What people think they do, what they do, and what they tell you that they do are very different things. That’s why service designers use observations to even better understand the people involved in a service.
Observation is a great tool to see what people really do in a service. It’s a great way to discover the general trends in a service and to quickly capture inspiring stories that can help you create new solutions.
Observation is especially loved by service designers, because it doesn’t require much preparation and doesn’t require much time. A typical interview lasts about an hour. During this time, you would have just talked with one person. In an hour of observation, you might see how 30 different people use a specific part of a service.
Recruiting people for interviews is usually a painful task or one that costs a lot if you ask a specialized agency to take care of the recruiting for you. Observation doesn’t need any recruitment, as you just observe the people that actually use the service as it happens.
It doesn’t go into the same depth as an interview where you can also uncover the motivation behind peoples’ actions. But it’s a quick, cheap way to discover trends about a specific interaction between users and a service.
Of course, observation is limited to the parts of the service done in public. I’ve used a lot of observation sessions to improve the waiting rooms for example.
Going further
This article is part of my free course "What is Service Design?" which helps you to discover what Service Design is and why it is powerful to enhance the customer experience.