Your designing process will consist of 4 phases:
Exploring, Analysis, Design, and Testing.

We have selected and described several methods for each stage of the process.
Employ them whenever they can help you - even in the other phases of the procedure.
You might need just one, but it may also happen that you will use seven of them.


The first important step is to identify opportunities for innovations. This is why you should pay attention to the ideas and opinions of the people who use the services of the library and try to perceive your services through their lens. Gather as many information as possible and set a design challenge.

Desk Research

When you need to quickly obtain valuable information

When you need to collect a lot of opinions in a short time

When you need a quick feedback

When you need to find out what the users would not say

When you need to emphasize with the user

When you want to learn about the context of the service

When you want to elicit opinions from multiple people at the same time

When you want the user to engage in innovating

When you want a creative means of collecting the feedback

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Present the gathered information to your team in order to organize it and draw conclusions from them. Try to answer the WHAT, HOW, and WHY questions and, while employing the new information, define design opportunities.

When you need to process the data to create a prototypical user

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When you know what is the issue and what the users’ needs are, you will start designing the solution. You will only work with the ideas that have the best potential for innovation. Turn them into visualized form - create prototypes.

When you need a material prototype

When you want to describe the service in a story

When you need to organize the concepts in the understandable way

When you want to find out users' interest in the proposed service

When you need to harmonize the expectations within a team

When you want to describe what you are working on in a single sentence

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To ensure that your solution reaches its objectives, test your prototypes on an ongoing basis. Start with the first version of the design. Collect suggestions from the users, incorporate them, and test again - until the design completely fulfills its purpose.

When you want to find out what is the current state of your service

When you need to decide which version of the service should be deployed

When you want to find out why the users stop using your service

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Congratulations! Now you can start realizing your project.
You are on the best way to a successful implementation of an innovation.

Don’t know how to start?

Look at other libraries’ procedures  

Download the book Service Design in Libraries

It includes detailed descriptions of case studies from both the Czech Republic and Norway.

Download the book  

Get the design methods card set

You will always have a ready help, which will tell you how to proceed, and which tools to prepare.

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