The distinction between front- and backstage components of a service implies a neat separation, but this is misleading.

…(中略)…

Everything has a front and back, so each of the backstage components has its own front and back.

…(中略)…

Services are recursive. They are somewhat like matryoshka dolls of figure 6.1, the Russian nested dolls: when you open one up, it holds another very similar doll inside, and if you open that one up, there is yet another doll. The design of modern systems and services must cope with this recursiveness, with the fact that what is to be designed depends on the point of view. Do you take the point of view of the customer, the clerk, the backroom assistant, or the central administration? Answer: you must consider them all.

…(中略)…

The design problem here is immense: how can all the participants involved, both customers and employees, receive the information they need so that they can understand the operations?

…(中略)…

It is essential that services be designed with both the staff and customers in mind.

– Donald A. Norman，《Living with Complexity》

Although the design of products has received considerable attention, the study of service design is still in its infancy. As a result, less is known about the design of services than products. Moreover, product design is sexy: it is easy to hold design contests where companies submit fancy photographs of their products and then harried jurors spend a few days trying to select the prize winners.

…(中略)…

Services don’t have the glamour of products. In many cases, there is nothing to see.

– Donald A. Norman，《Living with Complexity》

「而比切的到來，預示著英國設計議會將出現一些更有爭議的措施，比如進行公共服務方面的改革。比切一直很支持“服務設計”，即重新改變服務結構，使其更合理、更具新意。有人質疑， “服務設計”到底是設計，還是對管理顧問的一個漂亮稱呼，比切對此的回答是“：過去十年裡，大筆資金被浪費在設計得很糟糕的公共服務上。投資公共服務後，也許你能得到一些表面的改善，但是本質卻都是一樣的。一旦把錢收回，服務水平立刻回到原始標準。”

比切覺得，永續發展、犯罪和人口高齡化，都是設計應該關注的領域。“最好的設計是把複雜的東西變簡單，不是嗎？這不正是你在服務產業中所需求的嗎？把流程簡化，把注意力放在客戶、使用者身上。這就是產品設計要做的事情，這就是服務設計要做的事情。現在，這個國家裡的人幾乎都在從事服務產業，你是說，設計不該在這中間擁有自己的角色嗎？”比切問了一連串問題。」

Design Council 的新主席Michael Bichard的觀點還滿對我胃口的，而且他提到自己雖然在設計領域，但是不會畫圖的這一點(『I’d have loved to have been an architect, but I couldn’t draw.』)，對我個人算是一種激勵吧？ :p