10 in 5. Katarina Bergström, Service Designer.

10 Questions in 5 Minutes for Katarina

We get a lot of enquiries from people looking to join the team here at Humblebee so we’re going around the gang and asking them 10 questions in 5 minutes about their roles. Hopefully you’ll enjoy getting to know our team a little better, and give you a little insight from their daily lives. :)

We’re starting with our service / business designers, and next out is Katarina Bergström. She’s our Service Design lead in Stockholm.

Some people call her ‘the Service Designer’s Service Designer’, some people call her other things… ;) Just kidding Kat!

Here’s 10 in 5 with Katarina Bergström… Enjoy!

1. Hello Katarina. How the devil are you?
   I am actually super fine!
2. What do you do at Humblebee?
   In short; I help companies design digital services
3. Can you tell us exactly what a Service Designer at Humblebee does?
   What we do depends on the current phase of the project we are involved in, Service Design is pretty broad, you can find your own niche. I mainly act in the area of UX prototyping in conjunction with Service Design. Most of the time we are several people in the project, contributing to the service design from different angles.
4. How come you ended up working with Service Design ?
   I like to work holistically, it all hangs together — I like the methods used in service design with prototyping, testing and collaborative work. Before, I was more into the graphic interfaces, but design is much more than appearance. Something really odd has happened in the industry with a division between UX, graphic design and service design. They all fit together, I think we should look much more into how industrial designers work, with both function and aestetics with a clear user focus.
5. Tell us about one project you’re particularly proud of…
   I was very happy being part of the team helping Polestar with their future test drive activity.
6. Do you have one good tip for a tool you love, or perhaps a book or resource you highly recommend?
   An Introduction to Service Design: Designing the Invisible by Lara Penin
7. What do you do to make sure you continue to grow as an expert within Service Design ?
   I try to keep an open mind and try to dig more into working methologies as well as adjacent areas, i.e I just finished a uni course in Lean for services, which was really interesting and helpful.
8. It’s a fairly new sphere (Service Design), how will Service Design evolve in the future?
   I think there will hopefully be less post-it notes workshops and more research focus. I also think that service design will integrate much more with UX and Graphic Design, since they are so intertwined. You tend to need to work with UX and then see how that impacts the service design and vice versa.
9. Do you have any advice for people starting out their career and considering Service Design?
   You should really like to work in teams and if you are going to work with digital projects it is really helpful to have prototyping skills.
10. If you could give a company one piece of advice (from a service design perspective)… perhaps a recurring error you have seen from your career… what would that be?
    That would be, trying to have too much of an academic approach to the job. It is the actual craft that will do the job. Prototyping, testing and interviewing end-users, prototyping again.

Thanks Katarina! x x x

If you want to reach out to Katarina with any questions or a little advice, feel free.

For any other questions or if you suddenly feel an overwhelming desire to offer your customers outstanding digital services you can contact me.