1. In your view, how is your research/work related to Service Design?

I currently work on two related areas: designing for service, and managing as designing. The first foregrounds the importance of practices in the designing of service systems and encounters which constitute possibilities for the exchange of service for service, but is not restricted to those who are self-conscious designers, or those who have been to design school or bought a book on “design thinking”. The second area, inspired by Dick Boland and Fred Collopy’s 2002 workshop and 2004 book, explores the possibilities of thinking of managing as designing, and in particular what this might mean for managers and entrepreneurs.

Like several others, I have started using the term “designing for service” rather than service design. Rather than seeing service design as a subset of another design field eg interaction design, and as quite distinct from architecture or visual communication design (eg Buchanan’s (2001) four orders of design), I see designing for service as underpinning all design activities in which there is an intention to cocreate value, although that may be defined and enacted in different ways. In this I am influenced by Vargo and Lusch (2004) and others’ attention to value-in-use rather than value-in-exchange and theories of practice and consumption in sociology and anthropology (eg Shove et al 2007; Schatzki et al 2001; Reckwitz 2002; Holt 1995 etc). In short, a building offers service, as does a plastic bottle, as does a poster. Or they should.

Among other things I teach both of these within my MBA elective in Design Leadership which I have been offering at Said since 2005.

2. In your view, what is the most/less interesting aspect of Service Design?

What I find interesting in “service design” is how undefined and open it is. I hope it remains so for some time. Design is hardly a unified field, and equally services are a huge category. So that means that those of us interested in designing for service are potentially interested in nearly everything. One approach to this messy indeterminacy is to seek to close down meanings, and seize ownership of particular domains of knowledge and practice. Another is to enjoy the ambiguity. Since I am based in a school of management (and therefore in the social sciences, at least officially), my approach to designing for service is tempered by many encounters with colleagues who are management or organization researchers with an interest in services management and innovation for whom something called service design is still new. But they do not, a priori, immediately think of going and looking for or indeed at a design-based field for knowledge or inspiration. Operations managers have been designing services for decades – so what, if anything, do designerly designers bring? Being on this boundary – as someone who is from design (in the sense of design-school design), but in dialogue with researchers who are not – is uncomfortable and generative.

3. Can you tell us about a Service Design research project(s) you did or read about?

I led a project called Designing for Services in Science- and Technology-based Enterprises, with my colleague Victor Seidel, which was supported by the UK AHRC-EPSRC’s Designing for the 21st Century initiative. We gathered around 30 mostly UK academics (from management fields such as operations, strategy, marketing, innovation studies) and design, along with several leading consultancies doing service design (livework, IDEO, Radarstation, IBM) and enterprises offering services based on recent scientific innovations. The aim of the project was to try to surface how each of these conceived of designing for service. We explored this by asking three consultancies to work for and with a paired enterprise and by hearing first-hand from them as they went through a (necessarily short) design process, and through in depth ethnographic study of two of these projects. A key question that emerged was – what do the designerly designers do that is significantly different to the ways that people who do not call themselves designers go about designing for service? Answers included: attending to the material artefacts that are involved in constituting service; foregrounding the human experience of the service (cf Bate and Robert 2007) as a way into designing it; conceiving of service as services-in-practice; and having an iterative design process based on contextual observation, visualisation and prototyping etc (what some people currently refer to as design thinking).

Other things I note are
- efforts to construct a ‘services science’ by large IT-based corporations including IBM rooted in a desire to (a) expand an area of knowledge and (b) have a long term sustainable business;
- ongoing efforts to link designing for service to sustainability in both environmental and social terms, but missing some links to social entrepreneurship that might be useful;
- lots of work on healthcare service innovation through design;
- a focus on ‘behaviour’, a term rooted in cognitive science which – if you are influenced by anthropology, social theory and pscyhoanalysis, as I am – then misses important questions about structure and agency in practices as we try to understand why and how people do and say the things they do;
- a continuing emphasis on Service Design framed in terms of design studies, interaction design, participatory design and HCI, rather than operations management, services marketing or organization design, for example, let alone science and technology studies, consumption theory, practice theory and so on.

4. Are there area(s) that you would like to do or see research on?

The things I am currently exploring are:
(1) Trying to understand the developing ‘service-dominant logic’ articulated by Vargo and Lusch (2004; 2008) building on the work of many others especially in services marketing, and understand its implications for designing for service. Key issues here are understanding how the concept of value cocreation is mobilized in design.
(2) Strands of interpretive ethnography and science and technology studies which are concerned with the limits of representation, to understand the ways that designers and managers designing services do boundary work defining what is within and what is outside of a service and how designing services happens in practice. An example here is the possibilities and limitations of 2-d artefacts such as blueprints/customer journey maps and the extent to which they can represent a service experience or system.
(3) Trying to think about the ways that designers, managers and their designs design service users (cf Woolgar 1991). While I was very influenced by the claims of “user-centred” or “human-centred” design a decade ago (when I was a practitioner working in web/mobile/IT) I am now more cautious about the politics and ethics of speaking for and engaging with “stakeholders” and “users”, both actual people and a social imaginary.

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Your suggestions for the blog:

Who would you like to invite in this conversation about Service Design Research?

Steve Vargo
Steve Street
Chris Voss
Irene Ng
Kate Blackmon
Rafael Ramirez
Noortje Marres
Nina Wakeford
Harriet Harris
Inderpaul Johar
Paul Bate
Lynne Maher

What is the question do you have about Service Design?

I probably have more questions about the researchers, policymakers and practice communities who are using this term.

1. In your view, how is your research/work related to Service Design?

I study, teach and practice human-centered design and have been fortunate to conduct my doctoral studies under Richard Buchanan, who in turn has been influenced by John Dewey and Richard McKeon. My own work focuses on the ways in which design, designers and designing have a role within the organization. This means, I constantly enter into what has traditionally been the ground of management and organization studies. Design weaves like a thread through these fields, yet when it comes to design practice and design theory, they tend to be boxed in a product or, perhaps assigned to a functional department. Only recently have human-centered design thinking and design methods been recognized as potent tools in themselves that can be used to inquire into organizations–this is my bridge to service design. Every service is linked with one or more products, in one form or another. A service, itself, as service design aptly describes, is a product of design. As many service designers now discover, one cannot change a service without reaching into the organization itself. If one wants to change a service experience, one has to be able to connect all the loose dots of the service experience from the conceptualization of the service (as in the design of a policy) to the actual delivery and back. If product development can be a vehicle for organizational change, then the same applies to service design. Our teaching and research at ImaginationLancaster highlights this connection.

2. In your view, what is the most/less interesting aspect of Service Design?

Initially, in my view, service design took a rather transactional perspective. It took some time for it to connect with existing theories on interaction design (and I do not mean human-computer interaction design, though aspects of this apply as well), experience design, interface design, for example. Because of this, it was not clear to me how encompassing the theories of service design would become. The original models, while always with an eye to systems, still took a rather mechanistic approach. My biggest problem initially was that it seemed to slight people in the organization. In many ways, this is comparable with some of the user research and “user-centered” design which, because of their explicit focus on “consumers,” plays down the fact that people in organizational systems are users as well. If we want to effect change in an organizational system, people inside need to be part of the change efforts and involved in the design of services.

3. Can you tell us about a Service Design research project(s) you did or read about?

The largest service design project I was involved in was the Domestic Mail Manual Transformation Project, which was conducted by the School of design at Carnegie Mellon and the United States Postal Service. The outcome concerned every single mailer in the United States: the grandma shipping a cake to her grandson in college, the small business owner trying to maintain their current business but use the postal services to grow over the years, the large mailing business and the bee keeper who needs to send live bees to a colleague. We helped the USPS to make it easier for any of these mailers to identify the services they could use, understand their choices and know what steps they needed to take in order to comply with the rules and regulations. We shifted the perspective from an engineering driven organization to one that looks at and develops its services from the perspective of the people they serve. I have been involved with Daniela Sangiorgi in a small educational project in the UK and am also working with her and a team on a healthcare project.

4. Are there area(s) that you would like to do or see research on?

I am very interested in the ways in which we can bring design thinking and design methods into the minds, hands and hearts of people who will shape our public institutions. I am delighted to see work on human-centered design emerge in places like the UK Sunningdale Institute at the National School of Government (Engagement and Aspiration: Reconnecting Policy Making with Front Line Professionals). It is easy to see the connection here between service design and human-centered design. I am developing a course for MA students in Public Management in Berlin, where this and other examples, like the Integrated Tax Design Project from the Australian Tax Office will be a focus. Questions in this context include: How can human-centered design assess public services? What role can human-centered design have in developing services that are useful, usable, and desirable both for the people intended to benefit from these services and the people who have to maintain, administer and deliver these services. I believe that questions to these answers will have implications for the business world as well.

1. In your view, how is your research/work related to Service Design?

The projects I’m currently involved in are revolving around practicing service designers involved in development or innovation projects with service organizations. The overarching interests that direct my work are methods and techniques for design of dynamic design material, user involvement and user-driven methods, conceptions of value-in-use, the expressiveness of design visualizations, investing in design and innovation, and strategic management issues relating to design of services.

2. In your view, what is the most/less interesting aspect of Service Design?

It’s quite a challenge to think of the least interesting aspect of Service Design. I was first thinking of tourism – but it is a large area and sometimes in great need of design. Then I was thinking of the transition from products to services – but functional sales and after-markets are so important concepts for businesses that putting these aside seems impossible.

So, let’s talk about the interesting parts. After doing research in interaction design focused on how interaction design can be integrated into IT-system acquisition processes, the figure of thought brought forward by service design introduced a means for connecting design with business. The way that service design connects with business thinking is attractive.

It is also exciting that the design of services is all about the design of value-in-use. It has been one line of thinking in interaction design, but in service design it becomes an even more absolute perspective.

And then there is all the visuals and models used. Even though there are the ordinary ones, like blueprints or journeys, I’m fascinated by the odd ones, and by the ones that makes you go “yes, I see!”

3. Can you tell us about a Service Design research project(s) you did or read about?

We are running two larger projects at the moment, one with service innovations, and one with service development. In both projects we have set up a co-production team, with designers, service organizations and researchers.

In the ICE project, http://www.ida.liu.se/divisions/hcs/ixs/research/ICE/, we have been working with distributed home-health care and future mobile communication. We have been using theories and methods from Cognitive Systems Engineering to expand and understand how blueprinting and journeys could support innovation in hone health-care situations. We have also explored how expressive design techniques in different media support each other when describing future services.

In the SERV project, http://www.ida.liu.se/divisions/hcs/ixs/research/SERV/, we have been working with more traditional service development projects, developing knowledge about user research techniques, use of ethnographic methods, and constructs that help describe what the design object of service design can be.

4. Are there area(s) that you would like to do or see research on?

Definitely. There is a fantastic opportunity, when the large western economies turn around at the bottom, to gain understanding of how service and design thinking contributes to sustainable growth, or maybe even slow growth. Then, of course, one should look into informal service economies, and the role of design, individualization, innovation, sensemaking, etc.

And last, for now, there is a need for extending our understanding of service phenomena by establishing firm grounding in relevant theoretical concepts and philosophy.

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Your suggestions for the blog:

Who would you like to invite in this conversation about Service Design Research?

I would like to invite Tuuli Mattelmäki, Kirsikka Vaajakallio, Shelley Evenson and Johan Redström

What is the question do you have about Service Design?

How does service design co-evolve with the service sciences?

1. In your view, how is your research/work related to Service Design?

For the past 10 years I have been working  in different social design projects: developing craft production in Lapland, Namibia, Caucasus area with EU and World Bank funding. Lately I have been working to innovate service based products related to tourism industry linking tourism with the creative industries.

My research work took a new direction when I started to work in autumn 2007 in a new research project called “Experiencing Wellbeing – New Service Platforms and Mobile User Interfaces for Leisure” funded by Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation. During this project  I have been focusing my research on developing service design methods to be applied  with technology-based and service businesses. This research project has been extremely interesting, allowing me to  go deeper in the world of service design and opening up soon new possibilities for research as the project progresses.

2. In your view, what is the most/less interesting aspect of Service Design?

I think that the most interesting aspect of Service Design is its user orientation and the possibility to innovate both through the development of new kind of service products and service models; exploring for example how services can be co-produced within the user community. As a researcher and as a designer, I’m enjoying the possibility to develop and reflect on new methods to work with users and to visualize and reflect on the design process itself. This user orientation is a key ingredient for Service Design to deal with relevant contemporary social issues.

3. Can you tell us about a Service Design research project(s) you did or read about?

I’m currently working in a two year research project called “Experiencing Wellbeing – New Service Platforms and Mobile User Interfaces for Leisure”. The aim of the project is to develop service design methods to generate new solutions to enhance wellbeing, developing product applications with companies such as Hudle Oyj, Nokia Oyj, Kunnonpaikka and Kuopio Tourism, and developing Service Design capabilities for the Region. We have developed four product applications and tested prototypes of the services. You can learn more about these cases reading the publication: Designing Services with Innovative Methods. The business cases outcome are still confidential but we have developed new tools and knowledge that revealed to be critical for our Region and SMEs. Our next task is to produce a working book on Service Design in Finnish language to be used by SMEs and public instititions.

4. Are there area(s) that you would like to do or see research on?

I’m working on a research proposal on service design to generate new models for Public Services in our Region. In this research area I would like to co-operate with organizations and researchers that have been already involved in these kind of projects. My main interest is on how to develop new ways to produce services that can benefit the society while enhancing personal wellbeing. For this reason I am interested to connect Service Design with the existing area of Social Design.

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Your suggestions for the blog:

 
Who would you like to invite in this conversation about Service Design Research?

I would like invite  Aare van Oosterom from Designthinkers. I think it’s good to include doers from the field to the academic discussions.

I recommend also to link with REDJOTTER

What is the question do you have about Service Design?

My concern is that we recognize our common roots in Design Research and have enough space for free thinking instead of relying on very specific definitions. How do we manage to maintain this openness?

1. In your view, how is your research/work related to Service Design?

I have a longitudinal view of the development of service design practice from the perspectives of the design practitioner and design researcher. I have generated models of the design content, process and context of service designing to facilitate the work of design practitioners and its interrogation as a reflective practice. I have reviewed the nature of service design from the different methodological standpoints. I can see the value that systems/service design thinking and practice can offer to new contexts of application.

2. In your view, what is the most/less interesting aspect of Service Design?

Least interesting is the regurgitation in conferences of presentation that re-state private sector service design project experiences in terms of company business offerings.
Most interesting is the opportunity that service design and related systems design, human centred problem solving and innovation practices have to transform the infrastructure and fabric of our society at policy and practical levels.

3. Can you tell us about a Service Design research project(s) you did or read about?

I am currently supervising three PhDs in the field of service design, including;
1. Developing critical approaches to the role the designer can play in envisioning new services, communities and organisations.
2. Understanding the role of design practice in public design commission projects and its relevance to service design contexts, and
3. Investigating the capacity of transformation service design to move beyond social science methods in support of communities of craft practice in rural India.
I am also helping to set up a collaborative policy approach to better user-centred health and wellbeing services for older people in society.

4. Are there area(s) that you would like to do or see research on?

There is a growing interest in the adoption of service design thinking and practice in public sector service design contexts by government but a concern as to how to define and assess value in the introduction of innovation in the public sector. This comes down to assisting civil servants to appreciate human centred, systems and service design thinking based on credible case studies of past practices where these issues have been explored and developed. The research task is to build these case studies and relate them in a way that government departments and staff can understand and relate to.

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Who would you like to invite in this conversation about Service Design Research?
Professor Jim Edwardson former Director of the Institute of Ageing in Newcastle University and Director of the Alzheimer Society UK.

What is the question do you have about Service Design?
How do we introduce transformation/service design thinking at a policy setting level within UK public service sector development.
How do we create a sustainable economic paradigm to support service design practice for community engagement projects.