Sarah's squiggly journey to a career in service design
Sarah Hill’s career journey
In this series of Q&As, we’re exploring the fascinating journeys that people take into service design, and how a varied career can help make for a better service designer.
Sarah Hill is a Senior Service Designer at Education Scotland, an agency of Scottish Government supporting quality and improvement in Scottish education. Sarah is part of a team of three user centred designers working on services that support education in Scotland, including Glow, the national digital platform for learners and educators.
Q: What has been your career journey and how did you first encounter service design?
A: Prior to Education Scotland, I worked in a large team of user-centred designers at Social Security Scotland.
But, the start of my career began with a 4-year degree in fashion design. During a year out after my degree, I worked as a bra fitter for a high-end lingerie brand. It ended up being my side-gig for the next 10 years and was surprisingly useful for the future (more on that later)!
I moved to London to do a Master’s in fashion at a time when I was becoming interested in grassroots politics and how people can be brought together to achieve change. My Master’s projects ended up being less about traditional ‘fashion’, and more about responding to what was going on in the world. This really introduced me to the idea of design for social good, and service design came onto my radar.
When I moved back to my hometown, Paisley, the town was bidding to be UK City of Culture. I joined the local council as an intern in graphic design, working on the bid. Although we didn’t win, the internship gave me plenty of experience and training in graphic design.
Stints in community arts and social housing followed, opening up more opportunities to get involved in projects that touched on service design. When I finally saw a job advert for a service designer at Scottish Government, it felt like a bit of a long shot, but the risk paid off!
Q: Our theory is that a squiggly line career makes for a better service designer. How is this true for you?
A: Many of my roles have involved working face-to-face with people who are frustrated or face challenges. Those kinds of experiences really teach you to listen to other people and try to understand their lives.
For instance, working with young people as a design tutor in community arts meant seeing all the challenges of making that transition from childhood to adulthood.
And, back to bra-fitting, a customer would come in saying ‘I want a, b and c’. But it was my job to interrogate that and - very often - respond with ‘But what you need is x, y and z’. I learnt so much about consultation, negotiation and persuasion. As well as that, I often refer to it as a brilliant example of a good service. Customers came in feeling uncomfortable and unhappy with how they looked. Then, everything about the service was designed to make them feel better about themselves, from the individual attention, to the product range designed to suit a huge variety of needs.
Q: How did you go about learning about service design?
A: I first became aware of service design at a Global Service Jam event. This was a pivotal moment because it planted the seed that this was something I’d like to explore. Then, over the years, I did lots of reading about service design, took short courses, attended events and got involved in any relevant work projects I could.
When I was working in social housing I had the opportunity to get involved in a service transformation project, and to do a 6-month professional development award at the Service Design Academy in Dundee. The Award taught me some new things that I still use all the time but, more than anything, it gave me the confidence to finally apply for a role specifically in service design.
Q: What service design work are you most proud to have been involved in? And why?
A: A project I could mention is one that hasn’t been resolved yet, though I’m proud of the way it led to a change in thinking about how we do things as an organisation.
I was asked to look at how people book events with Education Scotland. What the project revealed was that we don’t have a consistent approach to our professional learning and events service overall, from advertising, through booking, to delivery.
It opened up lots of conversations about how service design thinking can help ensure people have consistent experiences. So, we’re making small interventions to change the approach to the professional learning service, but I hope the project has also raised awareness of the need for user-centred approaches and embedded some thinking that will lead to future changes.
Q: What have you found most challenging about practising service design in a government/public sector context?
A: Working in a large organisation will always have its challenges. There are lots of stakeholders to manage internally, from technical to legal. My sense is it may be easier to do that in commercial settings, because everyone is aligned around one goal – making profit.
In government and public sector contexts, clarifying that shared goal is sometimes challenging. It’s easy enough to say ‘we want people to have a pleasant experience of our services’, but every speciality has a different view of that, and different priorities for the requirements.
Q: What advice would you give anyone just starting out or looking to develop a career in service design?
A: Going to free events and taking part in informal learning really helped me. In particular, hackathon-type events, where the real value was in just being thrown into doing things. It shows you what you can do in a short period of time, and allows you to apply concepts you’ve learned, if you’ve been reading up on service design.
Just watching the facilitators at those events was also really inspirational and gave me lots of ideas for how to deliver successful workshops, which is critical in service design.
Q: Can you recommend something to read, watch or listen to that might interest someone interested in embarking on a career in service design?
A: I’m sure every service designer would recommend Good Services by Lou Downe, because it’s a really accessible way to understand why services don’t work for people. Most people would be able to read it and recognise the experiences in their own life. Then, The Service Organisation by Kate Tarling is a great way for anyone who’s worked in a large organisation or public service to see how beneficial it is to design around services, rather than around the business, governance, or any other priority.
Find out more
If you’re starting out in service design, whatever your career journey to date, our Introduction to Service Design course is the perfect way to build your understanding of the fundamentals. Three 2.5-hour sessions introduce service design to people working in public and nonprofit organisations. Learn more
