Service Design

Normally when I hear the word "design", I think of the creative process, and I normally think of it in the context of art and design. I realize that the process of design involves creating something in a way that is easy to use and/or understand, but I would have never associated design with services. This reading has made me observe my everyday world a lot closer. In example, the way I pay my bills. Of course the old fashioned process of writing a check and mailing it to PECO, or AT&T, or whatever company you may be paying is still used, but AT&T has expedited the process by enabling the option to pay your cell phone bill online, where you are presented with multiple options for payment method, your credit card information is saved for easy access, and you even have the option to pay your bill in increments (this works well if you are sharing a plan with somebody). Another example of a service that has greatly expedited their process of bill-pay is PECO, I have my gas and electric service automatically paid every month after I gave PECO my debit card and banking information. This reading went on to describe, in great detail, the characteristics and elements of services and service design. This made me think about how much thought and design goes into everyday things that I had been taking for granted like the layout of my local Target or grocery store self-checkout. I feel like maybe the part of this reading that discussed the characteristics of service design was a bit too analytical, but I feel like the part of the reading that really helped me grasped the concept of service design was the part that discussed the elements of service: environment, objects, processes, and people.