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🤔 ▶️ How can I use my past career when transitioning to Service Design?
🤔 ▶️ How can I use my past career when transitioning to Service Design?
Daniele Catalanotto avatar
Written by Daniele Catalanotto
Updated over a year ago

The original question

As a professional whose expereiences been in other Design fields transitioning to UX, I reframed previous projects in a UX context. I believe something similar could be used for Service Design.

Summary of the video

  • Don't forget about the fields you came from because a lot of what you learn in one field, such as marketing, UX, architecture, psychology, or project management, can be brought into your new practice

  • Service Design steals a lot of tools from other fields, so be reassured: this isn’t something totally new.

  • You can build on the skills and knowledge from your past experiences to enhance your new practice

Video transcript

This transcript was generated using Descript. So it might contain some creative mistakes.

As a professional was experienced in other design fields transitioning to UX design, I reframed previous projects. In a UX context, I believe something similar could be used for service design. Indeed. I think if you transition to a new field, don't forget about the fields that you came from.

There is still a lot, and I think that's it's of a secret. You can say it like that. We, I try to get people excited about service design, but what's the big difference about UX and service design? Like 99% of it is basically the same thing. And so a lot can what you, of what you have learned in one field.

Be it marketing, be it UX, be it architecture, be it psychology, project management, you can bring that back in your own, in your new practice. And if something isn't clear for you at that moment, just use these skills from from your past experiences because they still matter, service design steals a lot of tools from other fields, and there are just a few tools which are very specific. Personas, for example, is something that we use in marketing, something that we use in graphic design, something that we use in service design, in UX. It's used everywhere, so there is no way to think oh, now I'm a service designer, so I have to throw everything in the trash that I learned before, but you really can build on that.

Additional note

Even projects you did in the past as an architect use skills that are used in Service Design. So when you transition you can, for example in a portfolio, highlight what skills, technics, tools and mindsets that Service Designers use, you used in your previous practice.

In fact a lot of the design skills are the same between marketing, graphic design, UX design, product design, etc. Sometimes you just have to find how these things you do are called in another discipline to help people understand you already come with a lot of practice.

Natalia Riley's tips

The team at Snook wrote an article called "Transitioning Careers — Advice from the Snook Service Design team" In the article you'll find tips from Natalia Riley who pivoted into service design from an academic background in psychology and a career in communications and marketing strategy. Here a summary of her tips:

  1. Make it personal.

  2. Learn by doing.

  3. Create a portfolio.

  4. Show, don’t tell.

  5. Adopt the service design mindset.

  6. Be relentlessly curious.

✨ Made with assistance of AI.

The transcript of the video was made using Descript, and the summary was made by using Notion.ai and the automated transcript with the prompt: "Make a summary with bullet points"

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