Service Design and User Experience: Spot the difference

User experience (UX) and service design often get used interchangeably. But they focus on different layers of the same challenge. Understanding the difference isn’t about labels—it helps projects land better outcomes and avoid costly gaps.

UX focuses on the moment. Service design connects the system.

UX looks closely at how someone experiences a single point in time—reading a sign, asking a staff member, finding their way, or using a service. It’s about making those moments clear, usable, and purposeful.

Service design steps back and looks at how those moments fit together. It considers the full journey and all the people, policies, spaces, and decisions that shape it. It aligns these elements so the experience works from end to end, across all the moving parts.

Both rely on real-world insight.

Neither UX nor service design happens in isolation from the people they’re meant to serve. Both rely on observing, engaging, and testing with real users. They involve the stakeholders who shape the experience—and the people who actually live it. Because assumptions are easy. Evidence is better.

That’s also what human-centred design really means. For us, it’s more than just a buzzword. It’s a philosophy. We involve people early, test things properly, and design with respect for how humans actually behave—not how we think they should.

Which is exactly why we combine them.

At Humanics Collective, we don’t separate UX and service design. We treat them as interdependent. Because when they’re handled in isolation, too much is left behind.

Focusing only on the user experience might fix a single touchpoint but leave the system around it unchanged.

Focusing only on service design might optimise the process but miss the small frustrations that shape how people feel in the moment.

By integrating both, we design experiences that are joined up and functional—from the big picture down to the fine detail.

What that looks like in practice

• UX might improve how a person moves through a space. Service design ensures that space makes sense within the wider process.

• UX might identify a pain point with wayfinding. Service design addresses the root causes—such as inconsistent operations or unclear workflows.

• UX focuses on how the moment feels. Service design ensures that moment exists in the right place, at the right time, and for the right reason.

People don’t experience services in parts. So we don’t design them that way.

That’s why we talk about integrated Service Design & User Experience Design. Because users don’t care which discipline was responsible. They just want it to work.

And making it work is what we’re here for.