Using ontologies to define the experience landscape
Parmenides, the father of ontologies.
Everyone talks about big data, but no one really talks about ontologies (see: Parmenides). big data’s learned and humane sibling, both big data and structured information prove to best serve people.
Service design is all about orchestrating seamless and meaningful experiences for users across multiple touch points. Whether it's a physical service, a digital interface, or a complex system involving both, service designers aim to create coherent and valuable experiences. But designing for such complexity is no easy task. Enter ontologies—a powerful tool for structuring, visualizing, and refining the relationships within a service ecosystem.
What is an ontology in the context of service design?
An ontology, in its simplest form, is a formalized model of knowledge. In the world of computer science and information architecture, it’s a structured way of representing information through concepts and their relationships. These concepts can be anything—entities, actions, user needs, or service components.
In service design, we can use ontologies to:
Map out the ecosystem: Identify and define the various components (actors, processes, tools, etc.) involved in a service.
Visualize relationships: Highlight how different elements interact with each other, from user behaviors to backend processes.
Create a shared language: Establish a consistent terminology that stakeholders across disciplines can use to communicate effectively.
By creating an ontology, we can frame the "experience landscape" in a way that reveals the connections and gaps within a service ecosystem, allowing designers to make more informed, strategic decisions.
Why use ontologies in service design?
As services become more complex, involving numerous stakeholders, touchpoints, and technologies, the need for a unified understanding of the experience landscape becomes more critical. Ontologies provide that unified view by organizing and contextualizing the different parts of a service in a logical and clear structure.
Here are some key benefits of using ontologies in service design:
Navigating complexity: Services often span across multiple touch points (digital and physical), timeframes, and user interactions. An ontology helps structure these layers, making it easier to see how one element affects the others.
Consistency in communication: Large service design projects involve multidisciplinary teams—designers, developers, marketers, and operations teams. Ontologies create a common language that all stakeholders can use to ensure that everyone is aligned on the service goals and processes.
Supporting scalability: As services grow and evolve, adding new components and layers, ontologies provide a flexible framework that can scale. New concepts, entities, and relationships can be added to the ontology without losing coherence.
Facilitating innovation: By visualising the entire experience landscape, designers can spot opportunities for innovation. Whether it's optimizing an underperforming touchpoint or designing new interactions, ontologies can help reveal previously unseen opportunities for improvement.
How ontologies shape the user journey
In service design, the experience landscape is a holistic view of how users interact with a service. It encompasses not only the service itself but also the environment, touchpoints, and context in which the service exists. This landscape is often rich, complex, and multidimensional. Here’s how ontologies can help map it out:
In many organisations, services are delivered through siloed systems or departments. The customer support team may use one platform, while the marketing team uses another, and the service itself may be delivered through a separate app or physical interaction. Ontologies help break down these silos by showing how all the components—people, processes, and tools—connect.
Modern services are often multi-channel, spanning apps, websites, physical locations, call centres, and more. The ontology provides a bird’s-eye view of all these touch points and the relationships between them. For instance, it can show that a user might start their journey on a website, move to a mobile app, and finally receive service at a physical location—all of which should feel like one continuous experience.
Ontologies allow service designers to layer user needs, pain points, and emotions into the experience landscape. By representing user personas, behaviors, and goals within the ontology, designers can see how different users interact with various service components—and where friction occurs.
For instance, an ontology might show that while one type of user prefers the self-service option, another requires more hands-on support. By seeing these preferences within the structure, designers can create personalised experiences that address different user segments’ needs.
Ontologies expose dependencies between service elements, helping designers understand how one change can ripple through the entire system. For example, introducing a new payment method might require changes not just in the checkout process but also in customer support scripts, email notifications, and backend integrations.
By making these dependencies explicit, the ontology provides designers with a tool to forecast the broader impact of changes and design more resilient, adaptive services.
A step-by-step guide to building an ontology
Creating an ontology for service design is an iterative and collaborative process. Here’s how you can get started:
1. Identify key concepts
Begin by identifying the key elements of the service. These might include user personas, service components (both digital and physical), backend processes, external partners, or even regulations and policies that affect the service.
2. Define relationships
Once you’ve identified the main concepts, map out the relationships between them. How do users interact with the service? What happens at different touchpoints? How do internal systems support user interactions?
3. Visualise the structure
Tools like concept maps, mind maps, or specialised ontology software (like Protégé or OWL) can help visualize these relationships. The goal is to create a clear structure that captures all entities and their connections.
4. Iterate & collaborate
Ontologies evolve over time, especially as services grow more complex. Collaborate with cross-functional teams to validate and refine the ontology, ensuring it stays accurate and reflects the current state of the service.
Conclusion
Ontologies bring structure, clarity, and coherence to service design by defining the relationships between the various elements of a service ecosystem. By visualizing the experience landscape, service designers can break down silos, optimize touchpoints, and address user needs with precision.
In a world where services are increasingly complex and multi-faceted, ontologies offer a powerful tool for navigating this complexity—ensuring that the experiences we design are not only meaningful but also scalable, adaptable, and innovative.
As service design continues to evolve, leveraging ontologies to define the experience landscape will become an essential skill for creating integrated and impactful user journeys.
