure we will see a continued focus on design systems. We need companies to know the difference between a design system and a component library, as well as the fact that having a proper design system is not a one-and-done deal, but a continuous process that needs upkeep and attention.&nbsp;Animations, look and overall feeling also seem to become a bigger part of design. Animations are used more and more to make a site look more modern, convey meaning and help elevate the user experience. So if you are new to this field, I would strongly recommend that you get a grasp of animations in UI. Learn about easing and timing.

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<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://muz.li/">Muzli</a> chrome extension. Muzli gives you a literal wall of inspiration every time you open up a new tab. I have been fortunate enough to have my portfolio featured there. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://tympanus.net/codrops/">Codrops</a>. Their playground is a gold mine of creative experiments, and their newsletter is one of a few I really open up and check out. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.awwwards.com/">Awwwards</a>. Awwwards has an incredible archive of sites categorized in topics like navigation, transitions, animation, footers, etc.

Jens recommends resources for inspiration:

<h3>Portfolios of which artists/designers do you personally like?</h3>Aside from the platforms mentioned above, here are designers whose work I follow and find inspiration from:&nbsp;<ul><li>Ben Mingo. Here’s <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.benmingo.com/">his website</a>. Everything he does is absolutely stellar.</li><li>Aristide Benoist. Here’s <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.aristidebenoist.com/">his website</a>. He is the very definition of a creative developer. His Instagram is also fantastic. There, he shares the process of creating web products.</li><li>Zhenya Rynzhuk. Here’s <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://zhenyary.com/">her website</a>. Zhenya is an absolute beast. I love everything she does.</li></ul>&nbsp;<h4>FlowMapp did an interview with Zhenya Rynzhuk about balance in design. You can <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.flowmapp.com/blog/design-interviews/interview-rynzhuk">read it here</a>.</h4>

<h3>Any final tips for people who want to create their first design portfolio?</h3>Just do it. Don’t overthink it, just start creating. There’s a ton of inspiration out there. Find the tools you are comfortable with and get to work.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img src="https://fm-blog-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/EG_6r7_Oc_5dd54f993a.gif"><figcaption>The main advice from Jens</figcaption></figure>&nbsp;<hr>&nbsp;If you want to tell a story about your career or share your expert opinion, send us a pitch at <a href="mailto:serafima@flowmapp.com">serafima@flowmapp.com</a>

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Showcasing your work in a portfolio is a great way to find a new gig and remind yourself of your accomplishments. In this interview, we highlight the benefits of portfolio and share platforms to create one.

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Jens Nielsen

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Having a portfolio is crucial for any creative digital specialist who wants to showcase their work, build a personal brand and land a prestigious job. But making it is not as simple as it might seem because you need to choose a platform, find your authentic style and develop a document, webpage, video, etc. We invited Jens Nielsen, a Senior Digital Product Designer at the LEGO Group, who has been CSS Design Awards Judge, to talk about design competitions and share tips on building an eye-catching portfolio

This is your sign to create a Design Portfolio

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Instagram

Martin is a product designer, mentor and co-founder of Juicebox, a platform for music industry, who specializes in anticipatory design and building products that scale. He has worked on Microsoft’s Cloud and AI team, defining the next iteration of products for the supply chain sector. He is a board member of Nordic Blockchain Association and is now back in the fintech industry.

Martin Danty, Design Consultant (ex-Microsoft)

<h3>Let's start from the beginning, Martin, what is anticipatory design?</h3>The shows Netflix recommend you to watch, the songs Spotify recommend you to play and the products Amazon recommend you to buy, are all examples of anticipatory design.

In a nutshell, Anticipatory Design is the practice of designing an algorithm that predicts what each user likes and dislikes

Tiktok is another example of how much the right implementation of anticipatory design can affect the user experience. How exactly their algorithm works is not yet public, but it clearly has a lot of perimeters, like how long you watch a clip, whether you interact with it (share, comment, like) or rewatch it — all of this data enables the algorithm to produce a personalized feed for each user.&nbsp;

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From <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://newsroom.spotify.com/2021-03-31/introducing-new-spotify-mixes-personalized-playlists-featuring-your-favorite-artists-genres-and-decades/">Spotify</a>

<h3>How does anticipatory design work?</h3>On the technical side, most recommendation engines are based on a “nearest-neighbor” principle. This is a very effective algorithm that can provide accurate recommendations even if you don’t have a ton of labels and metadata on all of your content.

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For example, if I listen to a lot of The Weeknd on Spotify, my “nearest neighbors” will be those users who also listen to the same songs of The Weeknd. If a new song by The Weeknd is released, the algorithm can recommend it to me, not because it is the same artist, but because some of the other The Weeknd fans on Spotify will probably search for it and listen to it. This is also how Spotify recommends “similar artists”. They don’t have to be similar at all. If all The Weeknd fans also listen to Metallica, the algorithm will expect these artists to be similar in sound.

<h3>Why is anticipatory design so powerful in entertainment and other industries?</h3>It became a cornerstone of web2.0 that we didn’t just consume content, we wanted to interact with it and create our own. Labeling and indexing all of this content manually has simply become impossible.

How can they know exactly what I want every single time?

Anticipatory design is so powerful because it is a way to automate processes in real time, while increasing user engagement. But this is also what led to now a global problem with filter bubbles. As you engage with a specific type of content, the system anticipates that you want more of it, and this feeds a cycle that ends up showing you only content that you like. If you don’t like to engage with contrary opinions, the algorithm will pick up on this, and only show you content from authors whose views are in alignment with yours. This is not really an issue for entertainment such as music and films, but it became a problem for information-based platforms (news, blogs, tweets, streams, etc.) when SoMe began to apply the same algorithms on them.

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Illustration from the Medium post by Martin Danty <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://medium.com/adapt-blog/how-do-you-get-users-to-trust-your-recommendations-c583788003a8">“How do you get Users to Trust your Recommendations?”</a>

Avoiding filter bubbles in news has never been more important. Facebook and Instagram in particular are now being questioned about their influence over elections, extremism, depression and bullying, to name a few. That’s why I would argue that anticipatory design has transitioned from being mainly a developer challenge to a UX challenge. Not just in terms of avoiding filter bubbles, but also considering the wellbeing of the users and telling them how this works behind the scenes through the UI. This comes at the cost of the company’s KPIs such as user engagement, so it is important to strike the right balance so as not to lose the benefits of anticipatory design entirely.

<h3>What are the main principles/features of anticipatory design?</h3>Let’s use a clothing analogy. Imagine your product is a T-shirt. Without anticipatory design you need a one-size-fits-all in a color everyone likes. But with anticipatory design you get to see what the rest of their wardrobe looks like, so you can send them a T-shirt that fits them perfectly and matches their personal style.&nbsp;&nbsp;At first, this feels like the company really understands you. But then, your friend with a completely different style also praises this company, and you begin to wonder. How can they know exactly what I want every single time? Imagine the company now starts purchasing T-shirts for you automatically, and you receive them by mail. You love them, and you’d buy them anyway, but you feel violated because they made this choice for you.&nbsp;&nbsp;More and more users experience this when they interact with companies that have access to a disturbing amount of user data.

You know these moments, when you just talked about taking a trip to the Bahamas with a friend, and the next time you go online, you see travel ads about discounted tickets to the Bahamas. Creepy!

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<h3>3 main principles of anticipatory design</h3><ol><li>Trust. For users to appreciate anticipatory design, you first need to earn their trust. I have written a <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://medium.com/adapt-blog/how-do-you-get-users-to-trust-your-recommendations-c583788003a8">Medium post</a> with more details on how to do that, but in short, you should do the opposite of Facebook.&nbsp;</li><li>Control. Users also like to feel in control, and the option to disable the algorithm or adjust it makes them feel like they choose to see these recommendations, rather than being forced to see them.&nbsp;</li><li>Transparency. Explain what data sources you use, and how they affect what users are recommended.</li></ol>&nbsp;Our studies show that these are the main factors that’ll make users trust your recommendations. Usually, they won’t even impact the conversion rate or user engagement, as most users won’t actually disable or change anything — they just want to have the choice.

<h3>How powerful are the algorithms that predict users' next steps?</h3>This is difficult to answer. It depends on how much content you have, and how picky your audience is. Imagine you have a streaming platform with only one popular streamer, which all users have rated positively, and two mediocre streamers. How many users will you need before you can recommend the popular streamer to new users? Probably not that many. In order to distinguish good content from bad content, you don’t need a lot of data.

By the rule of thumb, when the amount of available content goes up, your amount of users have to increase just as much. This way,  anticipatory design will work efficiently

People are quite predictable within certain settings. Users’ taste in music or film genres usually changes very slowly. If you are into comedies and heavy metal, this won’t suddenly change the next day. But platforms such as Facebook will need a huge amount of data to figure out what content I’m in the mood for, as this can significantly vary based on what I’ve experienced today, who I’ve talked to and what’s going on in my life in general.&nbsp;&nbsp;How do you know if you are predictable? If you find yourself opening Instagram, Facebook or Youtube with a particular purpose, but get absorbed in the recommended content and forget about your initial purpose, then the answer is yes. The algorithm has figured you out :)

Top-3 tools for work

I could write a blog post about how great it is compared to previous design tools such as Sketch, and especially the move to working entirely cloud-based is fantastic

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Figma

While at Microsoft, I also used ProtoPie a lot because I had some very complex needs that the built-in prototype tool in Figma couldn’t satisfy

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ProtoPie

Lastly, I guess the grandfather Adobe deserves a spot too. They have such a vast array of fantastic apps that I use for everything else

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<h3>What are the current limitations of anticipatory design?</h3>I actually tried to answer this question in my master’s thesis, and I have another <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://medium.com/adapt-blog/guide-to-personal-experiences-baaffda70267">blog post</a> that goes into depth on the limitations and provides a few tips on how you can get started with anticipatory design. But in short, I would say the main limitations are how much data you have available, whether you have an imbalance in your users vs content ratio and how sophisticated your algorithm/AI is.

<h3>How can anticipatory design evolve in the near future?</h3>There is a convergence of many current trends that point towards an increased need for anticipatory design. The amount of data continues to increase exponentially, along with the content that competes for our attention. As the process of creating products and entertainment gets easier, we will see an increase in niche content. To find the relevant niche content, we will use anticipatory design as guidance.&nbsp;&nbsp;Lastly, as our attention span also decreases, especially in Gen Z. Companies won’t be able to afford bad recommendations, as only a few irrelevant suggestions can be a “make it or break it” experience for the user.

<h3>What changes do you think we will see in the design industry in the next 10 years?</h3>I think that automation and AI tools like Uizard will increasingly impact our workflows, so we can focus on solving problems instead of pushing pixels. The whole process — from wireframes to working code — will get significantly shorter, so we can test our prototypes much faster. On a broader scale, I think that Mixed Realities will play a bigger part of both entertainment and workspaces, so designers will need to explore how they can utilize the affordances of the new 3D worlds to create even more amazing experiences.

<h3>Any final tips for people who want to become designers?</h3>If you are not sure what industry you thrive in, apply for a position at an agency. It is a great way to get a feel for how different companies function, both in terms of size, culture and products. And you should work on your portfolio! Remember,&nbsp;it’s always quality over quantity :)&nbsp;&nbsp;Oh, and don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty with the code. I don’t think designers should code, but I’ve seen first-hand that if you at least try to understand it, it will make a big difference. The developers will respect you for trying.&nbsp;&nbsp;<hr>&nbsp;If you want to tell your design career story or share your expert opinion, send us a pitch at <a href="mailto:serafima@flowmapp.com">serafima@flowmapp.com</a>

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Anticipatory design is the practice of designing an algorithm that predicts what each user likes and dislikes. Find out how to work with it in this Design Interview by FlowMapp

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Martin Danty

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In the era of Netflix suggestions, Spotify and Apple Music playlists and Amazon’s ‘you might also like’ sections, the anticipatory design has grown into our daily lives. We asked Martin Danty, a Senior designer at Danske Bank who previously worked in Microsoft’s Cloud + AI Studios, to share his views on the impact of anticipatory design on users and what to expect from it in the next 10 years. Check your seatbelts, and let’s go.

Anticipatory Design and Future of Human Experiences

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Petr studied industrial design for four years in Ostrova, Czech Republic, focusing on design sketching and 3D programs. He worked as a graphic designer at a local advertising agency and moved to the graphic and web design branch. In 2015, Petr moved to Switzerland. In 2018 he joined Swarovski as a UX designer. Petr now works there as a UX Design Manager and lives in Zurich.

Petr Faltynek, UX Design Manager at SWAROVSKI

<h3>What is the Customer Journey?</h3>Well, it’s a journey of a customer. It describes the entire story of relationships between your business and the customer (even before they contact you) to the very end and further to the future if you do it right. As technology and the world evolves, this journey changes and adds new touchpoints on how two sides engage.

<h3>What makes a great Customer Journey?</h3>From the customer’s point of view, it is an easy interaction with your business, smooth conversion and transparent information about a brand and products. And from the business point of view, it is extended research that includes adapting to the current trends and listening to your customers’ critiques so you can improve the journey and get rid of your weaker spots to make customers happier and more loyal.

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I think Medium, UXdesign, 99designs are good places to start. Youtube, with many design channels, is also great. I often return there for tips and inspiration

Petr recommends these resources for inspiration:

<h3>What common misconceptions about the customer journey have you heard from clients or business owners?</h3>I’ve been lucky enough to work with experienced and open-minded people, so I don’t know many of those. But one that comes to mind is underestimating global digitization. Take, for instance, mobile shopping. It was still relatively new when it boomed around seven years ago, and many businesses didn’t even consider it an important sales asset. It was difficult to convince business owners with a traditional, offline business approach to focus on mobile phone users and see the potential of smartphones. Once they missed the opportunity, it was hard to catch up and attract new audiences.&nbsp;&nbsp;The same applies to social media and other 3rd party platforms that play an essential part in any modern customer journey. But ten years ago, people wouldn’t believe in it. So I think that being open-minded about big ‘unrealistic’ ideas and flexible enough to try them out is vital for any modern business strategy.

Customer Journey Map is customer’s motivation, research, consideration, order, payment and feedback

<h3>Often Customer Journey and Customer Journey Map go side-by-side in design articles. What is a Customer Journey Map?</h3>That’s true. Customer Journey Map (CJM) is a visualization of your customer journey concept. You can include all steps that customers make starting with a reason, contact and consideration stages to the conversion or purchase, and, of course, ensuring the customer’s loyalty and comeback.&nbsp;&nbsp;To oversimplify it, I would describe the Customer Journey Map as “customer’s motivation, research, consideration, order, payment and feedback.”

<h3>Why is the Customer Journey Map so crucial in the design process?</h3>CJM helps you see the bigger picture and all nuances you have to consider from the customer’s point of view, especially if you have a large business with many teams and channels or just a complex service. It also allows you to see potential problem points and resolve issues beforehand. On top of that, it helps designers and other team members stay on track and plan workflow more thoroughly. Luckily there are helpful tools out there that help you create nice CJMs and automate routine tasks.

Which tools do you use to create CJMs?

Figma is currently my No. 1. It’s constantly evolving, adding new features, making it a multipurpose tool for cross-collaboration between different teams

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I began working in web/UX design with Adobe XD. It was easy to learn and use for me because I'm an active user of other Adobe products

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This is one of my favorite ways to express the design concept and customer journey

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<h3>Aside from visualizing a Customer Journey, what steps should a designer take to make it more efficient?&nbsp;</h3><ol><li>Do proper UX research. You can collaborate with companies that specialize in this subject and analyze whole e-commerce to give you tips on strengthening customer journey and what steps to take in order to achieve better results.</li><li>Watch and analyze. It doesn’t cost anything, and with tools like Google Analytics, you can watch your website and see how the customer interacts with different web pages.</li><li>A/B tests. Testing is a helpful and straightforward technique that works every time. Make a few different concepts, either with different designs or the journey logic and see which ideas perform better.</li><li>Design system. Build a proper and complete design system with a library of generic components, icons, widgets that will help you make updates or implementations faster. You can download design system examples for free and adapt them to your needs.</li><li>Automation. That’s my favorite feature. I always find ways to make work easier and automated by creating smart mockups and templates that anyone can adapt and reuse even without design or software experience. Don’t be afraid to use automation tools in unconventional ways.</li></ol>

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<h3>From your experience, what mistakes do many designers make while creating Customer Journeys? How to avoid them?</h3>The most common mistakes I usually see are no proper research, not enough testing and not involving other team members in the process. Sometimes designers think they’ll be able to guess the solution.&nbsp;&nbsp;I know there’s always a point when you do something new and original, so you don’t have references and guess your next steps based on your experience and common sense. But usually, it’s worth analyzing market trends, competitors’ experiences and making decisions based on that data instead of going blind.&nbsp;&nbsp;Another great practice is cross-communication between departments. Take time to discuss everything within your design team and other teams, such as marketing and developers, for their opinions. You might have a narrow vision, and your team members are here to support you.

<h3>How do you think the design industry will evolve in the next 10 years?&nbsp;</h3>OK, I’m no visionary and not even a good example of a user since I have different and unusual opinions on how things should work than most people do. I don’t use my mobile phone that much. I keep updated and educated because I like it.&nbsp;About the future, already 80% of customers shop via smartphones, and sales channels blend insensibly. In 10 years, I can imagine everyone with smartwatches controlling everything around their digital lives, making purchases, communicating and calling without a smartphone. The design will get simplified and 100% responsive to fit all devices and touchpoints. Also, AI and virtual reality will get better and become a more common way of shopping without entering the shop. We’ll see if we’ll get to the 3D hologram, haha. That’s probably still a bit early.

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Example of minimalistic Control Panel

<h3>Any final tips for people who want to create their first Customer Journey?</h3>Do your research, dive deep into the user experience to reduce guessing and unsureness about your product. If you're a small business creator, make a few designs or ideas and show them to your friends or social media to get feedback. But most importantly, don't’ wait and start now!&nbsp;&nbsp;<hr>&nbsp;If you want to tell your design career story or share your expert opinion, send us a pitch at <a href="mailto:serafima@flowmapp.com">serafima@flowmapp.com</a>

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Ensuring your customer journey is as smooth and straightforward as possible is one of the modern designers’ essential skills. In this interview, we uncover common mistakes while creating a customer journey and learn five ways to avoid them

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Petr Faltynek

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Customer journey is the path a user takes from discovering your brand or product to becoming its advocate and coming back again and again if you did everything right. In case something went off, with today’s guest, Petr Faltynek, UX Design Manager at SWAROVSKI, we created a checklist of activities that can help you enhance your customer journey. We also added ideas to consider when you’re starting to build one yourself. May the journey begin!

Enhancing Customer Journey

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Medium

Bruno is an experienced designer who is passionate about generating business impact by designing inclusive experiences and services for people through understanding their needs and motivation.

Bruno Perez, Strategic Design Lead at WESA L&D Design Chapter, Boston Consulting Group (BCG)

BRUNO, PLEASE TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOUR PROFESSIONAL PATH IN DIGITAL DESIGN&nbsp;I'm a Design Leader with over 20 years of experience. As a strong advocate of inclusive design, I add this dimension to all the work I do. I have worked in a broad range of industries, including the automotive, financial services, and retail industries. Prior to joining BCG, I spent time at Accenture. In 2013, I became one of the first Fjordians in São Paulo, helping Fjord to grow an entirely new team from the ground up. I also spent one year building the Service &amp; Experience Design capability within KPMG’s flagship Customer Practice team in London. Now as part of the BCG team, I'm one of the Strategic and service design craft leads and also responsible for the Design Chapter L&amp;D for WESA.

WHAT IS SERVICE DESIGN?&nbsp;Service Design is what enables you to manage and incorporate customer experience into company processes and resources. It involves a deep understanding of all the channels that your customer interacts with (the front stage) and what happens behind the scenes to make it available to your customers (the backstage). It also helps de-risk future service implementation by keeping constant validations and iterations with real customers and every aspect of the business.

When you have two coffee shops next to each other, each selling the exact same coffee for the exact same price, Service Design is the reason you go into one coffee shop and not the other

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE CONCEPT OF MULTICHANNEL SERVICE DESIGN TO NON-DESIGNERS?&nbsp;Marc Fonteijn explained it best: “When you have two coffee shops right next to each other, each selling the exact same coffee for the exact same price, Service and Service Design is the reason you go into one coffee shop and not the other.”&nbsp; And by applying a Multichannel customer understanding, you’ll discover why they don't just choose your coffee shop but keep coming back and telling everyone about it.

WHY IS THERE A NEED FOR MULTICHANNEL SERVICE DESIGN IN TODAY’S WORLD?&nbsp;Not only in today's world. It is important to understand a service; it is not just a single interaction that happens in one single touchpoint with a customer. It is a complex amalgamation of multiple interactions from multiple channels made by each customer.

I expect the same level of quality and satisfaction from the experience every time, regardless of the channel I use to experience it

WHAT ARE THE CORE PRINCIPLES OF MULTICHANNEL SERVICE DESIGN?&nbsp;From my perspective, the key principle of this Multichannel Service Design is to understand that customer interaction doesn't happen in a one-off situation but a combination of multiple interactions from multiple touchpoints and, most importantly, with varying demands.&nbsp; &nbsp;Going back to the coffee shop example, today I may order a coffee on an app to collect in-store because I'm in a rush to get to the airport. Tomorrow, I may take a nice mocha with a slice of cake to eat there and work using the store's wifi. However, I expect the same level of quality and satisfaction from the experience every time, regardless of the channel I use to experience it.

HOW IS MULTICHANNEL SERVICE DESIGN DIFFERENT FROM OMNICHANNEL SERVICE DESIGN?&nbsp;Ostensibly, there is no difference.&nbsp; &nbsp;Multichannel should be embedded into Omnichannel Service Strategy as part of the customer experience. We shouldn't create any barriers for the customer to be able to interact with our products and services. Instead, we should support them in completing their goals and fulfill their needs starting from their mobile and finishing in our store—completing each interaction one specific touchpoint at a time.

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Multichannel vs. Omnichannel service

DO YOU THINK SUCH 'LIQUID' EXPECTATIONS OF MULTICHANNEL SERVICE DESIGN (A CONCEPT CHAMPIONED BY <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelley-evenson/">SHELLEY EVENSON</a> OF FJORD) ARE A SHORT-TERM TREND OR A PART OF A MORE LONG-TERM PRACTICE IN THE SERVICE STRATEGY?&nbsp;I believe that a well-executed Service Design strategy should combine Omnichannel and Multichannel strategies along with an effective Brand Experience strategy.&nbsp; &nbsp;Every time a customer interacts with a product or service, their expectations will be set based on their perspective of the brand behind it. This can determine the success or failure of a Service Strategy and, as a result, can damage the Brand's Reputation or elevate it to the next level.

ACCESSIBLE AND INCLUSIVE DESIGN ARE ESSENTIAL PARTS OF MODERN DESIGN PRACTICES. HOW ARE THEY IMPLEMENTED IN THE MULTICHANNEL SERVICE DESIGN CONCEPT AND WHY IS IT NECESSARY TO INCLUDE THEM?&nbsp;It is necessary to understand that <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.flowmapp.com/blog/design-interviews/moisen-mahjoobnia">Inclusive Design is not a process or a toolkit</a>, it is a mindset that elevates services to a level that allows more people to participate or use it by learning from diversity, solving challenges for a specific set of needs and lastly, sharing it with many other people. &nbsp;When you create inclusive products and services, they are not just for a few. In fact, 15% of the worldwide population will face some kind of disability in their lives.&nbsp;&nbsp;There are over 56 million people in the United States and over 1 billion people worldwide with a disability. Today, roughly 360 million people in the world are deaf or have profound hearing loss. Thirty-two million of them are children like my son. By 2050, this number is expected to rise to 900 million, or close to 1 in 10 people. Nearly everyone, given a long enough life span, will lose their hearing as they age. These are huge numbers of people, and they need to be supplied with products and services.

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People living with disabilities. Worldwide

DOES YOUR TEAM AT THE BCG PLATINION USE THE PRINCIPLES OF MULTICHANNEL SERVICE DESIGN? WHY/WHY NOT?&nbsp;Our Service Design practice at BCG goes beyond that.&nbsp; &nbsp;We don't just think about Multichannel Service Design Strategies but we do it in a holistic way by benefiting from our multidisciplinary team to investigate the opportunities from Human-Centered Design, Architecture &amp; Engineering, Product Strategy, and Market &amp; Partnership perspectives, leaving no stone unturned when it comes to crafting new products and services for our clients.

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Multichannel Service Design strategy at BCG

<h2>Case Study: Multichannel Service Design at BCG</h2>In a recent case, a leading insurance company was looking to identify new markets to expand into, in order to increase client engagement and unlock additional revenue. &nbsp;<ol><li>We applied our Service Design approach to create and validate multiple greenfield propositions with real customers.</li><li>These opportunities evolved into multiple service propositions, and we prioritized them all by using our DVFS framework to identify the most valuable ones to bring to life.</li><li>To de-risk future service implementation, we constantly validated and iterated the propositions with real customers in every aspect of the business and used this wealth of knowledge to form a comprehensive Service Blueprint. That was the backbone of all workstreams.</li><li>During the product and strategic development phase, the team continued using the DVFS to constantly validate the service offerings and experiences with multiple customers, applying the best insights to iterate on the work.</li><li>This resulted in a brand new, validated Multichannel Service Offering, supported by a new Product Alpha that set the foundation for the future engagement platform alongside a product backlog.</li></ol>&nbsp;This enabled us to deliver the full potential of the service and a robust business structure built by a powerful combination of Human-Centered Design and BCG Strategy.

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WHAT ARE THE FIRST STEPS THAT A COMPANY/DESIGN TEAM HAS TO TAKE IN ORDER TO IMPLEMENT MULTICHANNEL SERVICE DESIGN PRACTICES?&nbsp;The most important step is to reach an alignment between the stakeholders and the customers' needs.&nbsp;&nbsp;Only after we reach this alignment can we start to develop a future service vision that later on will result in a live service or product that will achieve the stakeholders' goals and support customer needs.

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1. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Service-Design-Thinking-Basics/dp/906369279X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&amp;keywords=this+is+service+design+thinking&amp;qid=1634396716&amp;qsid=258-6792322-7014362&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-1&amp;sres=906369279X%2CB01FGMS5IA%2C9866254313%2C1491927186%2C1492039594%2C1119467470%2C1118988922%2C9063695438%2C0262539136%2CB08NYD3BXQ%2C149205531X%2C1292360836%2C1119629195%2C0141033576%2C1118968050%2C1449410243&amp;srpt=ABIS_BOOK">This is Service Design Thinking</a> 2. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Branded-Interactions-Creating-Digital-Experience/dp/0500518173/ref=asc_df_0500518173/?tag=googshopuk-21&amp;linkCode=df0&amp;hvadid=310843183616&amp;hvpos=&amp;hvnetw=g&amp;hvrand=14737394232329646331&amp;hvpone=&amp;hvptwo=&amp;hvqmt=&amp;hvdev=c&amp;hvdvcmdl=&amp;hvlocint=&amp;hvlocphy=9044975&amp;hvtargid=pla-451797749435&amp;psc=1&amp;th=1&amp;psc=1">Branded Interactions: Creating the Digital Experience</a> 3. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Branding-Five-Steps-Michael-Johnson/dp/0500518963">Branding In Five and a Half Steps</a> 4. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sprint-Solve-Problems-Test-Ideas/dp/150112174X">Sprint: How To Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Day</a>

Bruno recommends these books

WHAT ARE YOUR GO-TO APPLICATIONS AND TOOLS FOR A PRODUCTIVE WORKFLOW?&nbsp;&nbsp;Miro, Figma, Trello, Zoom. &nbsp;Naturally, all these tools enable online collaboration amongst team members for each step of the design process—from planning, to ideation, to execution. However, I will always prefer old-fashioned face-to-face collaboration, a pack of post-its, and a black sharpie.

HOW DO YOU THINK SERVICE DESIGN WILL EVOLVE IN THE NEXT 10 YEARS?&nbsp;&nbsp;Service design is gaining a more mature status and starting to be discussed with C-level management as a tool to craft more successful product and service strategies for business, and it will become essential in the near future.

Multichannel Service Design allows companies to implement an efficient service strategy. In this interview, our guest from BCG, with 20+ years of experience in UX, shares the main ideas of this strategy and advises on how to provide a great service design

Bruno Perez

With an impressive number and diversity of companies in the market, high-quality service is often a backbone of a good user experience that defines customers' future relationships with a company. Multichannel Service Design allows companies to support customers on each step and nurture these relationships. We invited Bruno Perez, Strategic Design Lead at BCG, to unfold the basic principles of this strategy and share real examples of its implementation. As a bonus, he shared four books on improving user expectations and experiences, so let’s roll.

Interviews

Jens Nielsen

Martin Danty

Petr Faltynek

Bruno Perez

Jerry Jones Jr

Matt Tomko

Olena Milutina

Travis Isaacs

Marc Leitzel

Eli Gancena