15 principles of Good Service Design

8. Require the minimum possible steps to complete

A good service requires as minimal interaction from a user as possible to complete the outcome that they’re trying to achieve. Sometimes this will mean proactively meeting a user’s needs without them instigating an interaction with your organisation. This may also mean occasionally slowing the progress of a service in order to help a user absorb information or make an important decision

What this means in practice

The number of steps in the service is proportional to the amount of, and size of decisions a user has to make. No user is forced to make a decision too quickly by being sped through steps

You’ve achieved good when

A user is able to complete the service as quickly as possible, at a pace that enables them to make decisions properly 

How to do it

Think about:

• The rhythm of steps in your service: How many steps there are in your service

• The Tempo of those steps: How fast this series of steps is put into action

Review where decisions need to be made in your service

Look at your service from end to end and identify the decisions a user needs to make. 

If there isn’t an existing step, consider making one. If you have too many steps, look to where you can merge these into fewer steps to make the journey simpler for your user.

Allow users to focus on one task at a time

Users need to be able to focus in order to make a decision. Look at areas of your service where multiple decisions have been merged into one step and consider breaking these down into more steps.

Think about how fast or slow your steps need to be

Look at how big the decisions in your service are, or where your user might need to be more focused and ‘present in the moment’ to experience something. Consider slowing these areas down and, likewise, speeding up areas where decisions are minor.