In autumn 2026, I took Aalto University's Basics of Service Design course to broaden my perspective on strategy and service design. I was particularly interested in strengthening my design thinking and gaining new tools and approaches that I could apply to developing businesses, services and customer experiences in my future work.

The course gave me much more than I expected. I loved how broadly services were examined, from customer needs and experiences to stakeholders, processes and the wider systems around them. Identifying problems, pain points and opportunities for improvement at different levels, and then exploring how they could be solved, was easily my favourite part. Systems thinking in particular really clicked with me.

Throughout the course, we explored different aspects of service design through a practical case project, using methods such as customer journey mapping, stakeholder mapping, service blueprints, personas, research and ideation. My group chose Ryde Technology as our case, examining its role within Helsinki's wider mobility ecosystem and looking beyond the individual service to understand its connections with users, other mobility providers and the city around it.

For my final visualisation, I wanted to bring the different parts of service design together rather than present them as a collection of separate tools. I organised the process around questions that gradually move from understanding the customer towards the wider service and its context, connecting each question with relevant methods and examples from our Ryde project.

The course also reinforced something I'd already started to recognise as one of my strengths: I naturally notice problems, inconsistencies and opportunities for improvement, and really enjoy figuring out how things could work better. It made me even more interested in service development, customer experience and other roles where that kind of thinking can be put to use.