User Experience (UX) and Service Design (SD)
User Experience (UX) and Service Design’s (SD) purpose is to make things simple for the customer. You need to be customer focused, creative and detail oriented.
In a UX and SD role, you’ll work in a team designing and developing tools and services that assist with the interaction between the government and the public. Thinking of the overall experience of the user, you will evaluate and improve upon the ways government can best serve New Zealanders.
Your responsibilities may include:
Planning the user experience process. You will work alongside the UX team to brainstorm what needs to be achieved and map out the goals of the project.
Researching what is needed for the service. You will liaise with customers and stakeholders to ensure that the service is being designed around the needs of the user.
Analysing data from research you’ll ensure your team's design assumptions are valid.
Gathering ideas from users, you’ll sketch and design a prototype of a service as well as refine the product.
Testing for any inconsistencies or issues, e.g., functional, performance, usability and stress testing.
Finalising the service. This involves more collaboration! You will move away from creating and validating ideas to working with developers to promote the service.
The difference between UX and SD
UX and SD share many common methods and tools, especially in the early stages of their respective processes. Interviews, workshops and secondary research are typically used in both. They differ however, in the scope, analysis and application of the early discovery work.
UX designers focus on the individual (mostly digital) touchpoints. Service Designers focus on the full end-to-end experience which may include digital touchpoints – but also physical infrastructure, teams, and functions or processes that those teams do.
Future career opportunities:
User Experience Analyst
User Experience Designer
Digital Designer
Service Designer
Tester