Service Design Tools

Cfd Conversation Series | September 24th 2021

The questions they‘ve been asking themselves were; How can we support practitioners and design professionals? How can we assist in designing for the intangible? How can we give back to the community by collecting conversations and resources in service design at the present moment? They’ve seen many services designed in different ways each with specific outcomes in mind so they also started asking questions surrounding impact.

Miso expanded on this question to add that in other design fields, such as product design, the process of making is governed by the crafting of the object, while service design puts more emphasis on tools and methods when compared to other design areas.

Service design needs to consider many different users with different backgrounds, and so tangibility is key to communicating in an open design process with stakeholders and users.

An important thing to be aware of in service design is accountability. We need to understand the long-term effects of service design decisions because some of those effects are not visible, yet still have a great impact. Because typical metrics used to evaluate service performance/satisfaction are synchronous, it’s extremely hard to understand in the long term if you are not considering impact in the design process.

He gave three words for what the field needs to adopt more widely: impact, accountability, and evaluation. Service designers need to evaluate their work, it is standard practice in other fields. This is the biggest challenge in his eyes.

Roberta pointed out that we’ve already reached the human center approach in many sectors, so service designers need to contribute to a new generation of experiences. The challenge then becomes how to help service providers see different outcomes at different levels of service, as opposed to focusing solely on user experience.

The field needs to consider both transversal challenges and vertical challenges. She sees the greatest challenge as finding a balance between pushing the discipline forward from its current perspective and evolving it so that it is always engaging with contemporary issues.

Stefano wanted to specifically address this chat comment by bringing up the concept of complexity. He believes that the field tends to operate in a reductionist environment. Instead through conversations like these, we start to define a new part of the research service design enterprise to be critical service design.

In order to do this, he gives the definition of wicked context; a problematic context in which we can not find a clear strategy because of the complexity. He then brings up the concept of dark matter which lies behind the visible world and is made up of networks. This is to say that the service design field should take in a plurality of perspectives as to bring in a border view of the phenomenon that they are attempting to work with. (read more in our previous CfD conversation “Rethinking Design Thinking in the Pluriverse”)

Miso reminded us that service can sometimes be seen as a moral system, for instance in services like those on an airplane where passengers may get kicked off for a certain type of conduct that may come from a different cultural system.

From the Service Design Tools perspective…

Francesca adds that they are trying to go beyond the trend emerging in the last years of filling canvases and templates which are codified tools. She suggests that rather than restricting service design to filling up something that is pre-structured, the service design tools team is looking towards other disciplines and borrowing techniques that are more like guidelines in order to support the vertical and transversal challenges that service design is seeing today.

When looking at the intersection of artificial with the designed service, he asks, is it still service design if we are co producing with a stakeholder that is artificial and has agency? This brings up the discussion of what it means to be designing in a more-than-human/transhuman/posthuman society. We need to decide what type of balance we want in extreme technological development. He adds that with corporate priorities there is an ideological dominance or ideological colonialism. These are all things that need consideration for the field to evolve.

Social innovation in co-producing design processes and production can help the public to understand service design better. In providing more inclusion, fair labor, and dignity for the user of a service, we create a sustainable growth model for renovated welfare.

Taking into account small communities and incorporating what they define as services is a way to empower those communities in the coproduction of service. There is also the possibility of big companies beginning to understand service design better by reflecting redundancies in their systems that make them inefficient.

Roberta brings up digital transformation and how digital technologies have been incorporated in services themselves already. This means that service designers need to be able to rethink processes and experiences with digital touchpoints in mind.

Francesca believes that keeping up with emerging technologies is not something that can be solved simply by evolving the tools themselves. Rather, it is a knowledge problem. Because emerging technologies are already touchpoints in new processes, first we need to understand the emerging technologies. There can then be tools that support better design for processes mediated by technology, but it’s not just about evolving existing tools.

Miso responds when posing the question that everything is related to service. She adds, service has always been a way that people help each other, and a way that people see the world. Services are a system of human connections.

Stefano finished the event by talking about a conference that was currently happening in Bolzano, Italy called “by design or by disaster.” In terms of ‘by design’, there are two scenarios; either change the focus of action through a participatory process or evaluate strategies for global challenges. From the opposite perspective with ‘by disaster,’ there is risk inherent in large technical societies which depends on the interconnection of complex technologies.

Stefano continues to say that we need to be prepared for intervention by disaster; we are living in a pluriversal regime (planetary was an alternative word brought up in the chat) where we can not avoid global challenges like climate change. So, rather than face these problems from an individual perspective, we need to face these challenges from a pluriversal perspective. We need common action to tackle the adversities that humanity is facing

in reference to Stefano’s accountability, impact and evaluation

in reference to Stefano’s wicked context and dark matter

in reference to miso’s everything is related to service

in reference to stefano’s by design or by disaster

️📩 centerfordesign@northeastern.edu

Related posts:

AI-enabled sports cameras are revolutionizing the analysis of on field player performance. The Device Chronicle spoke to Thomas Hagen, Jens Christian Hillerup and Rasmus Røge from the engineering…

Are you trying to start using email marketing and want to know the best tool to send unlimited emails with daily scheduling? Try these ones! Email marketing still is one of the most important…

While Vivianne and Harriette walked through the park, David was already there. He brought some delicious food for them. Even a bottle of white wine for Harriette and him. Even when it was still…