305 Serving the Unserved

305 Serving the Unserved

Teaching students Service Design – with a focus upon capacity building in community

orientated design practice.

Industrial Design Studies, 12 Credits, February 2011 Tutor: Soumitri Varadarajan (soumitri.varadarajan@rmit.edu.au) Contact Hours | Duration: 3 hours per week | 12 weeks. [39 hours contact] Non-Contact | Self Directed Hours: 6 hours per week | 12 weeks [78 hours expected] Location: 88.6.13/13 A & B, Day | Time: Monday Mornings | 9-12

In 2010 I spent a lot of time tramping about in remote villages of Assam. My Australian SIM would not work and I came to a realization - An iphone without a network connection is an ipod!

Now isn’t that amazing? That’s where you realize that services are important. Umm … maybe a bit more than that. Maybe services are the lifeblood of contemporary human society as we know it! lifeblood [ˈlaɪfˌblʌd] n 1. (Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Biology) the blood, considered as vital to sustain life 2. the essential or animating force So - I would like to focus your mind upon the fact that service is a powerful new force sweeping through the profession of design. And as Joe Heapy of Engine Service Design UK puts it: “Service is the activity of helping someone achieve something. The term Service Design describes the application of designer-ly thinking – and a new hybrid design practice – to business, social and environmental issues. What do service designers design? The systems and services that people use everyday and that organisations provide to create wealth or valuable outcomes for individuals and communities.”

There are some who say that our obsession with products is wrong (Clive Hamilton)2. But what are they saying about designers who design products? Because a lot of that is very passionate I leave it for you to find out.

But you may like to look up the UNEP text on Product Service System – which urges designers to move forward from designing products, to designing product service combinations, and onwards to dematerialization or a world without products.

This tutorial is about service design. But with a twist – for my practice of service design is a political one. I am ideologically orientated towards those that have not. And when we speak of services – we speak of those that ‘have not’ decent services. Ergo - Serving the Unserved.

But what is 305?

Readings You are required to buy the following books for this course: “This is Service Design Thinking” by Marc and Jakob.

You can get this book from here http://thisisservicedesignthinking.com/ & “Why weren’t we told?” by Henry Reynolds. This book has been ordered for you. You can buy this from the RMIT Bookshop.

Key Learning objectives The course has a specific area, Service Design, and a particular way, Reading texts, Performing Service Design-Process activities, to go about the semester.

Content Understanding Service Design Methods Readings, Ethnography and Making Books Online Resources There are two Library Subject Guides associated with this tutorial: Service Design and Design and the Indigenous.

Both guides can be found at the link URL: http:// rmit.libguides.com/Industrial-Design Activities There are three things you will do in this course: 1. Service Design: We will be reading the book “This is Service Design Thinking” by Marc and Jakob. The book will inform you about service design practice.

2. Aboriginal Australia: We will be reading the book “Why weren’t we told?” By Henry Reynolds. The readings of the book inform our understanding of aboriginal Australia and aboriginal Australians. You will add to your understanding by exploring Indigenous Designers and their work or Indigenous Artists and their work. You will also be required to think about the Indigenous in the context of Service Design.

3. The Reader: All the work done in this course by the students – will be collected into one single volume, which I have called the Reader.

Deliverables You will have: 1. Weekly tasks (homework) to do, arising out of activities in the classes.

2. Participation in the Group Project to deliver the Reader at the end of the semester.

Evaluation You will “self evaluate” based upon a rubric to be discussed in class.