Service Design is a type of design. It’s similar to Product Design or Interaction Design, but is more abstract. You can’t hold a service and assess it in your hands. A service is a combination of touchpoints that can involve a mix of physical, digital, and human interactions. Service Design is the deliberate, holistic creation of those touchpoints and the experience a customer has with an organization. It’s about the complete journey of a customer, why they engage, what they need, what they want, and working within reasonable constraints to provide that. Within the world of design there are a … Read more of the post Service Design—It’s Not Just Another Buzzword

As Election Day approaches, one question that many voters may be asking themselves is, “Where is my polling place?” A group of Thinkers built a progressive web application (PWA) to give Pennsylvanians a quick answer. Background At Think Company, we have an extensive history of volunteering our time to help the community. From improving the public transit fare system to providing design and development assistance for a cancer data project, we are always looking for ways we can be of service. Think Company is also committed to ensuring employees are fully able to participate in our democracy by granting up … Read more of the post Helping People Get to the Polls with a PWA

2018 continues to be a year of significant growth for Think Company, and the clichéd response to that is “it’s a good problem to have!” I like to point out that while that is true, the word “problem” still sits at the center of that phrase—though I prefer to swap it out for “challenge.” It’s really a collection of different types of challenges: some known, some anticipated, and some still hiding in the shadows. However, I’m grateful for them as indicators of success. We’re facing them due to our demonstrated quality of service, subsequent demand in the marketplace, and strength … Read more of the post To Grow With Integrity, Engage and Honor Your Team

In part two, we talked about how we got to a point where uncivil discourse is incentivized, and I and suggested that there may be a better way. But part of that better way requires us to explore the role design plays in that discourse. Back in 2009, Derek Powazek (who literally wrote the book on online community) gave a fantastic talk called “Design for the Wisdom of Crowds” in which he laid out the notion that how we design systems can influence the conversation that happens within them. As an example, he pointed out how Amazon evolved the way … Read more of the post The Content Strategy of Civil Discourse, Part 3

Have you ever felt like you need to mix things up—to try something new or give your life a hard refresh? Life can become so routine if you let it: wake up, go to the office, spend time with friends and family, stay active, fight the good fight, volunteer, and hang out on social media. But maybe you want more. What if you’re scrolling through your news feed and see a long lost friend announce they’re selling everything to travel the world to work remote for an entire year. Would you think, “this could be me!”? This was me this … Read more of the post Think Remote: Highlights from 3 Months Working Abroad