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

I studied product design for four years at the Glasgow School of Art, the course had a strong emphasis on designing experiences for people and a focus on sociologically understanding people. Most of my work produced a service outcome, my route to this result involved using participatory tools and techniques affiliated with the service design process and working closely with a range of users. I am currently studying a Masters in Design Innovation, working for the public sector organisation, Skills Development Scotland. I’m exploring how the skills/process/tools and most importantly the mindset of a (service) designer can be put into the hands of frontline staff to see and think differently. I’m pushing for much more user focused service delivery within the public sector and a power shift to the bottom of the pyramid. For me, service design naturally lends itself to this idea due to its participatory nature and user driven approach as a catalyst for more co-produced services.

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

The most interesting and rewarding part of service design is watching non-designers become part of the process. I’m conscious when holding a co-design event that participants can walk away with a new skill, or perhaps even a slightly different way of thinking and transfer it into their own lives. It is interesting when people recognise the value in visually communicating information, or changing their opinion from designers as ‘felt tip fairies’ to ‘this lego really helped me to communicate and spot opportunities to make this system better, I’d never thought or had the opportunity to look at it this way before’. The least interesting aspect is the constant talk and buzz word nature around service design. I think as an industry we need to be aware of what each of us are doing and really help to push a clear understanding of what service design is. I fear the practice could be tokenised and simplified. The most important thing we can be doing is open up our case studies in a transparent fashion, showing what worked, and what didn’t. This doesn’t happen often enough.

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

I am the founding director of a company called Mypolice which won Scotland’s first Social Innovation Camp. The development for this idea has been a reversal of the way I would normally conduct a typical service design (research) project. I saw several opportunities in the use of web2.0 tools to collaboratively build a better police service between service provider, relevant stakeholders and the public by creating an online platform. Winning SI Camp gave me the opportunity to take it forward. What the idea wasn’t at this stage was fully developed or based on concrete research. What it needed was an intense period of research. I built relationships with police by shadowing them at work, immersing myself in their culture, mapping out the police landscape and the relationships they have with other organisations. I built personas based on user interviews and experience prototyping the site in different locations, building a bank of stories which would inform me how the site could potentially be used. The most interesting part of this period was ‘customer journey mapping’ victims of crime experiences and system mapping large organisations to discover where public/police interaction points were to spot opportunities for where Mypolice would work well. (more at http://mypolice.org)

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

MyPolice lives underneath Snook. Myself and Lauren Currie set up Snook (http://wearesnook.com). We both see a need for service design to be developed and incorporate a more transformative and social agenda to start challenging the way the country is run, the services we use are developed and how our skills as service designers are valuable within the public sector. For this to happen there needs to be more research into how we are educating young designers and new teaching models developed so they are prepared for new environments. Places are often entrenched in old systems and governance, so designers must ethically understand the implications of their work. I’d like to see more coproduction work by designers and this communicated through education. I think service designers are fantastic facilitators of a creative and collaborative process and should really be pushing for sustainable service outcomes, where working with users isn’t just a codesign workshop to create new ideas, but is about building networks within communities, passing over new skills and creating lasting initiatives that can be maintained by communities or organisations. I’d like to see how service design will become more transformative and how this movement might evolve.

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Your suggestions for the blog:

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

If you haven’t already asked, I’ve always appreciated Nick Marsh’s (ex Engine and writer of choosenick.com) thoughts on service design and his thinking about the public sector and the bigger picture.

What is the question do you have about Service Design?

My question is should we be defining service design so that it is easily communicated and understood to prospective clients and members of the public? Or by defining it, are we cutting its potential short? Is the potential of service design to become something new, like transformation design and has service design really been mostly about the participatory method and approach that has made it so appealing to designers and both private and public sectors in the UK?

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

My current work is about Design Decision making, currently in the urban environment. This includes Design Decisions about buildings, spaces as well as services to develop and support them. However throughout my career I have been interested in the way designers create experiences, through what they design (products, places, services and systems) and how they do it (process). Of course designers have not necessarily articulated it as such, nor perhaps put their work into the service design category. Indeed non-designers have been creating services and it is now interesting to apply the work I have been doing in design management alongside service design questions.

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

It is systemic! It is interesting to see the emergence of service design theories, frameworks and practices, just as service marketing appeared twenty or so years ago, and has developed into a mature scholarly field, service design is still going through similar theoretical development through conceptual and practice based research. It will be interesting to observe and contribute to the debates through work in various public sectors.

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

I was involved in an EPSRC sandpit in Nutrition and Ageing. This resulted in funding a project on nutrition for older people in hospitals. The project called ‘mapp-mal’ will study the food journey from where it is produced to the point of production. This is a really interesting research project as it looks in a multidisciplinary way at the system of diet, nutrition, products and services as they manifest in the food journey.
[For more information see http://newdynamics.group.shef.ac.uk/projects/29]

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

I’d like to see research on Higher Education and Airports. Secondary education with the Building School for the Future program in UK (see Design Council work, Dott07 or School Works as examples) has attracted the attention of the design community, while Higher Education is an area where little research has been done in relation to Service Design. It is hardly conceived as a service. Airports and travelling experiences are becoming threatening and unpleasant because of all the security checks and barriers. More research on passenger journey could provide guidance on how to improve this.

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Your suggestions for the blog:

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

Mike Press, University of Dundee
Turkka Keinonen, University of Art and Design Helsinki

What is the question do you have about Service Design?

How does Service Design fit into the Digital Economy?

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.