Podcasts
Designing the Invisible Together: Small Shifts, Big Changes
A series of short podcasts
Season 1: Episode 1 Every Service has two journeys - the Visible and the Invisible
Transcript for Episode 1 - Every Service has Two Journeys: The Visible and the Invisible
Welcome to ‘Designing the Invisible, Together Tiny shifts, Big Change’ a mindful by design short form podcast. I'm Rachel Wood, and in each episode, I'll share one practical tool or idea that brings together service, design, practice, psychology, behavioural science, and research. Because the smallest shifts in how we understand people can lead to the biggest improvements in how services and systems work. Because when we better understand what's happening beneath the surface, we can design services that don't just work efficiently. They work better for the people who use, deliver, and rely on them. Let's get started. The first episode. Every service has two journeys the visible and the invisible is inspired by one of my earliest service Design Thursday posts shared in May 2025. It marked the beginning of something that has continued to shape how I think about service design ever since. I believe every service has two journeys. The visible journey is the one we naturally gravitate towards. It's the journey. We map the steps people take, the forms. They complete, the appointments they attend, the websites they navigate, and the decisions they make along the way. But there's another journey unfolding at exactly the same time, the invisible journey. It made up of thoughts, emotions, expectations, assumptions, and relationships. It's the uncertainty before making a phone call, the anxiety of filling in a form because you're worried about getting something wrong. The hope that someone will listen. The trust that's built or lost in a single interaction. The visible journey tells us what people do. Invisible journey helps us understand what people think, feel, and experience. And when we understand both, we can design services that work better for everyone. When people talk about service design, they often describe empathy as the foundation of good design. And they're right up to a point. Empathy matters because it invites us to pause, to become curious, to recognize that the person using a service may be experiencing the world very differently from the person designing it. But empathy on its own isn't always enough. Understanding someone's experience is where good design begins. Acting on what that understanding is. What transforms services. That's where co-design becomes so important. Co-Design moves us from designing for people to designing with them. It replaces assumptions with conversations. It values lived experience alongside professional expertise. And it reminds us that the people experiencing a service every day often hold insights that no journey, map, process diagram, or performance dashboard can ever reveal. This is where systemic service design becomes more than mapping customer journeys, it becomes about understanding the human experiences, relationships, and system conditions that shape those journeys. This is also where psychology and behavioural science begin to reveal what's happening beneath the surface. They help us understand why people behave the way they do, why seemingly simple letter can feel overwhelming, why too many choices can lead to inaction, why trust can take months to build, but only seconds to lose, and why the smallest interactions can leave the biggest emotional footprint. So, when all these things come together, we stop seeing services simply as processes to improve. We begin seeing them as human experiences to understand. And that's where meaningful change begins. So, this week, I'd like to leave you with one practical challenge. Choose a service that you're involved with or benefit from. Whether you design it, deliver it, or use it. Instead of starting with a process, try creating a simple empathy map. Ask yourself, what might people be thinking? What are they feeling? What are they saying and what are they doing? Those four questions can help reveal the invisible journey that other maps alone often miss. Because empathy isn't just understanding people, it's changing services because of what we've understood. Thank you for listening to the first episode of Designing the Invisible Tiny Shifts. Big change. I hope today's episode has inspired one small shift that could become part of a much bigger change. Because every service has two journeys the visible journey we design for and the visible journey people actually live through. When we learn to design for both, small shifts really can create big change. Join me next time for another practical insight at the intersection of psychology, behavioural science, systemic service, design, and co-design. Until then, keep designing the invisible and making a difference that matters.
Season 1: Episode 2 Every Service is Part of a System
Transcript for Episode 2 - Every Service is Part of a Bigger System
Designing the Invisible Together – Episode 2 Every Service is Part of a Bigger System. Welcome back to Designing the Invisible Together – Tiny Shifts, Big Change. I'm your host Rachel Wood, and in each episode I will share one practical idea from the intersection of service design, psychology, behavioural science and research, that can help us create services that work better for everyone. In episode 1, we explored the idea that every service has two journeys: the visible journey and the invisible one. We looked at how understanding both helps us design services within systems that are not only more efficient and effective, but also more human. Today, in Episode 2, I'd like to build on that with another idea. No service exists on its own. It's easy to think about a single service in isolation. A GP appointment. A school. A housing team. A benefits service. A community service. A charity. A verification and licensing service, A financial service, A subscription service and many more. But the people benefiting from those services rarely experience them one at a time. They experience a whole system. Psychology reminds us that people experience services as connected stories, not disconnected events. As part of that behavioural science helps us understand how each interaction shapes trust, confidence and the choices people make throughout the whole journey. Their journey often begins long before they reach a service and continues long after they leave it. Every interaction shapes the next. Every organisation influences the experience that follows. When one organisation changes a process, it can create extra work somewhere else. When information isn't shared, people end up repeating their stories (and sometimes this can be very painful). When nobody owns the journey between organisations, people can feel like they're falling through the gaps. This is something we can recognise even from our own experience. This is why systemic service design asks us to zoom out, as well as in. Instead of asking, "How do we improve our service?" or “How do we create our service” We begin asking, "How do people experience the whole system?" or “How do we think people should experience our service” This small shift can change everything. It helps us see that services are connected through people, relationships, information and decisions. Improving one part of the system is valuable but understanding how those parts work together is where lasting change begins. This episode, I'd like to leave you with this tiny challenge. Think of one service you know well. Then ask yourself: What happens immediately before someone reaches us? What happens after they leave? And who else is involved along the way? You may discover that the biggest opportunities for improvement aren't inside your organisation at all. They're often hiding in the spaces between organisations, where handovers happen, responsibilities overlap, and no single service can see the whole picture. Because people rarely experience services one organisation at a time. They experience systems. Thank you for listening to Designing the Invisible, together – Tiny Shifts, Big Change. I hope today's episode has inspired one small shift that could become part of a much bigger change. Because every interaction shapes how people think, feel and act. When we understand both the system and the psychology behind it, we can design services that are simpler, kinder, more respectful of dignity and choice, and more connected. Join me your host next time, when we'll explore how co-design helps us understand those systems through the people who know them best, the people who experience or benefit from them every day. Until then, keep designing the invisible... ...and making a difference that matters.