Elle Beaumont-Bilsby

Background

Whilst managing a digital user experience team in Higher Education during the mid-2010’s my colleagues were often referring to Service Design practice as a way to look holistically at how we might influence the student experience. ‘This is Service Design Doing’ was my introduction to Service Design as a discrete set of practices to understand, develop, and evolve the social and technical materials related to service delivery.

I love working as a Service Design practitioner.  My passion is creating increased access for people by understanding customer, workplace & community needs to develop a more inclusive way of providing ‘good services’.

What’s your favorite way to unwind after a long day of work?

Cook for my family – I love making meals that bring people together. That shared moment when you get to sit down to eat, talk (yes, sometimes at the same time) and catch up together is magical.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

Don’t take no for an answer – negotiate, look at things from other angles be persistent, and find a way to do what you think is right.

– From my mum

What’s a hidden talent that you have that others may not know about? 

I was a hip-hop DJ in the 1990’s. It was born out of a passion, bordering on addiction, for hearing new music. This was the very early web era, pre-download, so the only way you heard new music was either on the radio, pirated cassette, on vinyl or in a club. DJing was such a scary, satisfying, collaborative and chaotic experience – getting a couple of hundred people to follow a rhythm and feel what you were playing was no mean feat. Shaping the collective rhythm of a live club experience is designing – in an embodied (and funky) form.

Can you tell us about how you ended up in your current role?

I took a break from full-time work to study design because I felt that career-wise, I’d moved into middle management and lost touch with my design practice. I delved into service design, design ethics, and design philosophy. Through my professional network, an opportunity came up to apply my project management and design skills to the challenge of preparing students at university for the world of work while studying.

It may sound simple, but my role intersects with academic curriculum, industry partners, student expectations from varied cultural and socio-economic backgrounds as well as the ethical imperative of inclusion and supporting student agency. I jumped into the design challenge, and I’ve been in the role for the past 2.5 years.

Can you share some of the differences you have experienced working in-house versus on the agency side of service design? What do you think are the benefits and challenges of each?

Working in-house has provided me with opportunities to build rich, interconnected networks between staff providing front-of-house services to students (our customers) across many different business areas, as well as the teams that manage the platforms and processes that support the front-of-house service delivery.

I worked in agencies throughout the first 10+ years of my career. Whilst I was practicing interaction design rather than service design, I found the past pace of project design and development a real buzz. The push to innovate and create a competitive advantage for clients suited my entrepreneurial temperament. The opportunity to deeply understand and research a problem space was a luxury, so design briefs were often scoped tightly and on a fast turnaround. It was exciting, but ultimately, I found the long work hours and stress of tight deadlines unsustainable.

Working in-house as a service designer now allows me to take a broader perspective when designing and project planning. My experience with pitching and managing resources to deliver outcomes for clients whilst working in an agency is now turned toward ‘intrapreneurship’ – a great skillset to have when working with stakeholders who may have very different perspectives and preferred outcomes to a challenge.

How do you approach working with cross-functional teams and stakeholders who may not have a background in design? What strategies have worked well for you in the past?

Dump the jargon. Listen deeply to what drives different teams and stakeholders. Provide opportunities to playback and translate their experiences into different communication styles and formats.

There’s no one way to design connection – but connection is what I have found to be the single most powerful tool in supporting and creating change.

Early in my career, I used to hate it when I designed interactive content or user research with lots of exposition and beautiful layouts only to see a client skip to the last page looking for where the money was mentioned. All that care and attention about a message that had been crafted was superfluous to so many people (mostly non-designers I might add) – they just wanted to get to the point. So, I learned to Lead with Impact – get to the point that the person you’re communicating with cares about the most. 

This strategy applies to Service Design – understand what people are seeking from a service, then signpost it clearly and deliver it as effectively as you can in a way that is attuned to their needs.

Can you tell us about a (service design) project that you are particularly proud of? What made it stand out for you?

The project I’m currently working on is the one I’m most proud of. It’s called The Employability Project. This is because it is the first project where I have truly felt like a service design practitioner, even though my job title is ‘Project Manager’. The project is about enhancing student employability and it stands out to me because I get to play the role of ‘The Facilitator’ and ‘The Amplifier’. I’m working with brilliant professionals who know their discipline and are experts in delivering their service.

In my role, I get to connect these people and help turn their ideas into new products or services that show how we might support students differently. But best of all, I get to play some small part in making student experiences better, by hearing what success looks like to them – whatever their background or capacities – and then supporting the service teams and the service ecosystem to make that possible.

Can you share a story about a time when you experienced a setback or failure in your work, and what did you learn from that experience?

Things like not planning a product rollout over various iterations to enable design and delivery pivots based on changing circumstances, not ‘working out loud’ and bringing other stakeholders on the journey to allow ‘buy-in’ (literally and figuratively) or getting caught up in my own ‘designerly superpowers’ and forgetting about usability.

On several occasions early in my career I designed the future – and it failed, big time. 

What did I learn from all this hard-won experience? 

• Ditch the ego and remember that my job is first to listen, then ask questions, respectfully and courageously. 
• Don’t be afraid of the messiness of design being visible to others, often the best stuff, the most impactful insights, come from navigating the flux of uncertainty – so don’t hide it behind a curtain.

Be yourself and be honest with yourself.

You aren’t imbued with magical powers, so don’t get caught up in the hype. 

Can you share a story where being part of a community helped you to overcome a challenge?

I had the absolute privilege to be a part of the organizing team for UXCamp Perth in 2023. 

UXCamp Perth is an unconference where the speaking schedule is decided on the day by attendees from a pool of pitches delivered by attendees. It’s a community-driven, volunteer-run event that brings together everyone from experienced design professionals to students and the design curious. The most rewarding part of the experience is seeing the local design community come together and share something that they care about.

It’s an event about finding meaning in your craft and seeking new perspectives and connections to the community. I LOVE this event and I’d recommend anyone to find ways to connect and support your local design community – in person!

What advice do you have for someone just starting out in service design? What skills or knowledge do you think are most important for success in the field?

The most important skill for a service designer to have is a deep passion for learning. This skill will stand you in good stead as tools and technology come and go. Unlearning, re-learning, learning-by-doing, collective learning and reflective practice – service design is learning all the way down, so you better love it!

Service design practitioners need to have proficiency in navigating uncertainty and that uncomfortable feeling when everything feels like it is spinning out of control. If you can open yourself to opportunity while holding true to a vision, a value, or a purpose in the face of uncertainty, you will have mastered a rare skill. People will seek you out and you will be able to help them on their journey.

A service design role is deeply entwined with change, which is often challenging, sometimes terrifying for people. So, any skills you have that can guide your client, stakeholders, or customers through the uncertainty of change will be an asset to them and yourself.

If a fellow service design professional asks you why you joined the Circle, what will you say?

The Circle is a place where I can meet with like-minded and amazing people.

I joined the Circle because I wanted to learn from other service design practitioners in different companies, countries, and contexts. In-house service design can be so varied in its practice or its formal recognition within an organisation and I have learned so much from the experience my fellow Circle members have shared.

Future

What do you think is the most exciting trend or development in service design right now? How do you see the field evolving in the future?

Inclusion. We are still so early in the journey of inclusion within service design because the societies we inhabit are still grappling with the full scope of what inclusion may be. There are many different perspectives, voices and ways of living that are yet to be included meaningfully in the design of services and the societies they serve. 

The service design that most excites me connects and respects diversity of experience whilst enabling self-agency and the power for people to make the changes they want, as an individual and with connection to community. This kind of service design operates with an understanding of place and the interconnectedness of all things. This field will be evolving for decades to come and will require long-range design practices.

What kind of projects or initiatives are you interested in working on? Are there any particular connections or collaborations that you are seeking at the moment?

I’m interested in supporting new voices and perspectives in design. I’m currently a part of the planning committee for the next UXCamp Perth. 

I’d love to hear from other people who have organised grass-roots peer communities-of-practice and the journeys they’ve been on to maintain and sustain the energy and excitement of the community.

If you could ask any question to other service design professionals, what would it be? What insights or perspectives are you curious about?

I would ask them to tell me about what excites them about service design. 

• Why did they choose service design and not a different profession? 
• If they’ve had another profession previously, why and when did they come to service design? 
• What’s next for them on their professional journey?