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Service Safaris

What are service safaris.

Service safaris are an early qualitative research method where researchers walk in the customers' shoes to experience a service from the customers’ perspective. By experiencing the service directly, they can find strengths, weaknesses and more as they build empathy with customers early in the design process.

Frank Spillers, CEO of Experience Dynamics, provides an overview of service safaris:

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“To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.”   — Marilyn vos Savant, Magazine columnist, author, lecturer, playwright and Guinness-Book-of-Records holder of the highest-recorded IQ  

In service design , designers optimize end-to-end experiences. They focus on user needs , touchpoints and seamless integration across the entire service. For example, when a customer takes the train, they encounter many service components . Some examples of components include:

They use an app to buy their train tickets .

They enter the station and look for directions to the ticket machines .

They use the ticket machine to collect their tickets .

They ask a customer service representative for information.

They look at the departure board for updated travel information .

They use their ticket to pass through the entry barriers .

They board the train and use the signs to find their seats .

© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0

On a service safari, researchers perceive and interact with individual components and the service as a whole. Service safaris help researchers:

See, hear and feel the service's experience as a consumer, not a researcher.

Learn how a service works from the customer's perspective.

Review the service as a whole, not by individual components.

For example, in 2022 and 2023, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky traveled across the US to stay in Airbnb rentals. He also made a room in his home available on Airbnb. Chesky discovered issues with the experience of being an Airbnb customer and a host. He used these insights to improve Airbnb’s service design.

How Do Service Safaris Improve Service Design?

Service safaris benefit service design in three primary ways:

They provide direct insight into how a service works and the customer experience . For example, a design team creates a café-oriented service involving an app. A “field trip” to Starbucks could offer a robust view of the many aspects of a well-branded coffee shop customer experience.   Findings from safaris can directly inform design decisions. However, researchers must back up findings with actual user research .

They inform future research. Real-world insights help create hypotheses, guide user interviews and shape survey questions. Safaris turn observations into actionable research questions. These questions can further deepen researchers’ understanding of user needs and behaviors .

They build empathy within the design team. Researchers empathize with customers by experiencing the service as they do. This firsthand experience is invaluable for designing more intuitive and user-friendly services.

Direct Insights

When researchers venture out to get a first-hand experience as a customer, they can:

Observe real-world interactions. Researchers directly observe how customers interact with a service in their natural environment. Observations help identify pain points, moments of delight and areas for improvement. These observations might not be evident through other research methods.

Identify touchpoints . Researchers document every touchpoint where customers engage with the service. They note digital and physical interactions. Researchers must understand these touchpoints to map out the customer journey accurately.

Gather qualitative insights. Researchers collect qualitative data on their feelings, frustrations and satisfaction. This data deepens their understanding of the customer's emotional journey.

Analyze service flows. Researchers identify any inefficient processes or disconnects that could hinder the customer experience.

Influence management decisions . Researchers can present stakeholders with their findings to better convince them of the need for service design.

Future Research

Service safaris help form the basis of future user and ethnographic research . Safaris help researchers identify key customer behaviors and contexts . For example, insights from a service safari in a retail environment might highlight the following:

How consumers navigate the physical space.

The role of digital tools in their shopping experience.

Moments that lead customers to purchase decisions.

These observations can guide researchers to focus on specific behaviors, interactions or environmental factors.

Service safaris can uncover unspoken needs and pain points . For example, customers may repeatedly ask staff for directions in a supermarket. A positive experience with support staff may cause customers to overlook this as a pain point and not mention it in an interview or survey. This insight can inform the need for better signage in the supermarket.

Ann Blandford, professor of human-computer interaction (HCI), explains how user interviews help researchers discover the “why” but not the “how”:

Insights inform the recruitment of participants for ethnographic research. Service safaris can identify the most relevant user groups for a study, which allows researchers to get the most out of their research.

Observations can directly inform the development of research questions . For instance, a service safari in public transportation reveals challenges with buying tickets. Future research might explore the context and specificities of this challenge with customers.

When to Conduct Service Safaris?

Researchers conduct service safaris during the empathize stage of the design thinking process. Since safaris can form the basis of future research and help gain an overview of service, they are often the first method researchers use. They can be insightful and inspirational as researchers can research their own or other services.

In the design thinking process, empathy helps define problems. This empathy fuels the entire design process and feeds into each stage. Early research methods like service safaris build empathy in a design team and are critical to user-centered design.

Some example scenarios in which a researcher might conduct a service safari include:

To begin the research process and map a previously unmapped service.

To research competitors or services from other industries to gain insights and inspiration.

To redesign or assess a specific aspect of a service.

To gather information that can convince stakeholders of the benefits of service design.

How To Conduct a Service Safari

Researchers conduct service safaris for both physical and digital services. For example, a digital service safari could follow the process of purchasing an item from an e-commerce website. Everything from a marketing email to delivery and contacting customer service should be part of the safari.

Required Resources

Safaris can be inexpensive and flexible. 

For example, coffee shop and public transport safaris need little investment . Researchers can be reimbursed if they work for or with the service they are researching.

For some services, safaris are easy to set up and run. Researchers can conduct safaris as and when needed. Straightforward safari examples include coffee shops or digital-only safaris.

Recruiting users is unnecessary. Researchers and team members conduct the safari themselves.

Multiple team members and stakeholders can conduct service safaris for diverse insights .

Conversely, safaris can also be resource intensive:

High-cost services need more investment. Especially if the researcher is investigating rival or comparative services.

Some safaris are time-intensive —for example, a long-haul flight or a service in a remote location.

Researchers may need funding and permission from management regardless of the resources needed. Case studies and stories of successful safaris can be helpful for researchers who want to influence stakeholders.

Prepare for Your Service Safari

Once researchers have the funding and permission they need, they use the following process:

Set a goal or task a typical customer might have. In the coffee shop example, this might be to place an order in the app and pick it up at the shop.

Choose where to start the safari. While it may seem obvious where the safari will take place (e.g., a coffee shop), service design encompasses every service component.   For example, when evaluating a coffee shop, the safari may begin with finding and accessing the shop. How well is its location advertised? Is its signage clear? Is it accessible to all customers?

Decide who should go. Multiple team members and stakeholders should conduct a service safari wherever possible. With several perspectives, researchers can better understand a typical experience. This approach improves empathy with and understanding of the service’s customers.   However, each person must go alone. Researchers find it more challenging in a group to focus and put themselves in the customer's shoes. Group safaris can also result in groupthink , where the group’s identity overshadows individual opinions.

Decide what to bring. Researchers may take a smartphone or camera to take pictures and videos and a notebook to record observations. Items a customer would typically have are also essential.   For example, researchers may take an umbrella if the service safari occurs in a restaurant and it’s raining. Researchers observe small details, like where customers can put their wet umbrellas.

Conduct the safari. Once you’ve planned your safari, the next step is to execute it. During the safari, pay close attention to the following (you can take pictures, videos and voice and written notes):

The service touchpoints and how they fit together. How do you interact with the service, and are there any problems? Do you notice any disconnects between parts of the service?

The service environment and any physical artifacts the service involves. e.g., coffee cups and seating.

Which digital interfaces do you use while you’re on safari?

Anytime you feel frustrated or confused by the service.

Crucial thoughts or feelings about the experience.

Tips and best practices

Service safaris may seem simple; however, researchers follow these best practices to get the best results:

Use empathy maps . Researchers often chart their observations on an empathy map, which can be helpful in later research and ideation. Empathy maps visually represent the researcher’s thoughts, feelings and actions. If you also spoke with other customers, you can include their thoughts, feelings and actions.

Design teams use empathy maps to inform further research, brainstorming and design decisions. Teams refer to the maps throughout the design process to stay empathetic and focus on the user.

Get comfortable with role play and prepare fictitious scenarios. Some service safaris involve everyday tasks, like buying a coffee. However, others, like applying for a loan at a bank, do not.   Researchers must often role-play for a more accurate customer experience during service safaris. Prepare scenarios and backstories to ensure the service reacts to you as if you were a customer.

Immersion is key. Embody the customer or user as far as possible. Limit distractions and think deeply about the circumstances in which a customer would use the service.

Use observations to inform future research. A service safari is a foundation for ethnographic research, not a replacement. Safaris reveal issues that inform later research questions. If a service safari is the only research used, it will be biased and unreliable.

Keep an open and critical mind. An open mind is essential for stakeholders conducting service safaris of their services. Remain impartial and expect to find issues and disconnects.

Run a trial safari. A practice run can help prepare for the actual safari. A trial benefits those who’ve never done a service safari before. Trials can reveal the need for deeper role-play and better observation recording, among other pitfalls. This process will improve the outcomes of the actual safari.

Ensure privacy and consent. Service design often involves audio and video recordings. Ensure you get permission from the people you record (e.g., other customers standing in line). Secret audio or video recording violates privacy.

Service Safari Pitfalls

While service safaris are beneficial to service design, they do have some common challenges:

Familiarity with the service. It can be challenging for some team members and stakeholders to get into the customer’s mindset as they can anticipate what’s next. For example, a team member may be familiar with a train ticket machine and overlook its lack of user-friendliness because of expert knowledge. To combat this, take advantage of other team members' and customers' lack of experience and knowledge.

Bias and subjectivity. Service safaris involve personal observation and experience. While you can use techniques to limit bias, it is impossible to be completely objective. For this reason, it is vital you conduct further and deeper research with real customers.

Potential disruption. It is difficult for researchers to pretend to be a customer in some settings. For example, a researcher cannot entirely embody a patient in healthcare.   Overtly observing or participating in the service as a “fake” customer can disrupt the normal service flow. Disruption can lead to less authentic observations.

Service Safari Deliverables

Service safaris provide insights that can contribute directly or indirectly (through future research) to several service design deliverables. These deliverables assist the design team throughout the service design process. They help the team build and retain empathy, make strategic decisions and maintain a holistic view of the whole service.

Customer journey maps visually represent a user's interactions with a product or service over time. Service safari insights can help researchers identify critical points within the user journey. However, researchers should create user journey maps with insights from real users, not only stakeholders. This detailed understanding allows researchers to pinpoint areas for improvement and innovation accurately.

Frank Spillers explains how journey maps fit into the service design process and how to approach them:

Personas are fictional characters researchers create based on research. They represent users who might use a product or service and help design teams remember who they are designing for. As with journey maps, service safaris should not solely inform personas. A holistic user research approach informs accurate and relatable personas.

Service blueprints chart the entire service process. Blueprints include “frontstage” and “backstage” components of a service. Blueprints also include “moments,” for example, when customers browse a menu or wait for their order.

As with journey maps, safaris can inform design teams when they create their service blueprints. While safaris focus on the customer’s point of view, researchers may observe other service components. They can include these observations in their service blueprints.

David Bill, service researcher at Amazon Web Services, explains the difference between “frontstage” and “backstage” in service design:

Learn More about Service Safaris

Take our course, Service Design: How to Design Integrated Service Experiences , to learn more about service safaris and other service design research methods.

Learn more about service safaris from Frank Spillers on the Experience Dynamics website .

UX and Service Design Agency Clockwork Belgium provides a wealth of great tips and additional considerations for service safaris.

Our Master Class, Going from UX to Service Design , is ideal for those who want to move into the field.

Listen to the Nielsen Norman Group podcast with Thomas Wilson, senior principal service researcher at United Healthcare, for service design and research insights.

Questions about Service Safaris

Researchers conduct service safaris remotely for digital-only services. For example, a researcher may take the following steps on an e-commerce service safari:

Click through from an advert on social media.

Sign up for the mailing list.

Read and review the emails they receive.

Click on a promotional email to purchase an item.

Review the website for purchasing information.

Contact customer service for extra information.

Purchase the product.

Review the order and delivery information emails.

Receive the order.

Experience the packaging, information provided and finally, the product.

Interact with after-sales support (help pages, customer support, etc.)

Researchers may conduct multiple safaris since digital services include many potential customer journeys .

Researchers must also consider the following adaptations for remote service safaris:

Note taking. Screenshots and screen recordings replace or accompany photos and videos.

Customer environment. Consider different situations in which customers use the service. Examples include at home, while commuting, on mobile, on desktop, etc.

Customer interaction. Forums and chatrooms can replace in-person interactions to get customer perspectives.

Photography and videography are crucial in service safaris because they capture what happens in real time. Photos and videos help researchers:

Capture interactions with the environment, including subtle moments that might go unnoticed.

Gain a comprehensive view of the entire service journey.

Spot problems , chances for new ideas and areas that need better solutions.

Create empathy for the whole design team, even those who weren't there in person.

Serve as references for creating customer journey maps and facilitating future ideation.

Researchers do not need to be expert photographers and videographers to capture valuable information. Similarly, professional equipment is not required. Most smartphone cameras or consumer equipment are enough for service safaris.

Ann Blandford, professor of human-computer interaction, covers the pros and cons of different research collection methods in this video:

Researchers use these methods to note their interactions and observations during service safaris:

Observational notes. Researchers keep written notes, either with digital devices or pen and paper. Notes should be understandable yet brief. This approach ensures you do not interrupt the immersion required in a service safari.

Photography and videography. Researchers use photos and videos to capture moments and details that are hard to express in words. These visuals can show the setting and interactions, providing a detailed context for analysis.

Audio recordings. Researchers record conversations and background sounds. These recordings offer insights into the service atmosphere and customer feedback. They are also helpful for accurately quoting users later on.

Sketches and diagrams. Researchers sketch the layout of service areas, user paths and interaction points. These drawings help illustrate the arrangement and relationships within service experiences.

Sticky notes and flashcards. Researchers use these to easily document thoughts, observations and insights. They are handy for sorting and prioritizing touchpoints and interactions during analysis.

Each method offers a different perspective on the service experience. Often, researchers combine these techniques to provide a complete view of the service safari. Remember, you must have permission from anyone you record or photograph.

Mike Rohde, researcher, teacher and illustrator, explains sketchnotes and how they can be useful to researchers:

Learn more from Mike in his Master Class, How to Become a Visual Thinker With Sketchnoting .

Researchers use a clear and structured method to share findings from a service safari effectively. An example process is:

Summary. Begin with a short overview. Highlight the main findings and their possible effects on the service design. Summaries let stakeholders quickly understand the research's core.

User journey maps. Show the user's journey with maps. These maps should cover interactions, key points, challenges and joyous moments. Develop these maps as you conduct further research with real customers. Maps make it easier to communicate user flow problems and areas for improvement.

Storytelling with visuals. Use photos and videos from your safari to share engaging stories about interactions and service settings. This method helps stakeholders feel more connected to what you found.

Data and insights. Support your findings with data where possible. Use quotes, numbers and analysis from the safari or other research to support the need for improvement.

Recommendations. State clear, actionable suggestions for innovation. Rank these by impact and how easy they are to implement.

Interactive session. Run a session where stakeholders can directly interact with your findings. For example, include a role-play session of certain service elements to show their positives and negatives.

Q&A time. Set aside time for questions and discussions. Q&As encourage stakeholders to get involved and offer a chance to gain insights and different viewpoints.

Storytelling plays an important role in effective communication. Learn from Ellen Lupton, writer, researcher, curator and educator, the role of paths and journeys in storytelling:

Learn more from Ellen in her Master Class, Storytelling Through Visual Design: A Practical Guide .

Unsuccessful service safaris are valuable learning experiences. Researchers use them to refine research processes and improve future design outcomes. Researchers learn from unsuccessful safaris in the following ways:

Reflect on objectives and outcomes. Begin by comparing the safari's objectives against the outcomes. Identify where they separated to reveal differences to your expectations.

Analyze the methodology. Review the research methodology to identify any weaknesses or biases that may have influenced the results. Consider whether different methods or tools might have yielded more insightful data.

Review data collection tools. Examine the effectiveness of the data collection tools and techniques used. Inadequate tools can hinder the capture of relevant data, pointing to areas for improvement.

Consider external factors. Reflect on external factors that could have affected the safari, like timing or unforeseen events. Understanding these influences can help plan more resilient future safaris.

Solicit feedback. Gather feedback from team members to gain diverse perspectives on what didn’t work and why. This feedback is crucial to identify blind spots and areas for growth.

Document lessons learned. Compile the insights gained from this reflection into a lessons-learned document. Use this document to refine future service safaris and avoid similar pitfalls.

Share findings with the team. Share the lessons learned with your team and stakeholders. Discuss what went wrong and how to improve to create a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

Plan for flexibility. Recognize the importance of flexibility in research design. Incorporate contingency plans and be open to adapting the approach mid-safari to mitigate risks of failure.

Stay curious and resilient. Embrace a mindset of curiosity and resilience. Failures are stepping stones toward more effective and impactful design research.

Don Norman, emeritus professor of psychology, cognitive science and computer science, explains the importance of failure:

Researchers tailor the research focus, methodologies and participant engagement strategies for different industries. They do this in the following ways:

Customize research objectives. Define clear, industry-specific objectives. What works for a retail service safari might differ for a healthcare safari. For example, retail focuses on customer engagement and space layout. Healthcare prioritizes patient care and privacy.

Select relevant touchpoints. Identify industry-specific touchpoints and interactions critical to the service experience. For instance, digital interaction points in banking may be more relevant than in hospitality. In hospitality, personal service touchpoints are more important.

Adapt data collection methods. Use data collection methods suited to the context and goals of the industry. For example, indirect observation might be more appropriate than direct observation. Adaptability is critical in highly confidential environments like healthcare or legal services.

Incorporate expert insights . Researchers can involve industry experts or insiders in the safari. Experts help researchers understand the service context more profoundly.

Tailor reporting and analysis. Customize the analysis and reporting of findings to address the industry's strategic priorities. Highlight critical insights that can lead to competitive advantages.

Focus on sector-specific outcomes. Aim for outcomes that resonate with the industry's specific goals. Outcomes could be to streamline operations, enhance accessibility, or innovate service delivery.

Iterate and innovate. Be open to iterating the safari approach based on feedback and findings. Iteration allows for adaptations that could lead to better discoveries and deeper knowledge.

Researchers create or learn from business model canvases in new services or industries. Frank Spillers explains what business model canvases are and how to create them:

Service safaris stand out from other UX/UI design research methods because of their immersive, observational nature. This approach gives researchers deep insights into user interactions and service delivery processes. Key aspects that differentiate service safaris include:

Immersive observation. Methods like surveys and interviews rely on self-reported data. Conversely, service safaris allow researchers to witness firsthand how customers interact with services. Safaris capture nuances and behaviors other methods might not reveal.

Real-world context. Researchers conduct service safaris in the actual locations where services are delivered. This approach offers an unfiltered view of user experiences and environmental influences. Compare this to a method like usability testing. Usability testing often occurs in controlled environments and may not fully capture the use context.

Holistic service perspective. Service safaris give researchers a holistic view of the service ecosystem. This view includes touchpoints, interactions and the service environment. A broad perspective is essential for understanding complex service experiences. Meanwhile, methods like task analysis only focus on specific elements.

Empathy building. Researchers develop a more profound empathy for users as they engage directly with the service environment. This immersive experience can inspire innovative solutions grounded in real user needs. This approach contrasts with data-driven methods that might overlook a design's emotional aspects.

Service safaris can enhance the design process when combined with other research approaches. This comprehensive approach leads to more user-centered and effective service designs. Kendra Shimmell, vice president of design at Remitly, explains the importance of combining user and industry research in service design:

Researchers value observations that capture the entire customer experience and service delivery. Types of observations that are particularly insightful include:

User behaviors . Note both your actions and those of other customers. Pay attention to habits, routines and any workarounds users develop to cope with service shortcomings.

Emotional responses. Search for emotional cues that show satisfaction, frustration, confusion, or delight. Emotional responses can reveal unmet needs and areas for emotional engagement within the service.

Service touchpoints. Identify and assess all points of interaction between the customer and the service. Touchpoints include digital interfaces, physical spaces and human interactions. Understand these touchpoints to help pinpoint areas for improvement.

Pain points. Identify any difficulties or obstacles, including access barriers and usability issues you face. These insights are beneficial for future research.

Moments of delight. Record instances where the service exceeds customer expectations or provides pleasant surprises. These moments present opportunities to build upon.

User interactions. Pay attention to how customers interact with each other within the service context. Social dynamics can offer insights into user needs, behaviors and the service’s role in facilitating community.

Operational efficiencies. Note the effectiveness of the service’s operations. Observations include workflow, speed and quality of service delivery.

Comparative observations. If applicable, compare different service settings and times of day. This approach helps identify variability in the service experience. These comparisons can uncover opportunities for customization or targeted improvements.

Innovative uses. Look out for innovative or unintended ways users engage with the service. These observations can inspire new features or services.

Collectively, these observations provide a comprehensive view of the service experience. They highlight both strengths and areas for improvement. Document and analyze these insights to drive significant enhancements in service design.

To measure the effectiveness of a service safari, researchers evaluate the quality and impact of the insights gathered. Key ways researchers assess a safari’s effectiveness include:

Insight quality. Evaluate the depth, relevance and novelty of the insights obtained. When researchers conduct effective safaris, they uncover actionable insights. Insights reveal underlying user needs, pain points and opportunities for innovation.

Coverage of objectives. Measure how well the safari met its predefined objectives. Check if the safari sufficiently covered the service and customer experience and filled all knowledge gaps.

Follow-up research engagement. Check how well the safari has revealed new paths for research or found new questions to explore. An effective safari allows researchers to uncover questions and opportunities for deeper investigation.

Stakeholder feedback. Researchers gather feedback from stakeholders on how they presented the findings. Positive feedback indicates effectiveness, particularly about the insights' usefulness and presentation clarity.

Implementation rate. Track the number of insights translated into design improvements or strategic decisions. A high implementation rate shows researchers provided findings that were actionable and valued.

Impact on the design process. Evaluate how the safari influences the design process. Observe new team perspectives, empathy levels and new design practices or methodologies.

Design teams should evaluate these aspects step by step. This process helps them check how well their service safaris work and continue the improvement of their research methods.

One of the most important outcomes of a service safari is increased empathy with the customer. Learn how empathy affects good and bad design in this video:

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What is the main objective of a service safari in design research?

• To analyze the manufacturing process of similar products
• To evaluate a competitor's financial performance
• To gain firsthand insights into user experience through immersion

Which aspect of service safaris helps designers identify opportunities for service improvement?

• A benchmark against unrelated industries
• Internal knowledge about competitors
• The experience of existing pain points and observations of unmet needs

How do service safaris help designers gain a competitive edge?

• They provide insights into the strengths and weaknesses of competing services.
• They reveal internal strategies for business growth.
• They standardize product manufacturing for efficiency.

How should designers approach a service safari to obtain the most accurate insights?

• They can assume the role of a typical customer and avoid assumptions.
• They can pose as business analysts seeking technical information.
• They can primarily rely on secondhand reviews for context.

What practical outcome often results from a well-conducted service safari?

• An academic study about user preferences.
• Detailed improvements to the service blueprint.
• Increased business contacts for market growth.

Better luck next time!

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Literature on Service Safaris

Here’s the entire UX literature on Service Safaris by the Interaction Design Foundation, collated in one place:

Learn more about Service Safaris

Take a deep dive into Service Safaris with our course Service Design: How to Design Integrated Service Experiences .

Services are everywhere! When you get a new passport, order a pizza or make a reservation on AirBnB, you're engaging with services. How those services are designed is crucial to whether they provide a pleasant experience or an exasperating one. The experience of a service is essential to its success or failure no matter if your goal is to gain and retain customers for your app or to design an efficient waiting system for a doctor’s office.

In a service design process, you use an in-depth understanding of the business and its customers to ensure that all the touchpoints of your service are perfect and, just as importantly, that your organization can deliver a great service experience every time . It’s not just about designing the customer interactions; you also need to design the entire ecosystem surrounding those interactions.

In this course, you’ll learn how to go through a robust service design process and which methods to use at each step along the way. You’ll also learn how to create a service design culture in your organization and set up a service design team . We’ll provide you with lots of case studies to learn from as well as interviews with top designers in the field. For each practical method, you’ll get downloadable templates that guide you on how to use the methods in your own work.

This course contains a series of practical exercises that build on one another to create a complete service design project . The exercises are optional, but you’ll get invaluable hands-on experience with the methods you encounter in this course if you complete them, because they will teach you to take your first steps as a service designer. What’s equally important is that you can use your work as a case study for your portfolio to showcase your abilities to future employers! A portfolio is essential if you want to step into or move ahead in a career in service design.

Your primary instructor in the course is Frank Spillers . Frank is CXO of award-winning design agency Experience Dynamics and a service design expert who has consulted with companies all over the world. Much of the written learning material also comes from John Zimmerman and Jodi Forlizzi , both Professors in Human-Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon University and highly influential in establishing design research as we know it today.

You’ll earn a verifiable and industry-trusted Course Certificate once you complete the course. You can highlight it on your resume, CV, LinkedIn profile or on your website.

All open-source articles on Service Safaris

Customer journey maps — walking a mile in your customer’s shoes.

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Service Design - Design is Not Just for Products

Understand the Service Design Process

• 3 years ago

Learn the Language of Service Design

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What is a Service Safari and how to use it

At Sutherland Labs, we have a range of methodologies that we use to help our clients explore their research, design, and business objectives. The precise methodological approach will depend on a number of factors, including the research questions/objectives, the research material, the product or service in question, timescales, and budget.

In this post, we’ll present a method we adopt when we want to understand user needs, gaps, and opportunities for a service. Called a Service Safari, it’s an exploration of a service from a customer experience perspective.

The method captures the real-world experience of a specific service, type of service, or a wider range of services, be that for booking train tickets, or a hotel or shopping mall experience, to a car hire or passport renewal service.

Starting the process

As with any project, we’ll start the project with a stakeholder meeting so that everyone can agree on the research objectives and questions, approach, timescales, and deliverables. We’ll also use this time to delve deeper into understanding the business objectives and any background to the project that could prove useful.

Harvesting data

Following the planning meeting, we put our plan of attack into action. Usually in teams of two, we’ll explore the service ourselves. If it’s a train ticket booking system, we’ll buy a ticket and go on a journey, or if it’s a shopping mall experience, then we’ll visit the shopping mall and familiarize ourselves with the services and facilities on offer.Immersing ourselves in the service is key here as we aim to experience it from the customer’s perspective.

This gives us a first hand understanding of what it feels like to be a customer; what thoughts, frustrations and concerns customers might be having at each stage, and can even present new opportunities that the company can explore further.

Immersing ourselves in the service is key here as we aim to experience it from the customer’s perspective

But there’s also a more fundamental aspect to this stage of the research; it allows us to map out the various touch-points and understand how everything fits together. We’ll explore touchpoints, environments (e.g. a physical train station, kiosks, etc), websites, apps and physical artefacts (e.g. a ticket, paperwork, etc). We’ll also speak to customers, and employees, where possible, to get additional perspectives on the service.

Over time, we’ll use these findings to add a canvas to the service framework until a rich picture is revealed.

We’ll capture this information in notebooks, or as pictures. We might also collect artefacts such as receipts, tickets, brochures, leaflets or any other material that we are faced with, whilst experiencing a service.

Deep-diving into the data

Once the data collection phase is complete, it’s time to review everything and look for patterns, issues, and opportunities. Having more than one researcher working on a project really helps this stage as the two can validate each other’s findings. Discussion of the data is also a great way to synthesize findings and gain deeper insights.

The precise deliverables will depend on the project, but a journey map or journey log are common outputs. We’ll use the journey map to visualize the flow of touch-points, highlighting the issues and opportunities in parallel swim-lanes. It’s a useful analytical tool for the researchers, as well as for the service designers and makes for a powerful reference tool throughout a service design project, allowing teams to consistently check how changes might affect the customer journey.

Pros and cons of a Service Safari

So when should you use a Service Safari and when might it not be appropriate? Service Safaris are great at giving you an initial understanding of the customer experience of a service. The kinds of questions it would help you answer include if you wanted to understand where the pain points are in a shopping experience, and begin to understand some of their causes. It might highlight things that competing services do particularly well in comparison to your own service. Exploring the service as customers ourselves, also helps uncover some of the workarounds that customers may employ. It’ll also help you to understand what works particularly well and could be replicated in other parts of the business.

Exploring the service as customers ourselves, also helps uncover some of the workarounds that customers may employ

However, for a deeper, more exhaustive understanding, user research is key. To explore the end-to-end journey it may be that a full ethnographic study is appropriate. Here, the researcher would spend anything up to a day with a customer (and do this with several customers), shadowing them to understand the minutiae of their experience, including motivations and any previous experiences that influence their current one.

Service Safaris are also not solely appropriate when wanting a deep understanding of specific touchpoints within a service. For example, when trying to ‘look behind the numbers’ from analytics data, to understand why a booking app might not be working optimally. In that scenario, lab-based sessions with potential customers might be a more fruitful approach, to supplement a Service Safari. One-to-one sessions allow researchers to focus on individual touchpoints, to explore issues at a finer granularity, and provide more focused recommendations.

Snr Research Director

During Mark’s 12 years of industry experience, he’s worked at several leading research labs, collaborating with global brands in the media, telecoms, finance, entertainment and the public sector. He also heads up our UX Design team, who provide our prototyping, wireframing and UI design capabilities. With degrees in Cognitive Science and Human-Centred Computer Systems, and a doctorate in Sociology, he’s a vital cog in Sutherland’s collective brainpower – and a keen cyclist and bass guitarist in his spare time.

View other blog posts by Mark

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How to Do a Service Safari in 5 Easy Steps

A service safari allows design teams better to understand competitors, users, and their own product. This service experience offers valuable insights for very little investment, making it an essential tool during the early stages of the design thinking process .

This article looks at the pros and cons of a service safari, how to plan and run one, and what you can expect from the results.

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What is a Service Safari?

A service safari is a real-world research method where designers experience a product as a user–like mystery shopping. You can conduct a service safari on your product, competitors’, or both. The process works for physical products, services, and digital products.

During a service safari, team members complete various tasks to gain insights into the product’s customer experience.

A service safari is a valuable UX design research method because it’s inexpensive (for most digital products), and teams can complete the process without users.

Who Does a Service Safari?

Usually, various team members from a design project participate in a service safari. Participating in a service safari gives team members valuable insights into the competition, but the process also provides an opportunity to empathize with users from a product-usage perspective.

When to do a Service Safari?

UX designers complete service safaris during the discovery phase of a design project when researching competitors or evaluating an existing product for a redesign. They use the results to identify opportunities and pain points that help guide the design process .

The Purpose of a Service Safari

Here are some common reasons design teams conduct service safaris:

• Understand the competition and their services
• Determine the quality of service (competitors and internally)
• Identify new business opportunities
• Identify user pain points and areas for improvement
• Gain a user’s perspective to empathize better

Pros and Cons of a Service Safari

• Pro: Great for improving empathy for customers
• Pro: Gain a first-hand understanding of the competition
• Pro: Helps validate or understand other research
• Con: Risk of bias from team members too familiar with the product
• Con: Getting into the customer’s mindset is difficult when you can anticipate what will happen next
• Con: Without clear objectives, results can be ambiguous

5 Steps for Conducting a Service Safari

The level of planning for a service safari will depend on the product or service you’re evaluating. For example, a travel booking app will require taking a flight, while a productivity app you can experience from the office.

Step 1. Meet With Team Members & Stakeholders

Meeting with stakeholders before a service safari is essential to agree on the approach, budget, business goals, timeline, and deliverables.

Next, you want to meet with the team taking part in the safari, create a plan, define the methods, outcomes, and assign tasks. Your team will also need to gather the necessary tools and materials like stationery, devices, tools, etc.

Step 2. Set Clear Objectives

Setting clear and actionable objectives is crucial in planning a service safari. These objectives will ensure team members understand each task and its outputs/deliverables.

Design Principal at ustwo in the UK, Hollie Lubbock, recommends pairing a research question with a goal to create a clear objective mission statement – objective = research question + goal .

For example:

• Question: “How do we open a new bank account using a competitor’s app? What are the current options, hacks, and issues with achieving this goal?”
• Goal: “Understand the highs, lows, and friction points in this experience.”

Step 3. Define the Documentation Process and Deliverables

How do you want team members to document their service safari experience? Some examples include:

• Notes (written, voice, etc.)
• Screenshots/screen recordings
• Photos and videos

Hollie Lubbock recommends you outline “key areas to document.”

• The experience over time: Pre/during/post
• What or who you encounter: People/processes/objects/ environments/places/communications

Hollie also gets team members to gather their general impression of the experience, like:

• How much time does it take to complete the task?
• Is it easy to complete?
• Are there clear instructions or options?
• Did you hit any dead ends? Or experience any errors?

Answering these questions provides valuable insights about the product and enables team members to empathize better when developing a solution later in the design process.

Step 4. Conduct the Service Safari

Depending on the product, a service safari could take a few hours or several weeks. Kate Greenstock’s service safari of Jelf Insurance Brokers’ UK offices took eight weeks to complete .

The most important part of running a service safari is documenting the process according to your objectives. We recommend taking lots of notes, screenshots, recordings, etc., so you don’t miss anything.

Hollie Lubbock created this free Google Doc for documenting your service safari. 

We also recommend checking out Preety Naveen’s Service Safari With Skycash –a Polish-based payment service. Preety created a three-step process for each step of her Skycash service safari:

• Actions: The actions she took in each step
• Problems: The problems resulting from each action
• Recommendations: Suggestings to improve each step

A service safari aims to experience every touchpoint from a user’s perspective. Sutherland Labs’ service safari gives an example of exploring touchpoints for a train booking service:

• Booking website/app
• Visiting the station, getting on the train, etc.
• What happens at the turnstiles?
• What’s the physical ticket office like?
• Physical artifacts (tickets, maps, etc.)

The team from Sutherland Labs also takes the opportunity to speak to people, including staff and customers, to get different perspectives. For example, if you’re designing a train booking app, how do people with disabilities experience the service? What are their pain points?

While a service safari is primarily about you experiencing the service, it’s ultimately about finding a solution for customers , so take the opportunity to speak to other users and ask questions. This inquisitive approach could provide valuable usability and accessibility insights.

Step 5. Synthesizing the Results

An affinity map works best when analyzing notes from a service safari. You’ll need a whiteboard (or digital alternative for remote collaboration) and sticky notes.

• Create headings for each step in your service safari–i.e., open the app, create an account, etc. If you’re analyzing products from several competitors, these steps might differ.
• Write your raw notes for each step onto sticky notes and paste them under the relevant heading.
• As a group, identify patterns, key issues, and opportunities.
• Create a journey map to visualize your results and guide your next decisions.

It’s important to note that you must never use a service safari as a standalone piece of research. Design teams must cross-reference the results with other data or use it to guide and validate further user research.

Using Service Safaris to Prototype in UXPin

Building prototypes is an excellent way to test recommendations and hypotheses after a service safari. UXPin’s built-in design libraries , like Google’s comprehensive Material Design UI , enable designers to build prototypes, test ideas, and iterate fast!

Instead of presenting just a customer journey map or report to stakeholders, designers can build a quick prototype in UXPin, and use it to get buy-in for their solution.

Enhanced Collaboration

Whether you’re working in the office or part of a remote team, UXPin’s Comments enhance collaboration between design teams . Multiple designers can simultaneously work on the same project to design wireframes, mockups, and prototypes.

Adding Stakeholders and Collaborators

Did you know you can share your UXPin projects with stakeholders , experts, consultants, and other collaborators who don’t have a UXPin account?

These stakeholders can view your designs and prototypes, leave comments, and approve from anywhere–perfect for today’s remote work environments. You can even include a message with your approval , so stakeholders know what they’re reviewing for approval. UXPin also integrates with Slack and Jira , allowing you to discuss projects in one place.

Streamlined Design Handoffs

Design handoffs are a stressful time for designers and engineers. Miscommunication, lack of documentation, and poor-quality prototypes cause friction between teams. 

Because UXPin is a code-based design tool, designers can replicate code-like functionality and fidelity, while Spec Mode gives engineers context and documentation to begin the development process, including:

• Inspecting Properties : Inspect the properties of any element or component, including its size, grid, colors, and typography.
• Distance Measurement : Measure distances between elements or the canvas edges.
• Style Guide : Details about the project’s styles, including colors, typography, and assets.

Designers can also create documentation with labels for each element to provide engineers with context and explanations–no more external PDFs or attachments!

If you’re still using outdated image-based design tools to design, prototype, and test, it’s time to switch to UXPin–the world’s leading code-based design solution. Sign up for a free trial and start designing better user experiences for your customers today!

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04 Apr 2024 Frank Spillers

How to use a Service Safari

Summary: Service Safaris can be used to kick-off a service blueprint. Service Designers can ground the stakeholder team on user insights and introduce the value of Ethnography. Service Safaris provides a quick “context check” and informal touchpoint inventory.

In the recent Miniclass, Kick-start Service Design with Service Safaris , Frank Spillers covered the proper use of the technique. The concept of the Service Safari is derived from the traditional notion of a safari—an expedition to observe and study wildlife in its natural habitat. Similarly, a Service Safari is an observational research technique involving researchers  immersing themselves in the service environment  to observe and analyze customer interactions and touchpoints.

Also see What is a Service Safari?

Key Point: Service Safaris are not a replacement for Ethnography

Service Safaris provides a quick and low-cost reconnaissance of a service environment. They involve immersing team members in the services they offer by experiencing them as customers. This approach provides insights into the customer’s journey, highlighting pain points and opportunities for improvement. However, it’s crucial to understand that Service Safaris complements, rather than replaces, traditional ethnography. Why? Deep insights come from understanding actual customers experiences as they navigate service spaces.

Why Ethnography?

Ethnography is a research method rooted in anthropology. It involves observing and interacting with participants in their real-life environment. This method offers a deep, nuanced understanding of customer behaviors, motivations, and needs over time. It’s invaluable for uncovering insights that might not be immediately apparent.

Service Safaris, by contrast, are more immediate and hands-on. They allow teams to quickly empathize with users by stepping into their shoes. However, they lack the depth and breadth of insights provided by ethnography. Thus, while Service Safaris are useful for engaging teams and sparking interest in user experience, they should not be the sole user research method.

Use Service Safaris to Engage Your Organization

One of Service Safaris’ primary benefits is its ability to engage and align your organization around an evidence-based Service Blueprint. By experiencing service environments firsthand, stakeholders gain a direct understanding of the customer’s journey. This shared experience can be an effective way to socialize a team to user insights—a pre-requisite to creating actionable Service Blueprints.

Bottom Line

Service Safaris are a useful tool for engaging teams and aligning organizations around user insights. Use safaris at the start of your Service Blueprint process to get everyone in the mood. However, they are not a standalone solution. For the most comprehensive understanding of your users, combine Service Safaris with ethnographic research. This dual approach ensures both immediate empathy and deep, nuanced insights, paving the way for truly human-centered service design and innovation.

Related Posts

How Service Blueprints Empower Product Managers

How to address a Disrupted User Journey

UK Post Office scandal: Policy Failure, not just IT

UX requires effective Stakeholder Management

Service Blueprints workshop- for Ukraine UX

About the Author

Frank Spillers

Founder - UX Inner Circle

Frank Spillers, MS, founded the UX Inner Circle to share his knowledge and skills with his students from the Interaction Design Foundation where he has provided select trainings for the past 8 years. He leads UX and Service Design consulting at Experience Dynamics, an award-winning consultancy. He works with the world’s leading brands to deliver cutting-edge strategy for products, services, and experiences. Starting out in the mid-’90s in social VR, Frank has consulted on 600 UX projects including enterprise web applications, nonprofits, government and more. He’s an Inclusive Design evangelist, and expert in Accessibility, Emotion Design, VR/AR, Cross-cultural Design and UX Management. Frank brings 25 years of experience as a Sr. UX Director and Service Design leader. He has lifted conversion rates by 88% and enhanced revenue by 300% for firms like Nike, Intel, Microsoft, the City of New York, Global Disability Rights Now!, Four Seasons, Capital One, the World Bank, Women Enabled International, and many more.

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What is a service safari?

What is it.

Service safari is a type of autoethnographic research where researchers step into a user’s shoes and undertake typical journeys and tasks while self-documenting their experiences in an effective and efficient manner.

Conducting such research will help capture all aspects of the on-site experience and physical/digital services, observe other customer and staff behaviours and interact with everyone involved in the service provision.

The goal is to gain a deep understanding of how a service functions in real-world situations, gain insights into pain points and service expectations, and identify opportunities for improvement.

Service safari provides a holistic view of the service environment, which can be especially important for understanding complex services. In addition, researchers can apply this methodology to competitor’s services to gather intelligence about how their services operate and then compare this to their targeted service.

When to use a service safari?

It is a great starting point in your research as it can reveal issues that your users and staff encounter regularly.

You might then want to deep dive into identified service areas and conduct depth interviews .

Need some advice?

Bunnyfoot has always prioritised evidence capture and valid, bespoke study designs to truly understand the nature of user engagement, interactions and behaviours, in a holistic way. If you would like to talk about how we can support you with gaining a deeper understanding of your audience so you can make evidence-driven design decisions, we’d love to talk!

Contact us to see how we can help

Please complete the following form, alternatively, you can email us . For jobs and work experience opportunities, please visit our jobs page .

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Read enough? Get in touch

Contact David Williams to discuss your needs or find out more about what we do.

Introduction to Service Safari

Coming from a design strategy background, I always have a keen interest in one of the design thinking methodologies called Service Safari. Service safari is a prominent design methodology amongst service designers, but recently, UX researchers have also found this methodology quite useful. Service Safari is an exploration of service from a customer experience perspective. This methodology is best used at the very beginning of the design process to understand the real-world experience of a product, service, and product or service provided by competitors and collaborators in the industry. 

By using service safari, researchers would be able to gain insight on real user’s pain points, opportunities in the market, and service benchmarks. It is crucial for strategists and UX designers to immerse themselves in using the service from the customer’s shoes. They will have a better understanding of what it feels like to be a customer, what frustration, concerns, and motivation that stops or drives them from using a product or service. 

Before starting the Service Safari process, design researchers are recommended to have a stakeholder meeting to decide on the research objective, approach, and timeline. The meeting will also help researchers to be on the same page to plan on a specific service or journey to explore. The key to a clear objective is to pair a research question with a goal. e.g., We want to understand (how to create an extraordinary experience for users when they are going to a cinema). The research objective is used to understand the highs and lows (standards) of what a service and how each experience is being evaluated using those standards. 

Having more than one researcher working on service safari is essential because each researcher can validate each other’s findings. Service safari is usually conducted by a small team of two to four researchers. The duration of a service safari can last from a day, weeks, or even a month, depending on the chosen product/service and the research objective.  

Once researchers have a clear objective, they should decide on what service or product that they would investigate, it can also be the brand’s competitors and collaborators. Creating a planned scenario is also recommended so that researchers will not wander too far away from the research objective. Each scenario should include:

• What users are looking or trying to do, and why?
• What interactions will they encounter during the process?
• What is the end goal of the journey?

As researchers are conducting the service safari, they should document their findings by using a camera, notebook, or a service safari spreadsheet. Documentation is vital for stakeholders to understand each pattern, pain point, and opportunity found during the research. At the end of the process, the researcher can create an analysis and report based on their notes and documentations. The output of the research can be a journey map or post-it notes on an affinity map. From my previous experience in conducting a service safari, I prefer a journey map to outline all the pain points and opportunities discovered during the research. It is also a great way to synthesize findings from other researchers and gain deeper insights.

To conclude this, service safari is a fast and easy-to-use design methodology for stakeholders to understand where their service or product stands in the market. However, this method should not be a substitute for user research; nevertheless, it can be used as a supplementary research approach.

https://www.100open.com/toolkit_2/service-safari/

https://blog.prototypr.io/how-why-and-when-to-run-a-successful-service-safari-accbf8f32e55

Service Safaris: Understand How Corporate IT is Really Used

What is a Service Safari and how to use it

What I Learned from a Service Safari

Service Safari

Dive into a service experience in first-person, applied for.

Prototyping

Service Staff

also called

Mystery shopping, Auto-ethnography

related content

Observation Notes

Research Plan

Journey Map

Service Safari is a research tool that helps designers develop interesting insights and inspirations by experiencing a service in first-person, as they were ‘in the shoes’ of a user. While pretending to be a user, designers can understand in detail all the aspects of the interaction with the service, observe how other people in the same space/environment behave, and eventually intercept the opinions and perceptions of other users. After having gone through the service, journey maps help generate a documentation of the experience that can be used for ideation and comparison purposes. Often times, the safari could be replicated going through the competitors’ service as well.

Develop a complete first-hand understanding of the service experience, before further research investigations.

remember to

Set a clear protocol for the observation and immersion, to be carefully followed along the journey.

case studies

Example by Essense

Designing Schiphol Airport experience

Understanding the experience of an international airport from travellers' perspective

description

Essense worked closely with the Consumer Marketing team at Schiphol Group (Amsterdam Schiphol Airport) to develop a customer experience vision for all touch-points of the entire passenger journey across digital and physical channels, from buying a ticket to boarding a plane. After a first map of the customer as-is journey based on desk research, existing insights and learnings were validated and enriched through a two-day ‘service safari’ at Schiphol Airport with the respective client ‘area experts’ (parking, prior to security, after security). The service safari confirmed lots of the learnings previously developed but also clearly showed that there was little synergy between the three core airport areas, which appeared as three different silo experiences.

what is interesting

The Service Safari helped the entire team to develop a holistic understanding of passenger’s experience and the ecosystem at the airport, bringing the findings from the as-is journey to life. This led also to additional learnings about the context and commercial playing field (such as parking competitors near the lounge, external security personnel, etc.) that would have otherwise been missed.

Grow with us! Share your case studies

The collection is always evolving, following the development of our practice. If you have any interesting tools or example of application to share, please get in touch.

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Idwell on Service Management

Thoughts on how to design and implement it service management.

Service Safaris: Understand How Corporate IT is Really Used

April 12, 2017 by itsmdaily Leave a comment

No I haven’t made the term up. “Service safari” and the similar “customer safari” are both legitimate business terms. And, if you want to get technical, then a service safari is both a proven design and “outside-in” service management concept.

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Discover the New Harmonic Design Website: A Fresh Look at Service Design Excellence

Harmonic Design Announces 2024 Practice Week: Expanding Our Practice Through Design Intersections

Harmonic Design’s Co-founder, Patrick Quattlebaum, Discusses How Service Design Shapes the Future of Organizations —This is HCD Podcast

Walking With Possibility: Service Design in Your Organization

• Perspectives
• Practice Area

Service Safari (Elephants Included)

Becky scheel.

• April 14, 2020

Author’s note:

Our next two posts are from when we visited zoo atlanta earlier this year. due to the covid-19 pandemic, many zoos and aquariums are running on a limited number of essential staff and providing “ virtual visits ” through webcams and live events. as service designers, we have a keen awareness of the power of place and delivery channels. we applaud the efforts of the continuing education and connection that virtual visits provide. while we do enjoy checking in on lun lun and yang yang on panda cam, we can’t wait to visit them in person soon., introduction.

A service safari is a method service designers use to evaluate service experiences in situ —going out to the location of the service and experiencing it themselves as a visitor, customer, user, etc. While many observational frameworks exist for use in ethnographic research, we wanted to develop one that emphasizes the most important aspects of service experiences. And what better location to test out a new framework for a service safari than at a zoo? 

This experimental project is important and personal to me. I worked at the local zoo for over 10 years and later studied animal-computer interaction in graduate school. The zoo provided a familiar setting for me to test out our service safari framework, but the experience led to a more interesting design conundrum—addressing the role of non-human service actors (in an upcoming blog post – stay tuned).

A New Framework

To prepare for our service safari, a small Harmonic team studied existing research methods and explored a few framework ideas, including one that spelled out TOFU BACON (catchy name, but too long). Taking into account service goals and past service safaris, we developed an observational research framework: TACIT (Touchpoint, Actor, Content, Interaction, Timing). 

T: Touchpoint | Signage, cell phones, animals, interactive devices, exhibitry, talks. How do touchpoints support visitor needs?

A: Actor | Guests, volunteers, staff, and elephants (more on the elephants later)

C: Content | The information/ tone of the signs, websites, apps, talks, Q & A, etc.  What does the content say, what are the qualities of the content, and what does it invoke?  

I: Interaction | Can include people reading the sign, touching an interactive element (moving a sign), talking to a docent ?

T: Timing | Objectively in terms of minutes and hours, and subjectively in terms of patience and convenience. For each stage of the experience, approximately how long do tasks take?

With that in mind, we created a service safari booklet with a section for notes, a site schematic, and a debrief form with prompts. Two coworkers and I went to the zoo and tested out our material. In regards to the TACIT framework, we realized that ‘content’ and ‘touchpoint’ often hit the same notes, and felt redundant. One suggestion was to change ‘content’ to ‘context’ to note qualities of the space—weather, amount of guests, and special activities.

We’re still developing TACIT and have utilized the framework on other projects. With each use, we iterate on the categories, wording, and even the note-taking booklet design. After the visit, we collected our findings by mapping out observations, actors, and touchpoints onto the schematic. We rounded out this part of our exercise by noting our findings and presenting our board to the zoo’s designer. This method yielded several opportunities for more engaging touchpoints and demonstrated a new outside-in way for the zoo to consider the visitor experience when they have the chance to update or build exhibits in the future.

The setting inspired us to look at things from a different perspective at around 10 feet tall. In service design, we are able to look at solutions through many perspectives – employee, customer, and business. In the follow-up blog, The Elephant in the Blueprint , we examine service design tools and techniques through the perspective of the elephant.

We recreated the visit by building out the exhibits via a method called spatial mapping.

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I’m always looking to connect to chat about bioinspiration, data visualization, sustainability, communications, and red pandas.

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• Buzzword Buster

Service Safari

Role of this tool.

Service Safari is an exercise that we can carry out when running a Prototyping Bootcamp . By going out, visiting a service and using it you will be able to understand how that service works and how it can be improved. This tool can either be used to get into the mindset of a service designer or to research a particular service innovation that we are focusing on.

How do we use it?

We need to prepare before the workshop by scouting suitable local services. Choose three or four different services unless we are targeting one particular type of service. For example there may be a local bike hire scheme or a specialty retail outlet to try. Or a bank, bus service or party planning agency to investigate.

Then we prepare envelopes with the different Service Safari missions and hand them out to workshop delegates along with the Service Safari tool for making notes and structuring their observations.

Small teams of 2-4 people then go off and experience their service, noting their experiences and taking photos or recordings as appropriate. An hour is usually sufficient for the fieldwork.

When our explorers return they can then compare notes with other teams and draw conclusions that help the innovation process.

Sources: David Townson  / Hope Valley College

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Improving your Library’s UX: Go On a Service Safari

by Lauren Stara on August 30, 2016

With this post we continue the series of articles that aims to demystify the concepts of user experience, design thinking, and human-centered design for public librarians. 

The first step in improving your space is understanding what you already have. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways, and enlisting the help of someone who isn’t a regular library user for a “secret shopper”-style visit will provide some great information. A secret shopper is someone who comes into the library posing as a patron with the aim of evaluating the service—either something very specific or the library experience in general. They make extensive notes after the visit and report back to the management (or whoever commissioned the visit). This is a technique used extensively in business—retail and restaurants in particular.

Let’s say you want to understand how patrons navigate the library, how people find a particular item on the shelf, or why they don’t understand how to print a document or sign into your wireless system. Think of a specific goal or task that a library patron may want to complete. Ask a colleague, friend, or relative who isn’t familiar with the library to come in and attempt to do that thing. Find the bathroom, or locate a particular book. Ask them to think about and document every decision point and misstep in the process. This will require them to slow down and pay attention to their process. They should also make note of any interactions they have with staff or other library users.

If you can’t find a non-user to do this, try it yourself with a “beginner’s mind” point of view. Pretend you don’t know the building and the library’s organization inside and out. Think about what it would be like to attempt the task if you don’t speak English well, for example, or you haven’t been in a library since you were in grade school.

You will likely see some things that can be improved immediately, like signage or furniture placement. You might decide to move the copier to a different spot or simplify the signs. Library jargon is a particular problem—many users don’t understand the difference between “circulation” and “reference” or what a proprietary database is.

Going on a service safari is fun if you approach it as the first step in a long process. You can divide your ideas into categories by ease of implementation or cost. Be sure to solicit the opinions of your staff (and some patrons as well, if appropriate) before you make major changes. This will create support for your process.

Next month: Design Thinking and How it Shakes Things Up.

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• Improving your Library’s UX

Useful, Usable, Desirable: Applying User Experience Design to your Library (ALA Editions, 2014) by Aaron Schmidt and Amanda Etches

Tags: good customer service , library user experience testing , library ux , user experience , ux

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Ukraine war latest: Extra security at 'extremely exposed' nuclear plant - as Moscow takes action against US newspapers

Russian officials are stepping up security measures at a nuclear plant in Kursk, where Ukrainian forces have seized land. Meanwhile, Moscow has banned entry to more than 20 US journalists.

Wednesday 28 August 2024 23:04, UK

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• Extra security at 'extremely exposed' Russian nuclear plant
• Moscow takes action against US newspapers
• Russian missile hits Zelenskyy's home town on day of mourning
• Ukraine 'trying to break into' new Russian region
• Watch: Who are Ukraine's secret resistance?
• Your questions answered: Can Ukraine advance further inside Russia?

We'll be back with more updates and analysis tomorrow, but before we go, here's a recap of the key developments that took place today:

• A Russian missile struck Volodymyr Zelenskyy's home town of Kryvyi Rih;
• Ukrainian drones set oil tanks on fire at a depot in Russia's Rostov region and a depot in Russia's western region of Kirov, according to reports;
• Russia said it wanted the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to take a "more objective and clearer" stance on nuclear energy after its chief visited Kursk's nuclear power plant;
• Russian troops claimed to have defused an unexploded US-supplied missile that they said was shot down and found near the Kursk nuclear facility;
• Sir Keir Starmer and Olaf Scholz said the UK and Germany's support for Ukraine remained "unyielding";
• Additional security measures will be introduced at Kursk's nuclear plant from tomorrow, authorities in the region said.

Pavel Durov, the chief executive of Telegram, has been charged with allegedly allowing criminal activity on the messaging app.

French judges have barred Mr Durov from leaving France pending further investigation, but he has avoided being held in custody with a €5m bail.

The billionaire was arrested in France on Saturday after his private jet landed at Le Bourget airport outside Paris.

The Russian-born entrepreneur - who became a French citizen in 2021 - is accused of operating a platform which is being used for child sexual abuse material and by organised crime gangs, for drug trafficking and fraud.

Telegram has insisted it abides by EU laws and its moderation is "within industry standards and constantly improving".

Its statement added: "It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for abuse of that platform."

Mr Durov's arrest in France, and four days of questioning, has caused outrage in Russia.

Paper planes - representing Telegram's logo - haver been placed in Moscow in support of the billionaire.

Some government officials claim his detention was politically motivated and proof of the West's double standard on freedom of speech.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call that Russia was ready to provide Durov with all necessary assistance given his Russian citizenship, but that his French citizenship complicated the situation. 

We have been reporting today on Russia's advances in the direction of the key mining city of Pokrovsk, which sits in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region.

Moscow sees taking control of the city as an important stepping stone to annexing the entire Donbas region.

And Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned the situation near Pokrovsk is "difficult".

Now, security expert Maria Avdeeva has shared footage from inside Pokrovsk and said the city is "tense" and "preparing for the looming Russian offensive".

NATO members have reaffirmed their commitment to further strengthen Ukraine's defences at a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council today.

"Ukraine continues to intercept Russian missiles on a daily basis, saving countless lives. But Ukraine's ability to maintain their defences requires increased supply and more support," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.

"In the wake of the latest Russian assault, allies today reaffirmed they are stepping up their military aid to Ukraine.

"We must continue to provide Ukraine with the equipment and munitions it needs to defend itself against Russia's invasion. This is vital for Ukraine's ability to stay in the fight."

The fear of escalation by Western allies is the "biggest problem" faced by Kyiv as it battles Russia, Ukraine's foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has said.

"Ever since the beginning of the large-scale invasion, the biggest problem Ukraine has been facing is the domination of the concept of escalation in the decision-making processes among our partners," Mr Kuleba said.

The Ukrainian minister made the comment during a conversation with Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski.

He also said: "The war is always about a lot of hardware: money, weapons, resources but the real problems are always here, in the heads.

"Most of our partners are afraid of discussing the future of Russia. This is something that is very upsetting because if we do not speak about the future of the source of threat, then we cannot build strategy."

Ukraine has relied heavily on the West to supply it with weapons and hardware and financial assistance to hold out against Russia.

But Kyiv is pushing the West to give it the long-range weapons - and the authorisation - to strike targets deep inside Russian territory. It also wants help shooting down incoming missiles.

The United Nations Security Council are meeting to discuss the latest situation in Ukraine.

It comes after a Russian missile struck Volodymyr Zelenskyy's home town of Kryvyi Rih today.

You can watch the meeting in the stream above.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that a Russian airstrike earlier in the day on the eastern town of Kupyansk had resulted in some deaths, without providing a number.

The Ukrainian leader has also said in his nightly address that the West should lift restrictions on long-range airstrikes by Ukraine because it would help end the war.

"There was a strike with a guided aerial bomb on Kupyansk - right in the city centre, people were under the rubble. Unfortunately, there are fatalities," Mr Zelenskyy said.

Kupyansk, which is located 22 miles from the border with Russia, was hit in the afternoon, local officials said. 

The strike injured 14 people and damaged the building of the city hall, the regional prosecutor's office wrote earlier on the Telegram messaging app.

Russian TV has begun filming for a fictionalised comedy series in which Joe Biden travels to Russia undercover.

The drama will centre around the US president travelling to the country to find out "why sanctions aren't working against Russians", the Moscow Times reports, citing the Russian television channel TNT.

While in Russia, Mr Biden loses his passport and ends up living in a Soviet-era flat and working as an English teacher so he can make money and return home.

Russian actor Dmitriy Dyuzhev is set to play the role of Mr Biden.

The comedy, which is entitled Goodbye, is set to premiere next year.

Russia has banned entry to 92 US citizens, including journalists, lawyers and the heads of what it claims are key military and industrial firms upholding "Washington's Russophobic stance".

The list, published on Telegram by Moscow's foreign ministry, includes 14 Wall Street Journal employees, five New York Times journalists and four from the Washington Post.

The ministry said it was targeting editorial staff and reporters from "leading liberal-globalist publications" involved in producing and disseminating what it described as "fakes" about the Russian armed forces.

It comes weeks after the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was freed by Moscow in an extensive prisoner swap after nearly 500 days in a Russian jail on espionage charges.

The ministry wrote: "In response to the Russophobic course pursued by the Biden administration with the declared goal of 'inflicting a strategic defeat on Moscow', an integral part of which has become 'carpet' sanctions against Russian politicians, representatives of the business community, scientists and cultural figures, journalists and media structures, entry into the Russian Federation is permanently closed for 92 US citizens."

For context : This is not the first time the Kremlin has banned dozens of media representatives from the West.

Since launching its war in Ukraine, it has cracked down on Russian and foreign independent news outlets.

Legislation was also introduced soon after the war to criminalise media outlets spreading "false information" about the Russian army.

Additional security measures will be introduced at Kursk's nuclear plant from tomorrow, authorities in the region have said.

The measures will see the entrance to the town of Kurchatov, where the plant is located, temporarily restricted, Alexei Smirnov, acting governor of the Kursk region, wrote on Telegram .

"Despite the fact that the security of the Kursk nuclear power plant is maximally ensured, the armed forces of Ukraine do not abandon their attempts to enter the city," he said.

"In this regard, and also in order to ensure additional security measures, the operational headquarters has decided to restrict entry to Kurchatov in the near future."

The statement comes after Russian troops claimed they had defused an unexploded US-supplied missile that was shot down and found near the Kursk nuclear facility (see post at 10.15am).

What do we know about the plant?

Yesterday, nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi issued a warning about the danger of a nuclear accident at Kursk's nuclear power plant.

Mr Grossi said the plant's nuclear reactor was "extremely exposed" to attack and the facility lacked the containment dome and protective structure that is typical of modern nuclear power stations.

"This is why we believe that a nuclear power plant of this type, so close to a point of contact or a military front, is an extremely serious fact that we take very seriously," he said.

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CRTC takes action to improve cellphone service along eight major roads

From: Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission

News release

Today, the CRTC is taking action to improve cellphone service along nearly one hundred kilometres of major roads in Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, and Ontario. Better coverage will help make it safer for Canadians to travel along these roads.

August 28, 2024 – Ottawa-Gatineau – Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)

In 2019, the CRTC launched the  Broadband Fund  to help connect rural, remote, and Indigenous communities across Canada. To date, the fund has improved high-speed Internet and cellphone service in over 250 communities, connecting essential institutions such as schools, and health care and community centres.

Through its Broadband Fund, the CRTC is committing over $17 million to Bell Canada, TBayTel, TELUS Communications Inc., and Sogetel Mobilité Inc. to build new cell towers and improve cellphone service along eight major roads.

These projects received support from impacted communities and many organizations. Letters of support emphasized the positive impact the projects will have on daily life in these regions, including improving public safety.

The CRTC is continuing to assess Broadband Fund applications and will make more funding announcements in the coming months.

“High-quality communications services are essential to every aspect of our daily lives. Through its Broadband Fund, the CRTC is continuing to help connect Canadians in rural, remote, and Indigenous communities to high-speed Internet and cellphone service. The projects announced today will help make it safer for Canadians to travel along eight major roads by improving connectivity.”

- Vicky Eatrides, Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, CRTC

Quick facts

• The CRTC is an independent quasi-judicial tribunal that regulates the Canadian communications sector in the public interest. The CRTC holds public consultations on telecommunications and broadcasting matters and makes decisions based on the public record.
• To date, the CRTC’s Broadband Fund has supported projects that will connect nearly 46,000 households, improve cellphone service along over 630 kilometres of major roads, and build over 4,600 kilometres of fibre to communities.
• In March 2023, the CRTC launched a public consultation to improve the Broadband Fund. The CRTC will launch a co-development process to create an Indigenous stream of the Broadband Fund.

Associated links

• Telecom Decision CRTC 2024-190 – Broadband Fund – Project funding approval for Bell Canada’s mobile wireless project in Newfoundland and Labrador (Gander Bay South)
• Telecom Decision CRTC 2024-191 – Broadband Fund – Project funding approval for TBayTel’s mobile wireless project in northwestern Ontario (Highway 527)
• Telecom Decision CRTC 2024-192 – Broadband Fund – Project funding approval for TELUS Communications Inc.’s mobile wireless project in Quebec (including routes 204, 232, 234, and 277)
• Telecom Decision CRTC 2024-193 – Broadband Fund – Project funding approval for Sogetel Mobilité inc.’s mobile wireless project in southeastern Quebec (Saint-Augustin-de-Woburn)
• CRTC Broadband Fund: Projects selected in August 2024
• Broadband Fund: Closing the Digital Divide in Canada
• Broadband Fund – Third call for applications (Notice of Consultation CRTC 2022-325)
• Telecom Notice of Consultation CRTC 2023-89 – Call for comments – Broadband Fund policy review

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Un nouveau service en ligne pour demander le regroupement familial

Publié le 27 août 2024 - Direction de l'information légale et administrative (Premier ministre)

Vous vivez en France avec un titre de séjour et vous souhaitez que votre famille vous rejoigne ? Il existe une procédure de regroupement familial, possible sous certaines conditions. L'Office français de l'immigration et de l'intégration (OFII) a mis en place un nouveau téléservice pour réaliser vos démarches. Service-Public.fr vous explique comme ça marche.

À quelles conditions le regroupement familial est-il possible ?

Vous pouvez faire une demande de regroupement familial si :

• vous êtes étranger (hors Union européenne) ;
• vous résidez en France en situation régulière.

Les conditions requises sont les suivantes :

• vous devez résider en France de manière régulière depuis 18 mois au moins (si vous êtes de nationalité algérienne, le délai minimum est de 12 mois) ;
• vous devez détenir un titre de séjour d'au moins un an (hors mentions passeport talent, retraité, saisonnier) ou le récépissé de renouvellement de votre titre de séjour ;
• vous devez disposer d'un logement pour pouvoir accueillir sa famille : être locataire, propriétaire ou occupant à titre gratuit ;
• vous devez avoir des ressources suffisantes et stables.

Le site de l'OFII vous donne toutes les informations sur les conditions à respecter concernant : l'éligibilité au regroupement familial, les critères de logement et les conditions de ressources.

Un simulateur vous permet de savoir si vous pouvez en bénéficier.

Quels membres de la famille sont concernés par cette procédure ?

Sont éligibles au regroupement familial :

• votre époux ou votre épouse (âgé d'au moins 18 ans) ;
• vos enfants âgés de moins de 18 ans.

Ils doivent résider à l'étranger.

Les enfants issus d'une précédente union, ainsi que les enfants adoptés ou recueillis par kafala (tutelle sans filiation, procédure d'adoption propre au droit musulman) peuvent aussi entrer dans la procédure.

Les autres membres de la famille ne peuvent pas bénéficier du regroupement familial, ils doivent demander des visas à titre personnel pour venir en France.

Comment fonctionne le téléservice ?

Le service de demande de regroupement familial permet aux usagers de déposer de manière autonome une demande en ligne, avec une aide à la démarche au fur et à mesure grâce à des infobulles

Vous êtes guidé durant toute la démarche, les questions qui vous sont posées dépendent des réponses précédentes et les documents demandés dépendent de la situation déclarée.

La direction territoriale identifie les éléments manquants à votre dossier, elle le notifie à l'usager par un courrier ou un mail. Prochainement, l'usager pourra aussi déposer directement les compléments de documents dans son espace de suivi.

Vous pouvez suivre l'état d'avancement de votre demande sur votre tableau de bord. Lorsque votre dossier change de statut, vous en êtes informé.

Enfin, l'usager peut toujours déposer son dossier au format papier, en l'envoyant à sa direction territoriale compétente.

Il n'est pas nécessaire de déposer un dossier en doublon (papier et numérique) car cela risque au contraire de retarder la procédure.

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Vérifier si vous pouvez bénéficier du regroupement familial

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Bienvenue sur le site de l’Office Français de l’Immigration et de l’Intégration

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Réalisez vos démarches en ligne et suivez leur avancement dans votre espace personnel

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