MA Service Design

Course overview

Service design is a human-centred discipline which focuses on designing services in the public or private sector; working in a participative, iterative and qualitative manner with all stakeholders; considering wider systems at play.

By developing and applying service design to a range of societal and business challenges, this course will enable you to work on live projects, collaborate with stakeholders, partners and experts across multiple disciplines, and use design at a strategic level. This course is structured to guide you through the understanding and practice of service design, starting from current challenges at the local and user scale before progressing through to futures and systems levels.

This course is assessed through: Practical Projects; Critical Reports; Presentations through a range of media; Writing for reflective practice; Essay writing; Research Proposals; Portfolio of Evidence.

There are numerous possibilities open to graduates from this course. You will find your new knowledge and skills useful for careers in industry, local authorities or non-profit organisations. Alternatively, you may decide to pursue an academic career.

MA Service Design alumni work as Service Designers, Design Researchers, Experience Designers, Design Strategists, User Centred Consultants, Participatory Designers, UX Designers, and Academics in private, public and third sectors. Students have also progressed to study at PhD level.

During the course, students have a number of opportunities to work directly with industry through live projects as well as particular engagement activities, such as acting as human centred design consultants for tech companies competing in the Ordnance Survey Geovation Challenge or organising events for the Service Design Fringe as part of the London Design Festival. As a result of these engagements, students will sometimes continue the activity in the form of consultancy or internships.