service design

Airbnb 'adapt'

Ben

24 Jan 2025

Kudos to Airbnb for launching an improved service for people with extra accessibility needs.

Service Design elements:

A new dedicated category for 'adapted places'
A team dedicated to reviewing every accessible feature submitted by hosts, for accuracy
Detailed 3D scans of each adapted room, with greater information such as doorway widths
Updated policies to better accommodate for e.g service animals or carers/access providers
Support and guidance for hosts providing accessibility features

More here.

Removing barriers to user-research

Kudos to Askable who seem to have cracked good service-design for user research platforms. In the past I've found qualitative research platforms to be a bit fragmented in quality and limited in scope. Askable seem to have addressed this. Which is awesome in removing the barriers to user-centred-design.

Unconditional Service Guarantees

Kudos to all you companies who offer free lifetime repairs on your products. Take a bow Patagonia clothing, Osprey backpacks, Nudie jeans, Hiut jeans, Custom Fender guitars, Zippo lighters, Rapha cycling jerseys. (non-exhaustive list) And this article from HBR (from 1988 but still entirely valid) looks at the business considerations

Tackling food waste

Today's Service Design Kudos goes to Olio - who have created a service to get food surpluses from shops and producers into the hands of people struggling. Their service is an orchestration of volunteers, partnerships, an online portal, local charities, plus a lot of consulting with the food

Library of things

Big Kudos to the teams behind the UK's growing 'Library of Things' movement. A dream set of Service Design ingredients: boosting community, reducing waste and consumption, saving money, using tech for good. Here's a map showing 'em all.. https://lnkd.in/eVVh9JWJ

Read more

Removing barriers to user-research

Unconditional Service Guarantees

Tackling food waste

Library of things