Principle #2: A bad service does not enable users to complete the outcome they set out to
At the Bad Services Corporation we have 15 principles of Bad Service Design.
Principle #2: A bad service does not enable users to complete the outcome they set out to
If you want to implement this principle, help your user to achieve only one small part of their overall goal.
Preferably do this in such a convoluted or disconnected way that it makes any of the other tasks involved in this goal impossible, meaning that they never get what they need
Never tell them you are doing this - Provide only vague promises that it might be possible to accomplish what they set out to do, then at the last minute (preferably when it’s too late to do anything about it) make it clear that your service doesn’t not in fact connect, integrate or work with any of the other steps required
Are they trying to get their child into nursery? Make sure they can register but not pay!
Are they trying to buy a house? Make sure they can put in an offer, but don’t do they survey in time so the offer falls through
Are they trying to set up a new business bank account? Exhaust them with endless questions about the nature of their business that there’s no way to answer!
Put this into practice and try;
Making sure your part of a service is completely isolated from all of the other parts
Not telling your user what they need to do next after your part of the service, or if there are any steps they need to complete before your part of the service
Providing something that actually makes their task harder rather than easier
Giving conflicting advice to the advice given by other providers of other parts of the service
Of course, the Bad Services Corporation is a spoof company built by the School of Good Services. You really should make your services easy to find. But we found leaning into some satire a good way to expose the patterns of Bad Services.