I'm practising
You know the basics and now have a service in front of you. These are the methods, service manuals, examples and tools that practitioners lean on, along with communities where you can ask the awkward questions.
Start with these
A method for mapping a service end to end, showing what the user experiences alongside the frontstage and backstage work that makes it happen. Explained clearly by Nielsen Norman Group.
Mapping what a person does, thinks and feels as they try to get something done across a service. Nielsen Norman Group's introduction covers the anatomy and the pitfalls.
The UK government's manual for designing and running public services: the Service Standard, guidance on discovery, alpha, beta and live, and on user research and service design.
The free online companion to the book: over fifty methods for research, ideation, prototyping and facilitation, each with a step-by-step description.
An open collection of communication tools and methods for designing services, started by Roberta Tassi and maintained as a shared library.
The community for service, interaction and content designers working in and around the UK government, coordinated through the GOV.UK Service Manual.
Questions you might have
Then keep going
Fifteen principles of good service design, drawn from Lou Downe's time leading design across the UK government. Short, plain and opinionated.
International organisation supporting the development of service design practice, with local chapters, an academy, a journal and an annual conference.
The practical companion to service design, covering research, ideation, prototyping and implementation with a large method library. Widely used as a course text.
Co-author of Service Design: From Insight to Implementation, host of the Power of Ten podcast, and a writer on design at many scales.
A focused journey mapping tool with a free tier, popular with people who want something simpler than a whiteboard and lighter than a platform.
The UK government's blog about design, written by the people doing it across departments. Honest accounts of what worked and what did not.
Figma's collaborative whiteboard, often used by teams who already prototype in Figma for workshops and mapping.
Ten principles for designing government services, starting with 'start with user needs'. Short enough to read in five minutes and widely borrowed outside government.
Author of The Service Organization, writing about how large organisations need to change to deliver good services.
One of the first dedicated service design consultancies, founded in London in 2001, with studios in Europe and South America and a long record of published thinking.
Author of Good Services and co-founder of the School of Good Services. Formerly Director of Design for the UK government.
A thorough guide to the whole family of alignment diagrams: journey maps, service blueprints, experience maps and mental model diagrams.
Co-author of This is Service Design Thinking and This is Service Design Doing, and co-founder of the software company behind Smaply.
Online whiteboard used widely for journey maps, blueprints and remote workshops, with a large library of service design templates.
Design principles, components and guidance for building health services in England, with a strong focus on accessibility and content.
On designing experiences that unfold across channels and over time, with a strong emphasis on mapping and on the language of experience design.
A team in the UK Cabinet Office that brings design, data and ethnography into policy making, and writes openly about how.
Andy Polaine's podcast about design operating at many levels, from details to systems, with guests across service, strategic and systemic design.
Short courses on designing and leading services, run by Lou Downe and Sarah Drummond and grounded in public-sector experience.
The Service Design Network's training arm, offering online and in-person courses from introductory to advanced, taught by accredited trainers.
Occasional evening meetups in Manchester run by the Service Design Network UK chapter, usually hosted by a local studio or public sector team.
Informal evening meetup for the Amsterdam service design community, hosted by a rotating set of studios.
Long-running informal monthly meetup for service designers in Berlin, with short talks followed by conversation.
A guide to using service design inside organisations, aimed at people who need to make the case for it as much as do it.
A volunteer-run festival of talks, workshops and open studios in London, running alongside the London Design Festival each September.
The Service Design Network's annual conference, moving between host cities each year, with talks, workshops and the Service Design Award. The 2026 edition is in Wiesbaden, Germany, with an online option.
An annual conference in Edinburgh for people designing public services, with workshops and talks drawn from across the UK and international public sectors.
The UK chapter of the Service Design Network, running talks, socials and an annual chapter conference for practitioners across the country.
Marc Fonteijn's long-running video series and podcast of conversations with service design practitioners, aimed squarely at people doing the work.
A clear account of what service design is and how it is done, from research through to measuring the results, by three practitioners from Livework.
Software for building and maintaining journey maps, personas and stakeholder maps, made by the team behind This is Service Design Doing.
Identifying the people and organisations involved in a service and drawing out how they relate to it and to each other. Explained in the Service Design Tools library.
International association for people working at the meeting point of systems thinking and design. Runs the annual Relating Systems Thinking and Design symposium.
The Design Council's evolution of the Double Diamond for problems that span organisations and systems, with a set of design principles and roles.
The Scottish Government's framework and community for designing public services with the people who use them, with a shared method bank.
An occasional printed newspaper about service design, started by Martin Jordan in 2015, with short pieces from practitioners around the world. Most articles are also published online.
How organisations need to change, in their structures and leadership, to deliver services that work. Written from experience inside large public and private organisations.
Journey management software for organisations that want to keep many journey maps consistent and connected to opportunities and delivery work.
Gerry Scullion's podcast network on human-centred design, with a dedicated strand of conversations about service design and public services.
The Service Design Network's journal, published since 2009. Each issue takes a theme and mixes practitioner and academic writing.