Is this a product or a Service?

The full question

Noelle M. asks:

"So i have a question - might be a convoluted one. So I am designing a website for a bank (which allows me to take a loan). The interaction with the bank through the website is a service provided by the bank and the website itself is a product. Am I right? or have I mixed that up?"

My two cents

Indeed that's a way to see it ;) The website is a tangible element (so we can consider it as a product) but the overall interaction which might take you through a website, a phone call, a live meeting, and so on, is what we can call a service.
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In the "academic" language of Service Design, we say that a website is a "touchpoint", but in UX design this website might be called a "product".
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The way every discipline uses words is a funny thing. But I think you got the big ideas perfectly right:

1. A service is made of different elements
2. A service is often felt as "intangible" but some parts of it are definitely tangible
3. Thinking about those systems can feel pretty overwhelming sometimes, so the need for simplification is really there :P

Go further

You can find more definitions about what is a Service and what is Service Design in my free course about the basics of service design.