I’ve had the honor and pleasure of serving as the head of the jury for this year’s Service Design Awards. As a jury member since the inception of the award in 2015, I’ve seen a steady increase in the quality of the award submissions—and this year was no exception. I was particularly impressed with the quality of this year’s student submissions, many of which were on par with the professional work submitted.

So without further ado…

The professional finalists from the commercial sector include a money coaching service from US financial services firm Capital One, the rethinking of school canteens in the Basque country in Spain, a redesign of Canadian TELUS’s mobile phone contract renewal experience, and a customer experience vision for the entire passenger journey at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport.

The professional finalists from the public sector include an initiative to teach service design to 11-year-olds in Australia, service delivery improvements for US veterans, a persona-based tender for transportation services in The Netherlands, and a three-year project to improve the experience of passengers during rail service interruptions in Norway.

The student finalists include a project to reduce patient anxiety and uncertainty at a Brazilian hospital for the elderly, a set of service design tools aimed to create change in the government of Malta, the design of a smart black taxi service for London’s cabs, interventions to facilitate communication and clarify responsibilities at a Columbian hospital, and a real world prototype to address a skills shortage affecting small and medium manufacturers in Taiwan.

We also had one finalist that was a collaboration between students and new graduates to develop a user-centered design process and future forecasting methodology for the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Come Meet The Finalists

I’ll be announcing the winners at this year’s Service Design Global Conference in Madrid. The awards ceremony will take place on November 2, and the winners will deliver PechaKucha style presentations about their work on November 3.

I hope you’ll join us to celebrate with all of the finalists!