The second edition of Service Design: From Insight to Implementation, by Lavrans Løvlie, Andy Polaine, and Ben Reason isn’t just a refresh—it’s a reintroduction to a field that’s evolved significantly in the last decade. Whether you’re new to service design or a seasoned practitioner who read the first edition cover to cover, there’s something new to gain here. This second edition continues to serve as a foundational reference for teaching and learning, but now with updated language, contemporary case studies, and clearer frameworks for measuring service impact.

Lavrans and Andy join Lou in today’s episode, and they acknowledge that their original work, while groundbreaking, often painted a slightly utopian picture of design practice. This edition brings a more grounded perspective, reflecting the messy realities of organizational politics, cross-functional collaboration, and measuring the value of design. Tools like service blueprints have been sharpened, not just described—making it easier for designers to move from abstract ideas to tangible outcomes.

And for experienced professionals? You’ll find new material that helps you advocate for service design more effectively within complex organizations, alongside updated thinking on ROI, team structures, and evolving roles in product-led environments. It’s not just a book—it’s a toolkit for navigating what’s next.

Service Design Reconsidered with Lavrans Løvlie and Andy Polaine

Jen Briselli’s journey into service design didn’t start with design at all—it started in a physics classroom. From studying the fundamental workings of the universe to teaching high schoolers how to grasp complex physics concepts, Jen’s interdisciplinary curiosity has always driven her path. That same intellectual agility eventually led her to discover information design, dive headfirst into Carnegie Mellon’s legendary design program, and eventually rise to executive leadership at Mad*Pow. Now co-founder of Topology, Jen continues to explore how systems thinking, complexity science, and human-centered design intersect to build adaptive organizations.

In this episode, Jen and Lou preview her upcoming talk at Advancing Service Design 2025 and unpack why learning—not certainty—should be the North Star of design practice. She shares how service designers can operate more effectively by zooming out to see systems-level patterns and zooming back in to take practical action. From breaking down spatial and temporal complexity to explaining how constraints inhibit organizational learning, Jen reframes service design as an adaptive, constantly evolving practice. Whether you're a seasoned designer or simply service-design curious, this episode will stretch your thinking about what service design is—and what it can become.

Designing for Learning and Complexity with Jen Briselli

frog North America's Head of Service Design, Bethany Brown, joins Lou to explore the intersection of service design, operations, and AI. With roots in industrial design and global experience across firms like EPA and Engine, Bethany brings a unique lens to tackling large-scale organizational friction.

She walks us through a real-world case study from her upcoming talk at the Advancing Service Design conference (November 19-20), where her team used service design principles to help a company identify costly operational breakdowns, before applying AI to streamline processes and improve financial outcomes. Instead of leading with technology, Bethany’s approach centers on deeply understanding human workflows, mapping them visually, and uncovering where systems are failing frontline workers.

Through this lens, “operations” becomes less about rigid systems and more about the connective tissue of a service experience. And service design becomes the glue that aligns people, technology, and strategy. It’s a talk—and a conversation—not to miss.

Plus, Bethany shares the best career advice she ever received, and pays tribute to the educator who helped her realize design is an ever-evolving discipline, not a fixed path.

How Service Design and AI Can Fix the Frontlines with Bethany Brown

What do a Brazilian retail strategist and an Indian industrial designer have in common? A passion for transforming complex systems through service design—and a shared mission to push the profession forward. In this episode, Lou welcomes Gustavo Vieira and Shreya Dhawan, two of the curators behind the upcoming Advancing Service Design conference, for a behind-the-scenes look at how service design is evolving—and how they’re helping shape that evolution.

Gustavo shares how his early work in franchising sparked a fascination with aligning brand strategy, operations, and customer experience, eventually leading him to service design as a more holistic lens. Shreya’s journey began with product design in hospitals, where she realized the real challenge wasn’t just designing a better object—it was improving the entire system around it.

Together, they reflect on the emerging trends in the field, including the move toward systems-level thinking, new contexts like journalism and B2B, and the rich global collaboration shaping this year’s conference. The conversation is full of thoughtful insight, heartfelt reflection, and a few unexpected gifts—from Ken Wilber to Picasso.

Behind the Scenes of Advancing Service Design with Shreya Dhawan & Gustavo Vieira

n Episode 4 of the Intentional AI series, Cole and Virgil move further into the content lifecycle and this time they are focusing on content management.

Once your content’s written, the real work begins. Editing, organizing, translating, tagging, all the behind-the-scenes steps that keep content consistent and usable. In this episode, the team looks at how AI can help streamline those tasks and where it still creates new challenges.

Joined by returning guest Chad, they break down where AI fits, where it fails, and what happens when you trust it to translate complex content on its own.

In this episode, they explore:
	• How AI supports the content management stage of the lifecycle
	• Common use cases like translation, auto-summary fields, and accessibility checks
	• Where automation makes sense and where it doesn’t
	• The biggest risks of AI content management, from oversimplification to data privacy
	• Why good input (clear, readable content) still determines good output
	• How readable, accessible writing improves both human and AI understanding
	
This episode also continues the real-world experiment from previous episodes.
Using the accessibility article originally created with Writesonic, the team tests how well three AI tools: Google Translate, DeepL, and ChatGPT, handle translating the piece into Spanish. The results reveal major differences in accuracy, tone, and overall usability across each model.

A downloadable Episode Companion Guide is available below. It includes key takeaways, tool comparisons, and practical advice for using AI in the content management stage.

https://links.discussingstupid.com/s3e4companion

🦃 Note: We’re taking a short Thanksgiving break, the next episode will drop on December 2, 2025.

Upcoming episodes in the Intentional AI series:
	• Dec 2, 2025 — Accessibility
	• Dec 16, 2025 — SEO / AEO / GEO
	• Jan 6, 2026 — Content Personalization
	• Jan 20, 2026 — Front End Development & Wireframing
	• Feb 3, 2026 — Design & Media
	• Feb 17, 2026 — Back End Development
	• Mar 3, 2026 — Conversational Search (with special guest!)
	• Mar 17, 2026 — Chatbots & Agentic AI
	• Mar 31, 2026 — Series Finale & Tool Review
	
Whether you’re managing websites, content workflows, or entire digital ecosystems, this conversation is about using AI intentionally, to work smarter without losing the human judgment that keeps content trustworthy.

New episodes every other Tuesday.

For more conversations about AI, digital strategy, and all the ways we get it wrong (and how to get it right), visit www.discussingstupid.com and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.

Chapters
(0:00) - Intro
(0:50) - Today's focus: Content management with AI
(1:58) - Content management opportunities with AI
(6:18) - Recurring series theme: Trust
(8:34) - Refine your process one step at a time
(9:53) - Better content = better everything
(10:22) - We tested 3 AI translation tools
(12:02) - Cole's "elephant in the room" test
(14:28) - Poor content = poor translations
(16:58) - True translation happens between people
(18:45) - Closing takeaways


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S3E4 - Intentional AI: The role of AI in content management

Chez Devsource, notre UX researcher s’appuie sur la recherche utilisateur, les tests utilisateurs et l’analyse qualitative pour révéler les comportements et besoins réels de vos clients. Grâce à des méthodes issues de la psychologie cognitive, de l’ergonomie et de l’UX design.

UX RESEARCHER - DEVSOURCE

Chez Devsource, notre UX writer est un véritable rédacteur UX et UX copywriter, spécialisé dans la création de contenu ergonomique et de rédaction intuitive. Grâce à une approche basée sur la communication centrée utilisateur et l’UX writing, nous créons des textes simples.

UX WRITER EXPERT - DEVSOURCE

Chez Devsource, notre Designer UI/UX imagine et conçoit des interfaces utilisateur qui allient esthétique et expérience utilisateur optimale. Grâce à une expertise en design graphique, en wireframes, en maquettes et en prototypage, nous créons des interfaces intuitives et engageantes pour vos sites web, applications mobiles et plateformes digitales.

DESIGNER UI UX - DEVSOURCE

Podcast created with AI NotebookLM about my thoughts on the UX and AI

Podcast: AI Brings Back the Strategic UX Generalist

Podcast created with AI NotebookLM about my thoughts on the AI and the future of the Humanities

Podcast - AI Makes Code Cheap & Humanities Win

Lou Rosenfeld talks with a LOT of brilliant, interesting changemakers in the UX world and beyond. Subscribe to the Rosenfeld Media podcast for a bird's eye view into what shifts UX faces, and how individuals and teams can respond in ways that drive success.

Freelance Senior SEO 💻 | 150+ clients accompagnés 🚀 | Web Designer | Founder Devsource.fr / Gtool.fr / Host by French 🌍 | SEO Growth 🎯

Discussing Stupid returns to the airwaves to transform digital facepalms into teachable moments—all in the time it takes to enjoy your coffee break! Sponsored by High Monkey, this podcast dives into ‘stupid’ practices across websites and Microsoft collaboration tools, among other digital realms. 

Our "byte-sized" bi-weekly episodes are packed with expert insights and a healthy dose of humor. Discussions focus on five key areas: Business Process & Collaboration, UX/IA, Inclusive Design, Content & Search, and Performance & SEO. 

Join us and let’s start making the digital world a bit less stupid, one episode at a time.

Songs performed on an oval-hole, Eastman MD 804-SB mandolin and eletric Warren Ellis Mandostang (mostly).

New tracks tagged #UX