Living Guide to Social Innovation Labs
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  • Introduction
  • Seeing
    • Understanding Complex Problems
      • Challenge Statements
      • Systems Thinking
      • Systems Mapping
      • Leverage Points
      • Wicked Questions
    • Design Research
      • Design Thinking
      • Ethnography
      • Interviews
      • Journey Mapping
      • Service Blueprint
      • Sensemaking
      • Dashboards
    • Systemic Design
    • Identifying and Engaging Key People
      • Stakeholders
      • Stakeholder Mapping
  • Doing
    • Co-Creation
      • Convening
        • Is Convening the Right Tool?
        • Types of Convening
      • Facilitation
      • Collective Impact
      • Ideation
    • Prototyping
      • Prototyping in a Lab Context
      • Testing
      • Types and Modalities
      • Prototyping Approaches
    • Scaling
      • Growth Thresholds
      • Scaling Up, Out, Deep
      • Tactics for Scaling
      • Scaling Strategy
    • Monitoring, Measuring and Communicating Impact
      • Types of Evaluation
      • Logic Models
      • Measures and Metrics
      • Standards of Evidence
      • Evaluating Complexity
      • Communicating Impact
  • Being
    • Innovation Labs and Process
      • Agile Project Management
      • Value Proposition
      • Theory for Change
      • Business Models
    • Resourcing and Team
      • Lab Partners
      • Team Expertise and Skills
      • Wellbeing of Remote Teams
      • Funding
    • Inclusion and Equity Practice
      • Power Structures
      • Innovation for Real Transformation
      • Truth and Reconciliation
      • Recommendations for Inclusive Practice
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  • Defining Service Blueprints
  • Examples and Resources

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  1. Seeing
  2. Design Research

Service Blueprint

A service blueprint is an operational tool that describes the nature and characteristics of a service interaction in sufficient detail to verify, implement and maintain the service.

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Last updated 5 years ago

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Defining Service Blueprints

Service Blueprints are based on a graphical technique that displays the process functions above and below the line of visibility to the customer: all the touchpoints (i.e. where the service and customer interact) and the back-stage processes are documented and aligned to the user experience ().

Think about a service like a theatre performance. The audience enjoys a show which appears to occur seamlessly, but behind the scenes, numerous people are actively performing backstage support activities, so the performance appears effortless to the audience.

Similarly, in a service delivery experience, the 'end user' engages with specific touchpoints, but these are supported by a network of activities or infrastructure which supports a seamless user journey experience. A service blueprint visualizes a service so that elements of what users experience are combined with supporting elements that users are unaware of ().

Examples and Resources

The purpose of a service blueprint is to:

  • Identify areas for change in a service delivery process

  • Provide a comprehensive overview of a new service or prototype

  • Highlight how different groups of people can best work together

See the examples below for a service blueprint of a restaurant dining experience, and compare the current state and future state of the service.

Key Resources

Service Design Playbook: Service Blueprints: Online playbook that describes service design blueprint and other tools used by the Government Ontario Digital Service to design for users:

Service Design Tools: Service Blueprint: Online set of tools for Service Design with many examples of how a Service Blueprint is used:

https://www.ontario.ca/page/service-blueprints
http://www.servicedesigntools.org/tools/35
Service Design Tools
Service Design Playbook
Example of a current state service blueprint for a restaurant. Source: MaRS Solutions Lab
Source: MaRS Solutions Lab
Source: MaRS Solutions Lab