volume 4 | no. 1 | 12,80 euro
May 2012
Eat, Sleep, Play Design Principles for Eating Sustainably By Michelle McCune
Hospitality Service as Science and Art By Kipum Lee
Reinventing Flight. Porter Airlines: a Case Study By Christopher Wright and Jennifer Young
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from the editors
Eat, Sleep, Play
As my career has progressed, I’ve discovered something I call the “parental explainability” challenge. In short, it comes down to how easily I can explain my current job to my parents, and how quickly they grasp it. Information architecture was a struggle, whereas mobile UI design was a relative breeze. “Experience architect” was a title I held through three changes in employer and country, and it always elicited raised eyebrows, from parents and just about anyone else. Thankfully, I seem to be on safe ground again with service design. “When every little experience you have with a company is good, someone like me has done their job well,” I say, by means of explanation. And more often than not, Apple comes up in the following sentence or two. But it’s often hard to see beyond brilliant product design, to the service that lays behind it. So, recently, I’ve come back to an old metaphor that I used back in 2007 – when I started to focus on service design – to show just what a difference the discipline can make. Conveniently, it’s one of the three themes of this issue of Touchpoint: The hotel experience (or “Sleep”, alongside “Eat” and “Play”). It’s a customer journey we’re all familiar with; from booking, check-in and lobbies to toiletries, amenities, dining and location. The comfort of the bed, to the dreaded knock of “Housekeeping!” waking you too early on a Sunday. Countless factors combine to give you an experience that you might breathlessly extol to travelling friends and family, or that you might vitriolically review on Tripadvisor. Everyone can think of a magical hotel stay they’ve had, and chances are, the co-ordinated approach embodied by service design lay behind it. Of course it hasn’t escaped hoteliers’ attention that orchestrating everything to deliver the perfect guest experience leads to satisfied guests, and satisfied guests mean all-important word-of-mouth. What might surprise you is that they’ve been doing this for more than a century, as Kipum Lee explains in his article “Hospitality Service as Science and Art”, later in this issue. Whether it is the impressive kitchen logistics involved in serving many guests at once, or the laundry challenge created by the promise of crisp bedlinens and fresh towels for every guest, today’s hospitality industry faces age-old issues. And if someone claims that it is Ian Schrager (who – by opening Morgans in New York – launched the boutique hotel segment) who first envisaged the “social” aspect of common hotel areas as a drawing point, spare a thought for César Ritz. In turn-of-the-century Paris, his fastidious staff would discreetly change the outdoor furniture as the evening approached, for the seating comfort of his guests. It should be no surprise then that the name of this pioneer of “super service” remains a renowned brand today. But we’re not solely focused on hotels this time around. Christopher Wright and Jennifer Young, of figure3, look at service pioneers in another industry where we’ve become accustomed to a steady decline in customer experience: Porter airlines of Canada. Staying on the same side of the Atlantic – but this time on the “Eat” theme of our issue – Michelle McCune of Cooler Solutions brings us to the interesting challenge of assisting service designers with a set of design guidelines aimed at fostering sustainable eating behavior. And last but not least, we look broadly at the concept of “Play”, with articles from Deniz Sayar, Kerry Bodine, Sarah Rotman Epps and Elizabeth Shaw, among others. As you will read, much can be learned from classical game theory and game design, and applied to services in ways that delight customers and foster stronger bonds with them. We invite you to learn about some of the unique arenas in which service design is being practiced, and also where it can find inspiration and learnings from unexpected places.
Birgit Mager is professor for service design at Köln International School of Design (KISD), Cologne, Germany. She is founder and director of sedes research – the centre for service design research at KISD, co-founder and president of Service Design Network and chief editor of Touchpoint. Jesse Grimes has twelve years experience as an interaction designer and consultant, now specialising in service design. He has worked in London, Copenhagen, Dusseldorf and Sydney, and is now based in Amsterdam with Dutch agency Informaat. Jeff Howard, editor of ‘Design for Service’, a wide-ranging collection of research, patterns and observation focused on service design. He currently works as a designer and researcher in San Francisco. Craig LaRosa is principal at Contin-
uum, where he creates brand experiences that connect the emotional needs of users with the functional needs of an organisation's brand. Marc Stickdorn is Research Fellow & Lecturer at MCI – Management Center Innsbruck. He coordinates the EU-funded research project Service Design in Tourism, consults for private and public organisations and is editor and co-author of This is Service Design Thinking.
Jesse Grimes for the editorial board touchpoint
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18 feature: eat, sleep, play
7 2
imprint
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from the editors
6
news
9
books
forrester’s take 10 Game On: Using Game
Mechanics to Enhance Services Kerry Bodine
cross-discipline 12 "Keep a beginner’s mind.”
Interview with Julie Peggar Susan Bartlett
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18 Design Principles for Eating
Sustainably
Michelle McCune
26 Hospitality Service as
Science and Art Kipum Lee
50 Reinventing Flight. Porter
Airlines: a Case Study
Christopher Wright and Jennifer Young
54 Helsinki Central Library as a
Gateway to the City
SeYoung Kim and Satu Miettinen
32 Designing Experiential
Services with an Improvisational Stance Natalie W. Nixon
36 Sleep-centric Service Design Essi Kuure, Satu Miettinen and Anu Valtonen
40 Playgrounds for Design Markus Hormess and Adam Lawrence
46 Learning Through Play Heather Daam and Birgit Mager
58 Tourism and Service Design
Thinking
Marc Stickdorn
62 Service Design for the
Fitness Experience Deniz Sayar
66 Creating the Organic
Experience
Agnes Feigl and Martin Schobert
contents
70
88
tools and methods 70 Reimagining the
Museum Experience
Elliot Felix and Antonina Simeti
76 Anatomy of an
84
inside sdn 86 Service Jamming
in Cologne
Experience Map
Mario Frank
Chris Risdon
profiles 82 Interview: Mikko Koivisto Miriam Becker
dos & don’ts
88 SDN Goes East! Yong Se Kim
90
member map touchpoint
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Insider
this year‘s international service design event goes to … paris!!
photo: clickclaker / flickr
If you were thinking about visiting the French capital, well, this is your chance! Not only will you get to see this beautiful city, you also have the opportunity to gain new insights into the field of service design, exchange ideas with likeminded people from all over the world and expand your network. The event will take place in November. More information will be online soon: stay tuned!
join the sdn national conference in germany in summer The first German National Service Design Network Conference will take place in Cologne at Köln International School of Design on June 22 – 23, 2012. Make a note of the date! The conference is organised by the German SDN Chapter. Keynote speaches will be delivered in English, other activities will be held either in English or German. Use this chance to meet the German service design community, exchange knowledge and learn from each other. For more information about 6
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the registration, the speakers and the programme have a look at www.sdnc12.de. If you would like to support the conference team or have further questions, get in touch via email at mail@sdnc12.de.
special fee on domus academy master course and summer workshops for sdn student members Are you looking for an interesting opportunity to build up your service design knowledge? Then the Master in ‘Service and Experience Design’ at Domus Academy, Milan, could interest you (the next edition starts in September 2012). If you are searching for shorter activities, then have a look at their summer workshops. Upcoming courses are ‘Service Design for the Customer Experience’ and ‘Journey around the Service Design’. For Student Members of Service Design Network taking part is doubly worthwile: SDN and Domus Academy agreed on special discounts for both the Master and the summer courses for SDN Student Members. If you are interested in this offer, contact Marzia Muscato (marzia.muscato@laureatedesign.it) of Domus Academy for details.
new service design articles online
On July 19, 2012, the Korean SDN chapter will hold a National Service Design Conference. We are looking forward to the first SDN Conference in Asia! Find more information about the Korean SDN Chapter at page 88. The second National Conference in Asia is already being planned: it will take place in Taiwan. You will find more details about both conferences at the SDN website soon.
New articles about service design are online in the ‘share’ section of the SDN website. There you can read papers, articles, theses, methods and case studies, rate them and share your opinion. The newest publication was submitted by Jan Schmiedgen, Student Member of SDN. He published his masters thesis ‘Innovating User Value – The Interrelations of Business Model Innovation, (Service) Design Thinking and the Production of Meaning’. His thesis is available for download as a PDF. If you are member of Service Design Network, you are welcome to submit your own publications!
photo: Stuck in Customs / flickr
see you at the national sdn conferences in asia!
touchpoint vol. 3 no. 3 is now available as ebook! Touchpoint Vol. 3 No.3 “From Sketchbook to Spreadsheet” is now available as ebook. In addi addition to the printed version, you can read all issues of Touchpoint on your e-reader and on your computer. Enjoy the easy and fast access to leading-edge knowledge on service design and download the e-books at amazon!
The best way to keep your customers is to keep them wanting you.
Muensterstr. 111 48155 Muenster Germany +49.2506.3048437 info@southwalk.de
@southwalk
www.southwalk.de
Insider
new service design master at aalborg university The Service Design Masters course of Aalborg University in Copenhagen, Denmark will start on September 1, 2012 on the new campus. The programme will focus on how to design private and public services and will offer its participants the
service design internships Are you looking for an internship in the service design world? Then we have good news for you: there are several open positions! Designit in Oslo, Norway is looking for a service design intern who dares to think differently and who wants to put theory to the test in a busy, creative and international environment. Interested? Go to http://designit. com/jobs/service-design-intern-oslo! Continuum in Milan, Italy is currently seeking applicants as a Junior
master course at philadelphia univesity links design and business
opportunity to enter the job market with a new and very relevant professional profile. To find out more visit http://servicedesigner.dk
Strategist for designing experiences that improve people’s lives and drive business innovation. Read more at http://continuuminnovation.com/ careers/open-positions.aspx In Cologne, Germany. Service Design Network is searching for an intern to join their small international team at Köln Intenational School of Design. Very good English language skills are important, German language skills are welcome. For more details have a look at the complete job description at http:// www.service-design-network.org.
This autumn, Philadelphia University will launch the new ‘Strategic Design Executive’ MBA programme. It will combine the analytical intelligence of business with the creative intelligence of design to develop hybrid thinkers who are able to identify opportunities and solve complex business challenges across industry sectors. Students from diverse backgrounds will apply design thinking and design principles to deliver smart, desirable, feasible and marketable products, process and business model innovations. Read more at http://www.philau.edu/ strategicdesignmba
Service Design in Tourism – 1st International Conference
SDT2012 – Service Design in Tourism is the first international conference linking the service design thinking community with the travel and tourism industry. The conference provides an interactive program with keynotes, workshops and presentations on latest applied research and best practices.
SDT2012 is hosted by Management Center Innsbruck and has a limited number of participants – Early bird offer available until 1 June 2012! www.servicedesigntourism.com
#SDT2012
Eat, Sleep, Play, Read! Book Recommendations from the Network
By Louise Schouwenberg Bis Publishers (2009) 160 pages, 26,95 € ISBN: 978-90-6369-200-1
By Gabe Zichermann and Christopher Cunningham O’Reilly Media (2011) 182 pages, 16,95 ¤ ISBN: 978-1449397678
“This woman has a different approach to food and presents inspiring ways of serving food. Amongst the projects featured in this book is one about growing forgotten vegetables and a ‘Food Memory Workshop’ where she collects elderly people‘s stories, memories and associations about food.” Lena Hammes, Student at Köln International School of Design, Cologne, Germany
“I like this book because it works good as an introduction for further reading in how to design engaging systems. It gives some good insights about how people behave in game environments.” Mauro Rego, student worker at the Telekom Creation Center, Berlin, Germany
By B. Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore Mcgraw-Hill Professional (2007) 299 pages, 21,95 ¤ ISBN: 978-1591391456
“Fake, fake, it’s all fake! Gilmore & Pine discuss the question of ‘Authenticity’ - one of the most debated issues in the travel and tourism industry. What makes an experience authentic? How authentic is the tourist experience of the Netherlands versus Disneyland? No matter whether you agree or disagree with their perspective, for sure the book raises interesting questions!” Recommended by Marc Stickdorn, editor of this Touchpoint issue and Research Fellow & Lecturer at MCI – Management Center Innsbruck, Austria
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Game On: Using Game Mechanics to Enhance Services
Forrester defines ‘gamification’ as the insertion of game dynamics and mechanics into non-game activities in order to drive a desired behaviour. And it’s not just a buzzword: it’s a powerful tool that companies in industries as diverse as media, financial services, automotive, consumer products and software engineering have used to drive deeper customer engagement and usage of their products and services. The mobile game creator, Scvngr, has identified close to 50 game mechanics that can be used for creating different games.1 Here’s how forward-thinking companies have used just a few of them to enhance their product and service experiences. Achievements: achievements are immediate and obvious responses to preferred actions. In video games, achievements signal the attainment of a goal – completing a task or performing a task well – and are often communicated through visual and sound effects. Companies can use achievements to incentivise desired customer behaviours. A prime publishing example is the Gourmet Live iPad app, produced by the Condé Nast media conglomerate. Users ‘win’ additional recipes and articles by exploring more 10
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of the app, and the sound of a kitchen timer signals that new content has been unlocked. Progression: think of progression as a reward for, or display of, achievements. For example, the Slate credit card from the Chase bank has a feature called Blueprint that shows customers their progress toward paying off their balances. And SugarSync, a personal cloud service that allows users to back up and access their data across multiple different devices at any time, lets customers earn more megabytes of space every time they complete a certain ‘task’ that the service offers. Has the user installed the SugarSync app on their mobile phone? Shared a file using a public link? “Congratulations! You just earned 125 MB”.
Challenges: this type of play gives customers a mission to complete or a goal to reach. Mint.com, an online financial management service, tries to make personal finances more approachable and wants to help consumers save money. To this end, its website provides nine sample goals that its users can select, including ‘pay off credit card debt’, ‘save for college’ or ‘take a trip’. Users also have the ability to create custom goals from scratch. Competition: this mode of play gives users the ability to compare their progress with that of others, including people they know and people they don’t. Companies can use competitive leader boards or rankings to create the desire to accomplish certain tasks and to encourage customers to come back and engage with their products or services on a regular basis. For example, the Hyundai Veloster is equipped with a program that measures and scores the car’s fuel economy every 10 minutes. Drivers can share their scores with other Veloster owners and see their competitive standings online.2
forrester’s take
Forrester’s Recommendations Forrester believes that the gamification trend will continue to grow over the coming years and that companies need to start learning the ropes. If you’re interested in gamifying your service, the next step is to sell your colleagues on the concept. Here’s what to tell them: Gamification is another term for behavioural change theory. Video games are addictive for good reasons: they use specific tactics to harness consumer psychology to make users play more. You can put the same tactics to work for your service in a brand-appropriate way. Gamification does not mean that strategists should become game developers. At Forrester, we speak with many clients who note that video games are gaining in popularity and, therefore, shouldn’t they embed a game inside their app or product or develop a game themselves? The answer is no. You should use game mechanics – like achievements, progression, challenges, and competition – to
to encourage and enhance social interactions that may already be occurring.
•
This article is an excerpt from research reports by Forrester analysts Sarah Rotman Epps and Elizabeth Shaw. make your service more enjoyable to use. But that’s not the same thing as building a game. Not all game mechanics align with every business plan. People thrive on competition, but some companies don’t offer services that mesh well with this mechanic. For example, does a bank want its savings account members to be competing over how much money they have saved? Perhaps. But a better strategy might be to leverage progression to motivate customers to open a current account or to take out an auto loan. At a top level, use achievements to encourage deeper engagement with content, progression to encourage more usage of services, challenges to encourage longterm behaviour and competition
References Source: Erick Schonfeld, “SCVNGR's Secret Game Mechanics Playdeck,” TechCrunch, August 25, 2010 (http:// techcrunch.com/2010/08/25/scvngrgame-mechanics). 2 Drivers can turn off these technologies as well if they prefer not to follow or partake. The brand began offering it as part of a $3,000 optional “technology package” with other advanced safety systems. Source: Joseph B. White, “The Back-Seat Driver in Your Dashboard: New Interactive Features Are Aimed at Making Efficient Motoring Fun Like a Video Game,” The Wall Street Journal, 1
October 26, 2011.
Kerry Bodine is vice president and principal analyst for customer experience at Forrester Research. Her research, analysis, and opinions appear frequently on sites such as Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and AdAge.
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“Keep a beginner’s mind. You must forget everything you think you know and really be able to be in the moment.” Julie Peggar has been studying sociology since 1986, and has worked as an anthropologist and ethnographer for both service design and product design. Her work has taken her from parole units and doctors’ offices, to remote villages and suburban homes. Susan Bartlett from Cooler Solutions spoke to Julie about how she applies ethnographic methods and conversation analysis to understand people, their contexts and their interactions. How do you define ethnography? Ethnography is about setting aside your own understanding of the world in order to see how others experience it, and documenting a culture from their own point of view, not yours. Ethnographies originally were centred around a geographic location: you would conduct an ethnography in a particular place and, by virtue of being in that place, you would meet all of these people and learn all of these things about their lives. A lot of your own understanding would come from participating in everyday life with them. Now, it’s more about understanding members of a group that may be dispersed and who live in a culture we’re already
Julie Peggar teaching clients how to conduct ethnographic fieldwork.
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cross-discipline
Julie Peggar as a participant-observer in Tanzania.
familiar with. As design ethnographers, we tend to go home at night, so we have to approach the work a little bit differently. We still use many of the standard methods that you’ll find in any ethnographer’s ‘kit’ – participant-observation, contextual interviewing, mapping, photography, videography – but we have to design our studies more carefully. Ethnography isn’t a method: it’s a research approach. This is a common misunderstanding. We combine many different methods to give us a picture of a culture. Despite the differences between traditional and design ethnography, we’re still combing through data, looking for patterns, and trying to explain what those patterns mean. It requires careful records and very systematic, rigorous analysis. Do you interview people when you do ethnography? Ha! Ethnography is not about conducting structured interviews. In an interview, you have a list of pre-prepared questions and, for every participant, you ask most of the same questions in approximately the same order. In an ideal world, an
ethnographer would just go in and wing it, allowing the questioning to emerge from the behaviours we observe in context. Of course, in a business world, your clients usually want to know what you’re going to talk about, so you need to define broad areas that you want to explore. However, you’re not asking about the things that you are interested in. In ethnography, your questions always emerge from what you see happening. Your questions will be more like, "I noticed that you cringed when the cashier said that. What was that about?” You want to keep ethnography broad enough so that the questions you wouldn’t have thought to ask have a chance to emerge. A lot of times, that’s where you’ll find the answer. What is the value of being in-context as an ethnographer? As an ethnographer, I’m not sampling individuals, I’m sampling contexts. I’m seeing everyone that the participant speaks to and I’m also interacting with other people who are involved in the process. touchpoint 13
You can’t get that information from a focus group or an interview. If I ask someone, “What did you do the last time you ordered fast food?” I’ll get an answer like: “I went to In-and-Out Burger. I walked in, I walked up to the cashier and I told him I wanted a burger and fries and I paid him and got my food.” There is so much left unsaid in that account. How did you decide to go to In-and-Out Burger? How did you get there? When you walked in the door, did you feel a blast of cold air when you opened it? Did the cashier understand your order properly? Were they looking at you? Were they smiling? As humans, we like to be efficient in our conversation. We screen out everything we think isn’t important and just answer the question that was asked of us. We give an account of what happened, we don’t recreate exactly what happened. Observation is the only way to get at those little details, and service design is in those little details. Speaking of conversation…can you talk a little bit about conversation analysis? What is it? Conversation analysis is the idea that interaction emerges through predictable conversational patterns. For example, some utterances require a specific kind of response. Greetings are good example. If you greet someone, you expect a greeting back: “Hi, how are you?” “Fine.” Even silence is patterned. If there is a long silence, we start to wonder what is going on, because silence isn’t normal in our conversations. We have structured ways of figuring out when to come into a conversation and when to 14
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leave it. In doing conversation analysis, we try to understand how all these things actually create the interaction and, ultimately, the experience. How can it be applied to service design? When I was in grad school at UCLA, I worked on a study for John Heritage, who is one of the world’s top experts on conversation analysis. We were looking at the issue of ‘doorknob concerns’. When a doctor has his hand on the doorknob to leave at the end of the visit, patients tend to bring up additional concerns. This is an issue for doctors because of time constraints. Our challenge was to see if we could reduce doorknob concerns, while still making sure that patients got their concerns addressed. We ran an experiment with two different formulations of a question: “Are there some other concerns you’d like to address during this visit?” or “Are there any other concerns you’d like to address during this visit?” We had doctors ask one of these two questions early in the appointment, before the doctor started examination or treatment. We found that when doctors used the ‘some’ form of the question, they eliminated more than half the cases of unmet concerns, whereas the ‘any’ form had no effect. As the cherry on top, asking the ‘some’ question didn’t make the visits any longer as doctors had feared: they were almost exactly the same length, a tiny bit shorter even. We don’t think about conversational structure, but those little things can make a huge difference in the patient’s
cross-discipline
satisfaction, and they did make a big difference in this study. Is conversation analysis for service design widespread?
People are just starting to use conversation analysis for service design. It’s very detailed and time-consuming, and it requires some very indepth expertise. But when you get that magic insight like the difference between ‘some’ and ‘any’, it can completely change a customer’s perspective on a service interaction. How is conversation analysis related to ethnography? Ethnography is about the contextual experience, whereas conversation analysis is about the actual structure of the conversation. However, it’s hard to analyse the conversational structure and say what it means, without having the contextual clues that ethnographic work can give you. They’re very different methods and approaches, but they complement each other quite nicely.
really be able to be in the moment. Once you’re with your research subject, it’s about having a conversation. You need to let them know that they’re the expert. You are there to learn from them. Rapport also makes a huge difference. As an interviewer, people are trying to give you what you want. As an ethnographer, your goal is for them to come out of the experience thinking they’ve made a new friend. You have to be flexible and responsive. You want them to be able to say: “Hey, I’m going shopping Tuesday around 3-ish. Join me”, rather than have them invent a visit to a store for you. That’s a very different perspective and it’s really hard to get people in business to wrap their heads around that. Finally, if you’re not getting what you think you should be getting, then you need to shift your mindset. You need to let go of your expectations and try to explain the gap between what you expected to see and what you are actually seeing. When you explain that gap, you’ll be able to provide insights that lead to better service design.
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Susan Bartlett is a service designer and project manager at Cooler Solutions, Inc.
What advice do you have for people doing ethnography for service design? Keep a beginner’s mind. You must forget everything you think you know and touchpoint 15
photo: goshina / photocase.com
Feature
FromSleep, Sketchbo Eat, Play
Exploring tween Exploring the the Relationship Relationship Be Between Hosp itality, Service Design and the Hospitality, Tourism, Tourism, Food Food and and Leasure Leasure Industry Industry.
Experience suggests that our intentions and actions are not always aligned. This is certainly true when it comes to eating: where food is concerned, making real, lasting change is challenging, even when the desire is there! This article presents valuable principles for service designers seeking to encourage more sustainable eating practices. The principles are derived from Cooler Solutions’ recent ethnographic research study on sustainable eating, Design for Change: Eating Sustainably. 18
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eat, sleep, play
Design Principles for Eating Sustainably Bridging the Gap Between Consumer Intention and Action
Michelle McCune, Industrial Designer, Cooler Solutions Inc. Michelle studied industrial design at Ottawa’s Carleton University. She creates and implements solutions for retail, mobile and service environments, consumer and healthcare products and more. Her work at Cooler Solutions Inc. has garnered award recognition from the Design Exchange, Neocon and the Chicago Athenaeum.
Over the past fifty years, the North American food system has grown from a small network of communitybased farms to a highly industrialised government-subsidised operation attached to a few corporate interests. There are more people than ever to feed on the planet and, in wealthy nations, our appetite for convenient, energy-intensive foods goes unchallenged. Needless to say, environmental challenges – including finite oil and potable water resources, climate change and soil degradation – impact upon the way we grow our food. Many people are responding to this situation by choosing to buy organically and locally grown foods, in harmony with seasonal availability. There may be no better time to enable a sustainable food system to take root and thrive. The desire is there, but the commitment to eating more sustainably takes great dedication and consistency: it demands our full engagement. Herein lies the design challenge: how can designers engage consumers to make healthier, more sustainable choices in the way they eat? touchpoint 19
Understanding People Fosters Good Design Great design connects with people. By tapping into existing culture, design delivers real, meaningful value to the people for whom it is created. Ethnographic research techniques involve studying people in their own environments leading to a deeper understanding of culture and meaning from the perspective of the research participants themselves. In our study of sustainable eating, we sought to explore the relationship that people have with their food and to determine ways to elicit positive change. Our goal is to identify actionable design principles in order to guide service designers, retailers, policy-makers and other interested parties to ultimately increase sustainable food-consumption behaviours among the public. Methods Cooler Solutions’ interdisciplinary research and design team conducted a multi-faceted study that centred around ethnographic field research and also included local food hub tours (community gardens, markets, restaurants and community centres), a literature review on consumer decision-making processes, as well as case studies of related businesses, campaigns and products. Our research aimed to provide a more holistic understanding of the way we think about and treat our food. As part of our ethnographic study, we immersed ourselves in the lives of eleven men and women aged 30-59 living in the greater Toronto area. Participants represented a 20
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range of cultural backgrounds and socioeconomic classes (from lower to upper-middle class). One participant, an organic farmer, was engaged as a knowledge expert. We visited each participant at home, where we toured their living and garden environments. Semi-structured, open-ended inter views allowed participants to steer the conversation towards topics most meaningful to them. A few participants showed us how they prepare and eat their evening meals. Findings: Design Principles for Sustainable Eating Our ethnographic field research uncovered many interesting patterns. These patterns laid the foundation for our understanding of sustainable food culture: the influences, meanings and values that surround food and eating. Incorporating further findings from our case studies and tours, the principles provide useful guidelines for the design of sustainable food products and services. We hope that the following principles prove to be useful in your practice. 1. Seek Participation from the Whole Family, Especially Children Children often have a strong influence on the foods that are consumed within a household, whether through specific food preferences and aversions, or the desire for parents to only serve the ‘healthiest’ and ‘safest’ items. • Products, services and other offerings should be child-friendly, but should also appeal to the rest of the family.
eat, sleep, play
Cooler Solutions’ design research team tours the Alex Wilson Community Garden, located in the heart of downtown Toronto.
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• Communicating health benefits to parents can stimulate more sustainable behaviours. • Products and services should encourage positive interactions and quality time between parents and their children, even if only in short bursts. • Where older children or teens are involved, find an opportunity to educate them on sustainable food approaches and issues. Provide context and explanation for why certain foods and behaviours are healthier or more socially and ecologically responsible. • Find ways to include children in meal preparation: transform cooking time into ‘quality time’. 2. Honour History, Tradition and Routine Appeal to familiar family norms and trusted habits, so that behavioural change can be more easily accepted and integrated. Scepticism and mistrust are often fostered by a lack of familiarity and understanding. • Utilise narrative and storytelling to impart a sense of continuity and history. Include familiar stories, conversations and relatable characters. • Recognise existing traditions and benchmarks, identify their cultural value and emphasise their sustainable significance. For instance, in some cultures, the evening meal is an important daily activity in which the entire family gathers to eat a home-cooked meal. This practice is an important social behaviour that promotes a sense of community surrounding 22
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food, the use of ingredients from scratch, and the adoption of cooking skills within the family. • Communicate ‘newness’ as a natural evolution of the status quo. Approach new products and designs with an evolutionary mindset rather than one of revolutionary re-invention. • Encourage the sharing of sustainable strategies across cultures. Investigate and disseminate popular resourcesaving products and habits between regions. 3. Target Consumers at or Near Transition Points in Their Lives People faced with transition points (such as moving out on their own, getting married, pregnancy and the birth of a child, or a sudden change in health, etc.) are most likely to embrace change, especially more profound changes in behaviour, attitude and lifestyle. Targeting services, products and messaging to people in their late teens and early adulthood may prove especially successful. • Associate sustainable behaviours with typical coming-of-age activities such as renting a first solo apartment or the purchase of a first home, adjusting to a new job, cohabitation, marriage and other such life changes. 4. Make Healthy, Sustainable Choices Both Accessible and Appealing to the Majority of People As an upper-class status projection, sustainability will alienate some middle- and lower-class consumers. Mass consumers will reject offerings that they deem to be too exclusive, expensive or
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Ultra-local: A study participant shows off the strawberries harvested from his front yard.
unachievable. Employ an inclusive approach, where ‘good design’ is targeted and priced to be within reach of the majority of people. • Sustainable choices should offer both value and lifestyle benefits to the middle class. ‘Good design’ will therefore be genuine, desirable and functional for the consumer. • Sustainable offerings should not be portrayed as exclusive or as aspirational luxury items reserved for the elite. Products and services should be desirable without appearing unattainable. • Moderate price premiums are acceptable when the health, taste or ethical value of the product or service is communicated. Consumers will appreciate value offered along the dimensions of health, taste and localism.
5. Tie Sustainable Food Practices to Social Events and Occasions In making food-related activities more social, the procurement, preparation and consumption of food become inherently more enjoyable. • Build a sense of community by engaging individuals to interact with each other in a low-stakes environment. • Provide physical and digital ‘spaces’ in which people can communicate, collaborate and share food-related content. • Integrate food preparation into community events: invite people to participate in group cooking sessions. • Offer food-related programming to singles, and help isolated people build social networks to surround food activities. touchpoint 23
6. Provide Consumers the Opportunity to Connect with Local Food Production Consumers appear to already have a bias towards local foods: there is a wide appreciation for the fresh taste of locally grown foods, and consumers understand the value of supporting the local economy. • Communicate and illustrate the pathway from ‘field to table’. • Help local farmers reach consumers: provide marketing, distribution and business opportunities for them to engage a broader audience. • Connect food products to a specific region, farm or farmer through narrative and storytelling. • Offer plans, products and support to new home gardeners. • Create transparency: product origins, production and distribution can be reported through food labelling, packaging or marketing initiatives. 7. Address Consumer Concerns About Time (and the Lack Thereof ) Busy people and families may find it difficult to dedicate large chunks of time to shopping, food preparation, consumption and cleanup. • Provide people the opportunity to ‘time shift’ by batch cooking over the weekend or when they are less busy.
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This allows for the easy enjoyment of home-cooked meals throughout the week. • Make sustainable foods more convenient or ‘snackable’. For example, have fresh produce baskets delivered to homes on a weekly basis. • Divide tasks into short time shifts, allowing people to accomplish their goals without demanding long-reserved parcels of time. As an example, intermediate kitchen compost collectors shift the need to go outside to a backyard composter from a regular post-meal event to a single daily trip. • Provide simplified recipe alternatives such as ‘healthy dinners in 20 minutes or less’. 8. Reframe The Meaning of Healthy Eating Defining healthy eating habits in terms of ‘naturalness’ over nutritional content can help steer consumers away from processed and packaged foods. Compare the nutritional content and benefits of meals prepared from whole foods to those of ‘enriched’ package foods. • Identify foods and menus that can address peoples’ health concerns, including weight loss, fitness conditioning and other medical concerns. • Reveal the true nutritional value of whole foods and their importance in a balanced diet. • Integrate ethnic foods and menus: healthy eating can be exciting too! • Where income is a constraint, introduce healthy, cost-conscious meal alternatives. Quality food can cost less than a fast-food combo.
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9. Emphasise Use Over Purchase to Remind Consumers of the End Goal. People feel the same pleasure in taking the steps leading to achieving a goal as they do in achieving the goal itself. For example, signing up for a gym membership (behaviour) is the first step to achieving a healthier body (goal), but it does not necessarily ensure commitment. • Instead of marketing aimed at the purchasing stage, aim for the end product. Emphasise use over purchase. Show the product or service in-use as it would appear at home or, better still, illustrate the end results and implications of using it. • Offer some form of social recognition for accomplishing the end goal. • Use prompts and incentives to move people along each step in achieving their goals. A stepped or phased approach can make behaviour change appear less daunting for the consumer.
Finally, recognise that changing behaviour is challenging, especially where our eating habits are concerned. However, service designers are uniquely positioned to elicit positive changes in habit and routine by creating the context for social engagement.
Design can also address consumer barriers, including the cost-value proposition, disconnection from the food system and convenience. In fact, there are many great initiatives operating outside of the conventional market that aim to address these barriers while also engaging people socially and providing meaningful benefits. Food box programs, community gardens, urban markets, community kitchens and other such initiatives not only improve access, but are skill-building as well. After all, these services – like successful service designers themselves – rely on their community to foster real engagement.
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cooler solutions’ report design for change: eating sustainably was developed as a resource for designers interested in sustainable food issues. the full report, including research summaries and additional design principles can be accessed on the sdn website.
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Hospitality Service as Science and Art The Luxury Hotel Idea from a Century Ago
Kipum Lee, Doctoral candidate at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University and senior interaction designer at Marriott International, the parent company of the Ritz-Carlton.
While it is tempting to think that service design is fairly new, the activities within grand luxury hotels during the second industrial revolution (1870 – 1930) reveal a narrative of service design that predates the formal discipline. In the United States, the activities of eating, sleeping and playing were shaped under the guiding principle of ‘Service as Science’. In Europe, these activities were shaped by a different principle of ‘Service as Art’. Significantly, this distinction calls attention to the same contemporary issue within the discipline today. The purpose of this article is twofold: to foster an appreciation for a rich legacy of service production, as well as to challenge the discipline by presenting multiple ways to move forward. Services and the Luxury Hotel in the New and Old World To understand the grand narrative of the production of modern services, one can begin with the rise and development of luxury hotels during the nineteenth century. This period is fascinating, because it is when the hospitality industry experienced tremendous growth, formalised methods and techniques in order to yield economies of scale and became a key player in the shaping of the leisure class. While the idea of commercial hospitality had existed since ancient times, it underwent a transformation in
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the nineteenth century as the growth of industries bestowed upon a large group of people the means to travel and take part in pleasures that were hitherto reserved only for nobles and royalty1. If one desires to understand how human beings conceived, crafted and operationalised services during the second industrial revolution, the luxury hotel as a subject matter is quite fitting: it is where we find concrete examples of service delivery and guest experiences that are the hallmark of service design. It is interesting that one side of the Atlantic provided fertile grounds
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photo: Alessandro Prada / wikimedia commons
“Among such hotels in Europe, no other place stands out as the embodiment of ‘Service as Art’ more than the famed Ritz hotels created by César Ritz.”
for the advancement of service delivery, whereas the other side defined the idea of a great guest experience. In the United States, the theme was ‘Service as Science’, and hoteliers took the metaphor of hotel as a ‘Service Machine’ to heart. American hotels boasted of using the latest technologies and introduced modern plumbing, electrical and telecoms systems to a technophile public2. In line with the history of technology literature, services in American hotels were imagined and managed in a scientific and systematic way: every major and minor component of the luxury hotel was in alignment with the objective of delivering excellent and consistent services. Contrary to the ‘Service as Science’ metaphor, hotels in Western Europe designed for services by following the theme of ‘Service as Art’. European hotels, while not quite reaching the production scale of their counterparts in the United States, also adopted the latest technologies in an effort to deliver comfort and streamlined services. However, they emphasized the type of intimate and personalised service that was missing from American luxury hotels: while Americans focused on the great hotel machine, European hoteliers put their energy into designing for great guest experiences. Among such hotels in Europe, no other place stands out as
the embodiment of ‘Service as Art’ more than the famed Ritz hotels created by César Ritz (the modern day RitzCarlton Hotel Company bears his name). Service as Science: The Hotel as a Machine for Service Delivery Another metaphor to describe American luxury hotels of the nineteenth century is that of ‘a city within a city’. In a piece in Scribner’s Magazine, Jesse Lynch Williams3, the American Pulitzer Prize winning author and keen social observer, notes that a luxury hotel in America would easily have as many people working within it as the number of guests staying there. As a system of systems, American luxury hotels delivered highly efficient services in the three essential activities within them: dining, sleeping and playing. Service as Science and Dining When describing the daunting task of providing meals in American luxury hotels, Williams compares the spirit of “orderly disorder” in the kitchen to a newspaper office when the front-page story comes in ten minutes before the paper goes to press. When as many as seven hundred rooms of a hotel were packed and everyone wanted touchpoint 27
guest orders meal
guest’s actions in dining room
guest recieves order and eats
guest must order in writing, sign it, and hand it to the waiter.
guest confirms cost and pays
guest receives order and enjoys meal.
guest receives change and tips
itemized bill presented to guest for examination. payment then taken to the cashier.
guest receives change.
guest tips waiter.
waiter’s responsibility
frontstage interactions backstage interactions
cashier gives little stub to waiter with change.
cashier’s responsibility
waiter pockets remaining stub for refernce.
cashier files big part of bill.
waiter takes order to a “checker” whose desk is on route to and from kitchen.
checker inspects order on way to the dining room and checks each item off on the bill.
checker files original order. checker’s responsibilities at kitchen entrance
checker makes itemized copy with waiter’s number at top. then makes two summarized memoranda on stubs at either side of bill and stamps each part.
waiter on route to dining room with meal and bill but first must stop for inspection (food cannot enter dining room without checker’s inspection).
checker then removes one part to file it and hands rest to waiter.
cook’s responsibilities at kitchen cooking area
waiter takes approved bill to the cook.
This blueprint depicts the science of keeping track of orders and transactions during the 1890s in a typical American luxury hotel. In order to deliver a meal and keep track of all resources, a system was devised with specific roles within the kitchen and dining room. 28
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cook prepares meal.
dinner around the same time, it was important to have the right processes and systems in place to deliver a consistent standard of meals for each guest (or patron, as they were called then). While the organisation of the kitchen by functions – called the brigade de cuisine system – originated in Europe (in fact, it was Ritz’s partner, Auguste Escoffier, who developed it), it was fully embraced and implemented in American grand hotels. To deal with the complexity of serving the masses, these kitchens developed state-of-the art processes to handle logistics. For example, the chef knew to the fraction of a minute just how long it
at the end of 24 hours, the three memoranda along with the original order in the guest’s handwriting all come together in the auditing or comptroller’s department where they are compared for the purpose of disclosing possible discrepancies.
took to prepare each dish and estimated with great accuracy how long it took for each to be eaten. Another example is that a waiter could not go into the dining-room with his order before passing ‘checkers’, individuals who had the job of looking at the order and portion and, if both were as they should be, checked it off on the bill and let the waiter through. Service as Science and Sleeping Besides the kitchen, the other service area that was highly mechanised and had a large turnover was laundry services. Molly Berger2 shares that one American hotel had developed a way to launder as
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much as one hundred thousand items a day. While there were new machines to handle the large amounts, a hotel could have as many as two hundred people working in the laundry department, so that guests could enjoy a fresh set of bed sheets during their stay. Laundry workers included the manager, wringermen, washermen, loaders, starchers, bosom press operators, female clothes ironers, shakers, folders, feeders, bookkeepers and the sorter. It is remarkable how many backstage personnel were needed to provide a clean and comfortable bed. Service as Science and Playing One successful proprietor of an American hotel during that time explained that people went to luxury hotels “to see and be seen.” Berger2 makes the argument that American luxury hotels were a key urban institution, a place of social and cultural meaning. It was a place – a “palace of the public” – where people gathered to partake in technology and progress. Many of the newspapers and magazines at the time captured the innovative technologies that were first introduced at luxury hotels. People were excited at trying out the latest electric lighting, telephones, private bathrooms and lifts. These new technologies became synonymous with the idea of modern luxury and the luxury hotel was where these new conveniences were made available to the greater public. In a sense, going to a luxury hotel was like to going to a science museum. The luxury hotel became a place of public service, where people were given an opportunity to participate in a futuristic lifestyle that would one day be enjoyed at home. Service as Art: The Hotel as an Environment for Experiences Despite the comforts embodied in the efficient machine of the American luxury hotels, there were those who cried out for what they saw as the lost art of hospitality. The man who captured everyone’s imagination – including hoteliers from America who travelled to Europe to seek his advice – was César Ritz. Like all great artists who have a sensitivity concerning their medium, Ritz carefully orchestrated the subject matters of dining, sleeping, and playing to create an environment where these three dimensions of hospitality realised their ideal form.
Service as Art and Dining It is said that eating at Ritz hotels was supplanted by dining. In her memoirs, Mrs. Ritz4, writes that the shape, size and fineness of the glass, as well as the way the waiter poured the wine, all contributed to the actual taste of a meal: that is, the service was inseparable from the fine cuisine. For example, on one occasion, awaiter lightly covered glasses that had been polished to an unheardof degree with clean table napkins. Horrified because of the ever-so-faint smell on the glasses caused by the napkins, the Ritz hotel manager sent the glasses back to the kitchen to be washed, rinsed and repolished. This type of obsessiveness over a transient moment of a guest’s stay was typical at Ritz hotels. Ritz and his highly trained staff were sticklers for both form and quality. Service as Art and Sleeping In addition to modernising a guest’s room (Ritz hotels were the first of the European hotels to install modern plumbing systems and bathrooms in each room), Ritz hotels perfected the idea of the ultimate rest experience by shaping a new hotel category: the resort hotel. Combing his ideas on public hygiene and what he called ‘super-service’, Ritz designed an environment where people could stay to rejuvenate their ailing health and could come to expect the signature, personalized services they associated with the Ritz brand. Spending the night at a Ritz hotel meant that one’s evening clothes would be laid out, studs put into shirts and waistcoats and bags would be unpacked and items laid out neatly on shelves or hung in the wardrobes. Guests could rest and sleep feeling as if the hotel staff had anticipated all their needs. touchpoint 29
MENU
THE HOTEL RITZ, LONDON, JUNE 1912
Caviar d’Esturgeon. Kroupnick Polonaise. Consommé Viveur Glacé en Tasse. Timbale de Homards à l’Américaine. Suprême de Triute Saumonée à la Gelée de Chambertin. Aiguillette de Jeune Caneton à l’Ambassade. Courgettes à la Serbe. Petits Pois. Carottes à la Crème. Pommes Mignonette Persillées. Ortolans Doubles au Bacon. Cœurs de Laitues. Asperges Géantes de Paris, Sauce Hollandaise. Pêches des Gourmets. Friandises. Mousse Romaine. Tartelettes Florentine. Corbeille de Fruits. VINS. Gonzalez Coronation Sherry. Berncastler Doctor, 1893. Châtean Duhart Milon, 1875. Heidsieck Dry Monopole, 1898. G. H. Mumm, 1899. La Grande Marque Fine, 1848.
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The following morning, if appropriate, the host would telephone each guest to ask if they had slept well. In addition, the staff would warm up newspapers for guests, a most welcome first impression during the cold hours of the morning. Service as Art and Playing Similar to American hotels, Ritz hotels became a social institution. Instead of coming to take part in the latest technological luxuries, however, people came to Ritz hotels to talk about the latest gossip, fashion and other world events. By creating an enticing atmosphere, people flocked to Ritz hotels – sometimes not even spending the night – just to pass the time. In the famed Hôtel Ritz in Paris, people would gather in the outdoor gardens to talk about what they had seen at the latest International Exposition (people from all over the world came to Paris in 1878, 1889, and 1900). As the expositions were an important social institution in shaping the public discourse, luxury hotels like the Paris Ritz were the places where people made sense
This is a dinner banquet menu served at the Ritz Hotel in London in June of 1912. While it looks exceedingly long, it was also exceedingly light, with the saddle of veal being the only substantial dish. Meals like this were carefully crafted and documented by individuals who thought of them as once-in-a-lifetime experiences5.
of what they saw by reflecting on their experiences with modern technologies and foreign products. Spending leisure time at the Paris Ritz became so popular that the afternoon tea in the gardens became known as, “Le Five-O’clock.” To make sitting for a long period of time comfortable, the Ritz staff modified chairs and even had them swapped unnoticeably at later hours for more comfortable ones so that guests could continue their conversations without disruption. Significance Examining the theme of ‘Service as Science’ and ‘Service as Art’ within luxury hotels during the second industrial revolution helps service designers appreciate a rich legacy of service production throughout history. For example, Williams’s article points out that part of the hotel’s business was to hide the majority of its functions from view. It may come as a surprise to some that he describes the hotel in two main parts, using the phrases, “front” and “back of the house”, the same vocabulary that service designers use to describe front and backstage functions in a service blueprint. He further writes that most of the work in the hotel was done “at the back of the house”, where the majority of workers were employed. Remember, he was writing in 1897! The accounts of service innovation during the emergence of luxury hotels also challenge how service design is conceptualised and practiced in our time. A big challenge today is to find a way to balance ‘Service as Science’ and ‘Service as Art’. One question is: “How should service designers develop processes and systems to deliver consistent services to an ever-growing population while, at the same time, putting in place the conditions that can mould great, personalised experiences?” This is a difficult, yet important, issue facing the discipline today.
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References 1 King, C. (1995). ‘What is Hospitality?’ International Journal of Hospitality Management, 13 (3/4), 219-234. 2 Berger, M. (2011). Hotel Dreams: Luxury, Technology, and Urban Ambition in America, 1829-1929. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. 3 Williams. J. L. (1897). ‘A Great Hotel (The Conduct of Great Businesses – Second Paper)’, Scribner’s Magazine, 21 (February 1897), 135-159. 4 Ritz, M. L. (1938). César Ritz: Host to the World. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. 5 Newnham-Davis, N. (1914). The Gourmet’s Guide to London. New York: Brentano’s.
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Designing Experiential Services with an Improvisational Stance Lessons from the Ritz-Carlton
Natalie W. Nixon, PhD, is associate professor and director of the Strategic Design Executive MBA programme at Philadelphia University. Her research and consulting interests are integrative strategic design, experiential service design and applying elements from the fashion and style realms to a range of sectors in order to build brand distinction.
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Improvisation belongs not only in the realm of music, dance or theatre. In times of uncertainty and ambiguity, being able to agilely anticipate change is critical. In this article, the author explores two experiential service design lessons to learn from a luxury hotel that is in the business of designing memorable experiences. Hotels traditionally focus on efficiencies and high-quality operations. However, in complex working environments full of diverse users, ambiguity and continuous change, an improvisational orientation among staff is key to designing fluid, meaningful and effective connections between staff and guests4. The RitzCarlton has changed its value proposition: instead of thinking of itself solely as a hotel company, it has transitioned to a focus on designing and delivering memorable and meaningful experiences for guests. A shift has occurred in the organisation, one where structured systems are now used in fluid ways to empower employees to act more independently and creatively. This shift was made possible because of a strategic system redesign in The Ritz-Carlton organisation that affected its internal culture and processes for delivery of services. Based on a qualitative research study with The Ritz-Carlton
organisation, this article shares two lessons for service enterprises that can be transformative when systems are designed to allow for a balance between structure and flow: 1) design elastic structures and 2) optimise uncertainty. It is first important to provide some insight on improvisation. Improvisation is a transformative way of being and knowing, a way of making sense of events that emerge unexpectedly235. It is an open-ended and ongoing process and can deliver continually reconstructed designed services. Jazz improvisation provides an ideal view of the balance between structure and flow when designing experiential services, that are delivered in environments where a client’s needs cannot be predicted in a linear fashion. Many studies have turned to jazz improvisation as a methodological lens to understand organisational functions, interactions and operations2.
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In this case, the improvisational lens is a methodology for exploring how experiential services are designed in ways that optimise for uncertainty. Historically, The Ritz-Carlton has prided itself on delivering reliable operational performance that produced consistently high quality service. In contrast, jazz musicians pride themselves on producing something recognisably part of a genre that comes out differently each time5. The improvisational lens connects what have traditionally been polar opposites in hotel service delivery – efficient reliability versus creative customisation – by justifying broader limits in the design of experiential services. The first experiential service design lesson from The Ritz-Carlton is that elastic structures facilitate improvisational activity to advance meaningful connections between consumers and providers (Figure 1). Elastic structures refer to the expand-and-contract quality that adaptive, improvisational structures elicit according to the situation at hand. The ‘12 Service Values’ that replaced the lengthier and more proscriptive ‘20 Basics’ is an example of an elastic structure at The
embrace ambiguity
Ritz-Carlton. The 20 Basics had degenerated into a dense list of rules that did not inspire creativity. For example, Service Value Number 2: “I am always responsive to the expressed and unexpressed wishes and needs of our guests” encapsulated about five of the former 20 Basics. In fact, front-line staff that I interviewed acknowledged that the 20 Basics were more of a drawback, because their lengthiness and detail had become cumbersome. Such an internal change was a direct response to two major shifts in the luxury hotel market: competitor hotels were offering a more contemporary aesthetic and the luxury customer no longer fitted a narrow gender and ethnic profile. The Ritz-Carlton staff essentially began acting as artists and designers, anticipating the needs of guests in creative and inspired ways. Today, when they anticipate guests’ needs well and each staff member improvises solutions, the organisation flows in a dynamic rhythm. Another example of an elastic structure is The Ritz-Carlton’s principle of ‘lateral service’. Lateral service means that staff members pitch in to do whatever is necessary to get a job done on the
accept vulnerability
engage with guests
variance in outcomes
Figure 1: Elastic structures – a component of the improvisational stance touchpoint 33
operations level, as well as to deliver an experience on the more emotionally charged customer engagement level, whether the staff member is a housekeeper, a bartender or a general manager. Lateral service is an example of a loose boundary, a platform that, when viewed through the improvisational lens, elicits improvisational behaviour that helps staff to design experiential services. The way experiential services are designed at The Ritz-Carlton requires staff to transcend boundaries between departments, hotel properties or even regions, so that a guest’s basic expectations are exceeded. Because lateral service requires teamwork, every staff member has the full authority to use their own discretion creatively: they are encouraged to break out of traditional departmentbased teams. This was explained to me quite well by Sergio, a plumber in the engineering department who regularly calls upon his skills of observation and empathy to deliver an optimal experience. An elastic structure such as The RitzCarlton’s 12 Service Values empowers staff and makes them interact with guests in a way that stretches the boundaries of their stated job description to meet their job’s purpose, which is to deliver ‘wow experiences’. As Sergio stated, “This is the kind of service we give to the guest, to make sure the guest is coming [sic] back. And then they say, ‘Oh! You are an engineer!? Someone from engineering brought me a bottle of wine!’ That is the key. The key is, we resolve the problem. We make sure the guest is satisfied with the resolution we give to the toilet repair, or to a light bulb that went out, or to a 34
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problem with the phone or a problem with the air conditioning. This is the key to our success. The management gives you the power to ask, to engage the guest… and to go beyond.” An elastic structure such as lateral service equips staff with design tools to embrace the ambiguity of an unknown situation, empower them to accept their vulnerability of not necessarily being the expert in a given service area and, then, determine the effective balance of structure and flow to deliver the most meaningful outcome for the guest. To this end, The Ritz-Carlton invests a great deal of research, time and money to select and develop staff who adeptly distinguish between when structure is liberating and when structure obstructs a more fluid process. The second lesson is that using an improvisational lens helps staff to identify structures that optimise ambiguous situations. Ambiguity is a necessary catalyst for thinking dynamically and enhancing innovative behaviour1: it is a means to meaning-making and, as such, it can be useful in a service context. Meaning-making is influencing how others understand, frame and make sense of established or new practices and behaviours. The improvisational lens reveals that meaning-making occurs because of the structure and because of the flow: both are necessary. For example, there were interdependencies between a staff member’s training in a functional skill, his observation and his intuition when a Ritz-Carlton bellman, Adam, described his Herculean efforts to deliver tuxedo shoes to a
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guest on a late Saturday afternoon, when all nearby retailers had closed. He used the structures of his rigorous training, his network among clothing store managers and his emotional intelligence to execute what The RitzCarlton calls the ‘art of anticipation’ to deliver a ‘wow experience’. Adam’s observational acumen was sharpened by his intuitive ability, which was, in turn, enhanced by his observational skills. The Ritz-Carlton motto (We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen) is an example of a meaningmaking structure, one that optimises for uncertainty and ambiguity. The idea that a maid thinks as highly of herself as of a high net-worth hotel guest sets up a feedback loop where employees extend to guests what they themselves have experienced. The creation of wow experiences are expected to be as meaningful for the employees as the resulting wow experiences are for the guests. As one room attendant, Mark, explained, he was able to deliver the wow experience of driving an hour while off-duty to fetch a suit the guest had left behind at a different hotel, because he would want someone to do the same for him. He was able to summon empathy for this guest because he thought as highly of himself. This delivery of service ended up in The Ritz-Carlton’s documented collection of wow stories, and Mark received the high honour of a five-star employee of the year award. It is significant that his work was recognised publicly throughout the organisation, serving as a motivator for other staff to initiate innovative solutions. The motto is
an equaliser: it optimises uncertainty because it exemplifies that the staff are serviced by the same principles they are expected to deliver to guests. In conclusion, the greater lesson for service organisations is that the improvisational lens is a design tool for planning, coordinating, and implementing experiential service design. The improvisational lens is also a model for experiential service design that can be applied across different service sectors, potentially leading to a crossfertilisation of concepts and strategies. Other service firms can extrapolate the larger lessons about meta-design (staff members designing the design process), from the hospitality sector to their own organisations. Utilising the improvisational lens would affect recruitment, as it would become more desirable to hire those who are not only operationally effective, but who also can develop the intangible design tools of empathy, intuition and the art of anticipation. An acknowledgment of meta-design among staff would promote more self-organising and adaptive work environments. For example, if the design tools used by The Ritz-Carlton (e.g., embracing ambiguity, lateral service and an empowering motto) were adopted by other organisations, the traditional focus on operations might be transformed to more holistic design tools for staff with more meaningful outcomes for clients. Such an improvisational design orientation would require 1) new strategies for selecting, training, and managing, and 2) environments of trust where staff are encouraged to be experimental and innovative.
References 1 Hallin, C. A. and E. Marnburg. “In times of uncertainty in the hotel industry: hotel directors’ decisionmaking and coping strategies for dealing with uncertainty in change activities.” Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism 7.4 (2007):364-388.Hallin and Marnburg, 2007 Kamoche, K., M. Pina e Cunha and J. Vieira da Cunha (Eds.) Organizational Improvisation London: Routledge, 2002.Lewin, A.Y. “Jazz improvisation as a metaphor for organization theory.” Organization Science 9.5 (1998): 539. 3 Meyer, P. “Organizational improvisation and appreciative inquiry: an exploration of symbiotic theory and practice.” Proceedings of the Midwest Academy of Management, 48th Annual Meeting, March 31-April 2, 2005. 4 van Eijnatten, F.M. and G.D. Putnik (Eds.) “Chaordic systems thinking for learning organizations.” The Learning Organization (TLO), 11.6 (2004). 5 Weick, K.E. “Improvisation as a mindset for organizational analysis.” Organization Science 9.5 (1998): 543555.Weick, K.E. Making Sense of the Organization, Oxford, UK :Blackwell Publishers, 2001. 2
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Sleep-centric Service Design
Essi Kuure, M.A., Service Designer and Researcher, University of Lapland Faculty of Art and Design
Satu Miettinen, PhD, Professor of Applied Art and Design University of Lapland Faculty of Art and Design
Anu Valtonen, PhD, Professor of Marketing University of Lapland Faculty of Social Sciences
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For the majority of people, sleep is a significant source of pleasure, relaxation and even experience. Yet, in existing design research, sleep has remained a theoretical blind spot. To redress this neglect, we are working towards a conceptualisation of sleep that will enable the hotel and hospitality industry to better develop and manage services based around sleep. This sleepcentric service design model is based upon the recognition that sleeping is not only biological, but also a social, cultural, material and inherently corporeal activity, whose management calls for a range of specific service design skills. Fieldwork The empirical fieldwork for this study was conducted among Finnish customers and service providers of luxury hotels and services. The interviews were carried out between April and June of 2009 and were part of master thesis submitted by Marjo Pohjanen and Essi Laakso. In the seven qualitative interviews, service concepts for ‘falling asleep’, ‘being asleep’, and ‘waking up’ were used to elicit responses. The selection of the interviewees was based upon their experience in using luxury hotel and hospitality services, or upon their knowledge of what kind of holidays luxury-oriented customers want and buy. In total, seven people were interviewed, three women and four men.
Interviews were analysed and the results were visualised in concept ideas that illustrated how future sleeping services in different kind of hotels could be designed (Figure 1). Designing Sleep Our study renders visible the journey of a customer wanting a good night’s sleep. The journey consists of a pre-sleep phase, the actual phase of sleeping and a post-sleep phase and is, actually, a journey through different states of being. Ideally, the customer starts the journey mentally and physically relaxed, then turns to a deeper state of sleep, and ends it by waking up feeling refreshed and reenergised. We highlight six dimensions
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that help understand how a successful sleep journey might be facilitated (see Figure 2). The meanings and importance of these dimensions may vary in accordance with the different phases of sleep, and with individual sleepers. The sleeper not only has his or her own sleeping habits and preferences, but also a physical body, made of flesh and bone. Therefore, we situate the sleeping body at the centre of our model. First, we will enumerate the dimensions of sleep-centric service design: Social arrangements. Sleep is a social activity. It involves the acknowledgment of those co-customers who are physically
Figure 1: Future sleeping service concepts
present in the same room, as well as the customers next door: they affect the quality of the whole ‘journey’ of sleep. Moreover, the ‘mental bedfellows’, those who are not present, but on the sleeper’s mind – family members, for instance – are significant, especially at the moment of falling asleep and waking up. Material arrangements, such as the quality of the air, the standard of cleanliness and the quality of the bed and pillows – felt through the body – occupy a key role in the facilitation of a good night’s sleep. A massage pillow might help the client put aside daily worries and work-related anxieties and to prepare the body for the transition to the state of sleep. touchpoint 37
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Sensual arrangements. It is also vital to recognise the role of all the senses in the facilitation of a good night’s sleep: sounds, scents, touch, lighting and vision. While, for instance, silence and darkness are frequently associated with an ideal sleeping space, they may take many forms. Silence, to illustrate, does not simply refer to the absence of sounds, but rather to the presence of sounds found pleasurable in the context of sleep. The arrangement of the lightscape is another example: new technology enables the use of windows as alarm clocks, by letting light through into the room at the waking hour. Or, how about waking up to the aroma of coffee? Semiotic arrangements. Sleep carries a rich set of cultural and personalised meanings. Their acknowledgment provides a rich platform for sleep design. To illustrate this, the association of sleep with health opens up a way to design services that enhance this association. There is also a range of culturally established and corporeally perceived effects related to sleep, such as safety and fear, whose management is a part of a pleasurable sleeping experience 38
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Temporal arrangements. Sleep is frequently patterned to take place during the night time, yet individuals have personalised sleep habits, or they may be forced to adapt their patterns to the requirements of the globalised world. Management of jet lag, difficulties with getting off to sleep, or fears of oversleeping due to a different sleep schedule are daily concerns of many contemporary clients. Moreover, the opportunity to take naps is nowadays highly valued. Spatial arrangements. The situation of the hotel in relation to its surroundings (e.g. city centre vs. countryside) shapes the sleep experience, but so does the way the room is situated in relation to other facilities offered, such as bars and gyms. Perhaps, for instance, ‘badly’ situated rooms call for the enhancement of other dimensions outlined above, so as to provide a good sleeping experience. The Benefits of Taking Sleep Seriously Putting the sleeping customer at the centre of attention highlights the
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specificity of sleep and sleeping, which, usually, is overshadowed by prevalent thoughts centred on the waking hours. We have outlined six dimensions that play a role in the facilitation of a good night’s sleep. The acknowledgment of these dimensions and their distinct role during the journey of sleep enables the service provider to better analyse, blueprint and design sleep services, and to modify them to meet different expectations and preferences involved in the different phases of sleep. It thereby offers a service design platform that goes beyond the ‘sleep menus’ that are currently available in many hotels. Our model thus enables the hotel and hospitality industry to:
Figure 2: Sleep-centric service design
References 1 Mauss, M. (1974). Techniques of the body. Economy and Society, 2(1), 70–85. 2 Miettinen, S. & Koivisto, M. (Eds.) (2009). Designing Services with Innovative Methods. Publication Series, University of Art and Design Helsinki B 93. Kuopio Academy of Design. Taitemia Publication Series 33. Otava, Keuruu. http://www.ellibs.com/fi/ book/9789525018424 3 Miettinen, S. (2007). Designing the Creative Tourism Experience. A Service Design Process with Namibian Crafts People. Publication series, University of Art and Design Helsinki A 81. Doctoral Dissertation. Gummerus kirjapaino Oy, Jyväskylä. 4 Valtonen, A. & Veijola, S. (2011). Sleep in Tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 38 (1), 175-192. 5 Pohjanen, M. & Laakso, E. (2010). Luxury servicescapes in accommodation services of tomorrow. The study and design of high-end services in accommodation service context. Master’s thesis, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland.
• Identity the sleep journey from the customer’s point of view • develop sleep services for different phases of sleep • understand the specific needs of the sleeping customer
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Playgrounds for Design Jamming at the Global Jams
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The Global Sustainability Jam (October 2011) was a sister event to March 2011’s Global Service Jam. Designers and non-designers met at dozens of locations on six continents to design sustainable services, products and initiatives around the surprise theme of ‘Playgrounds’. After 48 hours of intense work, over one hundred new designs were published under a Creative Commons licence. This report looks at the various interpretations of the ‘Playgrounds’ theme, the results of the Jam, and the projects that arose from it. We also discuss the inherently playful approach that has been a characteristic – and arguably a success factor – of both Global Jam events. What Are the Jams? In just one year, the Global Sustainability Jam and its ‘big sister’, the Global Service Jam, have become the world’s largest servicedesign events. These internationally-networked, face-to-face weekend events are characterised by an energetic, open approach that is both playful and highly productive. It is also popular: as one Jammer asked, “Why can‘t work always be this way?” Jam participants are asked to come without an idea and without a team and are confronted by a common Theme (with a capital ‘T’) on Friday evening, no earlier than 6.30 pm local time. They then work through the weekend until uploading and 40
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Pictures from the Global Service Jams: 1 Creative warmup at Gothenburg, 2 cupcakes in Melbourne, 3 + 4 Barcelona with video link to another Jam, 5 Melbourne team greets Antwerp, 6 global headquarter Jam tracking map, 7 + 9 the Istanbul group, 8 Jam organisers and mentor in Cologne touchpoint 41
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publishing their results on the Sunday afternoon. The amount of support and structure provided within the weekend is left up to the local hosts. “We construct the Jams as an open challenge,” explains co-initiator Markus Hormeß. “Local Hosts are pretty much free to structure the weekend as they like, and to bring their own personality into it. We just give them the deadlines and the common Theme.” “Some local Jams have a strict process timetable, lectures, mentors and official toolset,” says co-initiator Adam Lawrence. “Others are just a kitchen table, some guys and the phone number for a pizza service. We‘ve had Jams in universities, agencies, coworking spaces, homes, a castle and a beach hut.” The Global Jams were initiated in 2010 by Hormeß and Lawrence, from the European service design agency 42
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WorkPlayExperience. Inspired by the creative energy and raw productivity of the Global Game Jam – where programmers and artists have 48 hours to program complete computer games around a common theme – they decided to apply the Jam form to service design.
“We hoped to get 5 or maybe 6 locations for the first service Jam,” says Lawrence, “We dreamed of 20, and were stunned when 59 cities on six continents signed up. In the end, over 1200 people gave up their weekends to mess around with service design.” Six months later, the Global Sustainability Jam was similarly successful and, at the time of writing, the 2012 Global Service Jam is shaping up to be the biggest yet. The Jammers themselves have varied backgrounds, with only a minority describing themselves as designers. Lawrence: “Most are under 40, many are business people or entrepreneurs from the innovation scene, especially around web 2.0. There are plenty of students and academics, a scattering of artists and engineers and even the occasional child.”
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Superheroes and Playgrounds The Themes are chosen in collaboration with a council of Jam hosts from around the globe, and with such a wide range of jammers at all levels of experience, choosing a stimulating yet accessible theme is critical. “For the first Jam, we wanted something positive and uplifting, so we chose ‘(Super)Heroes’,” explains Hormeß. “This rather off-the-wall topic baffled the jammers at first, but then they really got into it and we ended up with around 200 mostly social or community-oriented designs. For the second Jam, we wanted to avoid typically negative sustainability issues like waste or overpopulation, so we chose ‘Playgrounds’.” The ‘Playgrounds’ theme was tackled differently by different teams. Of around 110 teams who took part, around one quarter took the direct approach and looked at designs based around traditional playgrounds; about half of these projects were targeted at children. Generally speaking, though, the idea of play for adults seemed to interest more teams, with almost 80% of designs aimed at adults or people of all ages. Major topics for designs included education or changing behaviour (37 teams), sharing (35), gamification (33), or repurposing of existing resources for play (30). These topics often overlapped, with, for example, 17 projects looking at the gamification of changing behaviour and 11 groups examining the gamification of sharing. Another, smaller group of teams was interested
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“We use the theatrical concept of ‘safe space’ in our design work,” continues Lawrence. “It means you are in a mental and physical space where failure is cheap and indeed welcome, where egos and hierarchies are forgotten.”
in using the energy of play or playgrounds to generate power (14 teams). The designs produced at the Jam were overwhelmingly services: only 10% incorporated some novel physical object or structure. Playing at the Jam In “Reality is Broken”1 , Jane McGonigal lists four characteristics which define a “game”: a game has a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation. The Jams fulfilled all these criteria: • The explicit goal of the Global Jams is clear: to craft a design or prototype within less than 48 hours and upload it by Sunday afternoon. Other, implicit and individual goals might include learning or exercising skills, mastering a new social environment, networking and having fun. • The rules of the Jams are simple and are introduced to Jammers before they sign up. Basically, they are: “show up on time; don’t bring an idea or a team; share; work together; and have fun”. • While most Jams have no step-by-step structure to follow, the ever-ticking clock and the various deadlines that pass by certainly give feedback of progress through the weekend. Some Jammers also actively followed the progress of other locations via social media and video streaming. • And, as far as we know, participation at the Jams has so far been purely voluntary – although some individual
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Jammers may have seen attendance as politically useful to their work or studies. Over and above these characteristics of games, the Jam organisers went to great efforts to emphasise the playfulness of the event. “This was especially important at the first Jam, where everything was new,” explains Hormeß. “Apart from the comic-heroic theme, we knew that the opening video was crucial in establishing the tone.” “We use the theatrical concept of ‘safe space’ in our design work,” continues Lawrence. “It means you are in a mental and physical space where failure is cheap and indeed welcome, where egos and hierarchies are forgotten. It’s a creative place, as well as being a fun place to be. This is why the opening video featured rubber chickens, men in long blond wigs and things catching fire, alongside messages from top business names like Tony Hsieh and Joe Pine. We were saying it’s OK to take this seriously and have a good time.” The mood seems to have caught on. “There were rubber chickens everywhere,” laughs Hormeß. “We thought people would be using social media to track each other’s projects. There certainly was some of that, but mostly they were using it to flirt, for intercontinental karaoke and for late-night dancing competitions. The great thing is, at the same time, they were working their socks off.”
“Some said they had done a month’s work in 48 hours,” adds Lawrence. “They also said it had transformed the way they approach their jobs. That’s the power of play.”
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References 1 McGonigal, J. (2011). Reality is Broken - Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. London: Jonathan Cape. Links • Global Service Jam www.globalservicejam.org • Global Sustainability Jam www.globalsustainabilityjam.org
Markus Hormess is a service innovation consultant with a background in science, music and process design.
o re Find m about ation i n f o r m a l S e r v i ce b the Glo page 86 t a m a J
Adam Lawrence is an actor, comedian and customer experience director with a background in psychology, marketing and product development.
Markus and Adam are co-founders of WorkPlayExperience, a service design consultancy with a uniquely theatrical approach. They are also the co-initiators of the Global Service Jam.
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Learning Through Play Social Service Design Interventions for Children
Heather Daam , is a designer at the T+HUIS, a social organization with a design heart. Her interest is in creating ways for people to think together, especially with a focus on children within their neighbourhood.
Birgit Mager is professor for service design at Köln International School of Design (KISD), Cologne, Germany. She is founder and director of sedes research – the centre for service design research at KISD, co-founder and president of Service Design Network and chief editor of Touchpoint.
Birgit Mager and Heather Daam discuss the role that play and games have in service design, especially for children within a social service design context. Founded by designers in 2005, the T+HUIS is a social organisation with design at the core of its practice. Together with their unique student workforce, they develop systems within neighbourhoods to offer programs and services to children, especially focusing on learning through playing. Birgit: For many years, design games have been an emerging issue, in the design world in general and in service design in particular. Their use has been explored, expanded and sometimes exaggerated. This playful and interactive approach has inspired design research, making it fun and enabling participation and exploration far beyond the standards of interviews and focus groups. That has been a major change in user research, and it is interesting to see how market research and marketing have embraced these methods. Service design has gone beyond an exploration-oriented application of playful methods and is moving towards integrating ‘gamification’ early on in service strategies. How are you using games within your social service organisation? Heather: I agree with you, games can naturally be used early in the process.
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At T+HUIS, play has an intrinsic role in how we reach our target group: it is a key part of our strategy. We use play to bring our theoretical strategies into practice and it is our way of connecting with our target group: children. Actually, we use play in many ways within our organisation: to conduct research with the children in a dynamic fashion, and also within our interventions that focus on learning through play. Birgit: It does seem natural to use games as a research tool and as an intervention when working with children. It encourages acceptance from the children, if the team meet them in their world. And that makes it even more surprising that you are really innovating the social service sector by simply doing something that is selfevident. But I have to say, it has been my experience throughout the past few years
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that it can be the solution that is staring you in the face that is the most innovative. And the acceptance of the ‘user’ in their world is one of the biggest challenges. Plus, play is connected with fun. And fun is not serious, it’s not scientific and it is still not fully accepted as a means for change in a professional work context. Heather: We believe in play as a type of common language between our team and the children. After all, children are the experts in their own experience, and it is our job as designers to find a way for them to share it. Escaping into stories, new worlds and metaphors, the children can express themselves through their imaginations. While the children are ‘playing’, our team is engaging in a dynamic dialogue, unpacking the experience and situ-
ation from their stories. Research games such as ‘Astronauts in Training’, where the children travel to an empty planet and build their dream cities and ‘Cooking a Neighbourhood’, where thay choose the best ingredients from their life, the children open up about their dreams and interests, as we uncover their unmet needs. Birgit: You know, this sounds like a great concept for beginning the process of creating innovative services. You are using play to actively research, and then identify, an opportunity. I still find that service companies in general, and social service providers specifically, tend to be very hesitant about starting the process of innovating. They might not consider the kind of playfulness that service design brings into the system. There is often so much talking that an idea is dead before it is really given the chance to take shape.
Left: The T+HUIS location inside the neighbourhood Oud Woensel in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. In the T+HUIS we create a win-win situation where students are applying theory into practice and learning relevant skills for the workplace, and children benefit from free activities and services that encourage them to learn through play. touchpoint 47
Heather: It’s true. One of the things we tell all our students is “If you don’t make mistakes, then you won’t make anything.” It is our mission to be low threshold, meaning we always prototype a program early, and then have it shaped by the target group and team together as it grows. One of my favourite examples is from just a few months ago: it was a book club for children aged eight to twelve years old. Let me tell you that our workforce is unique, we always employ students from different disciplines to work within our team designing and implementing the programs for the children. Sanita is an enthusiastic social work student, and has learned quickly to observe areas of opportunity for new interventions, especially based on our research games. She noticed that children from seven to ten years old were still struggling with language. So, together with a group of students and our methodologies, they researched, prototyped and tested various kinds of activities with the children that were all about sparking an interest in reading: a gateway to language. Finally, the magic moment arrived: I came down one day to see children busy making very large multi-coloured hats. I wasn’t sure what it had to do with reading. But sure enough, when the book about a man who has a very large hat collection was unveiled, the children were all begging to be the next one to read the story wearing their own giant hat! From then on, they had their approach: engage the children in the story, the character or the environment, and they will be enthusiastic to continue reading. Learning through play!
the development of solutions that – in most cases – can be reproduced or mass-produced. It is not about the ‘manufacturing’ of one beautiful service item – even though that does happen of course – but about the design of a concept that can be reproduced. Do you share this view, and are you planning to move forward with the concept? Heather: The T+HUIS is a professional social organisation that was founded by designers five years ago. Throughout the past few years, we have been working hard to not only deliver successful interventions for the children in our neighbourhoods, but also to understand the strategies, methodologies and tools that allow us to support the emergence of future T+HUIS locations. However, we don’t believe in one all-encompassing solution that can be rolled out in any neighbourhood: rather we can offer a system of methodologies and tools that allow for innovative interventions to be catered to each unique neighbourhood. We are already growing within the Netherlands, and have some interest from abroad for us to share our unique expertise in this field of social service design. Birgit: Coming back to the ‘success’ issue: often we, as service designers, regard a project as ‘successful’ because intuitively we like the outcome, we might get positive feedback from the client, maybe also from customers. But this is not enough. I see a huge challenge in creating our own concept of evaluation and our own design-rooted definition
Birgit: So you have been successfully using games in many ways for a couple of years, now. I would like to come back to the success issue later. Design is aiming at 48
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of measures. This is especially true in the social sector, which is very often not at all acquainted with design and is often stuck with the ‘expensive and useless’ prejudice. Heather: …and in our case it tends to be the ‘count the children’ mentality of measurement. I absolutely agree that this is a crucial point, especially when the sustainability of our organisation largely relies on external support. The challenge lies in communicating the value of the experience that our children have within our interventions. We realise that we are talking about children, and not numbers. We have begun to develop our measurement process, tools and ways to communicate the results. We believe that it isn’t enough to just give the number of children we reach with our programs, it’s essential that you put value back into the quality of the experience, an often neglected aspect of measurement. Birgit: I agree, and believe that these kinds of projects and interventions are absolutely relevant for our society, but the more we can measure, the easier it is to convince people of the value and impact they have in improving the quality of life of the children and their neighbourhood. Especially if we want to have these playful interventions seen as making a real impact: for this play to be taken seriously.
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1 Two students from different disciplines work together through our creative process to develop relevant services for the children. | 2 While the children are ‘playing’, our team is engaging in a dynamic dialogue unpacking the experience and situation from their stories; in this case the child is describing the neighbourhood she has ‘cooked’. Design research games encourage children to express their expertise through their imagination. | 3 + 4 …engage the children with the story, the character, or the environment, and they will be enthusiastic to continue reading. One of our children reads the chosen book while wearing his self-made hat. It is often the most evident solution that is the most innovative. 5 + 6 Play as a means of a common language between our team and the children. They are making new buildings for their new city, and a social worker is discussing with them their choices. touchpoint 49
Reinventing Flight. Porter Airlines: a Case Study How Service Design Thinking Enabled an Innovative New Airline Concept to Come to Life
Christopher Wright, a founding partner at figure3, is a British-born and educated designer. His work merges architecture, interior design, branding and product design. He has designed dynamic environments for brands such as Umbra, Universal Music, Nike and British Airways.
Jennifer Young, head of figure3’s Experience Design division, returned to Toronto after spending 20 years working in New York and London with some of the world’s top retailers and brands. She considers space a strategic business asset that has the power to influence people’s behaviour.
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This is a David & Goliath story about an upstart airline that went head to head with an industry giant and, in so doing, transformed the air-travel experience. When, in 2006, entrepreneur Robert Deluce announced that he was launching a regional carrier to service Eastern Canada and the Northeastern United States, few gave his fledgling Porter Airlines a fighting chance. Back then, industry giant Air Canada had only recently emerged from bankruptcy, unburdened from huge debts and with major wage concessions from unions. And it was still losing money. But where naysayers saw fierce competition alongside rising high fuel prices, Deluce saw opportunity. The North American airline industry has the lowest profitability of the top thirty major industries. A string of insolvencies are a testament to the tight margins that have undercut services to travellers. Air travel has become highly commoditised, with a business model based on paring back service and adding fees. Ireland’s Ryanair recently announced it is going limit each 200-passenger aircraft to one toilet in order to squeeze in six more seats. It is no wonder that customers are more likely to feel abused than well served. When commercial air travel opened up to the public more than 50
years ago, the journey was as anticipated as the destination. People dressed up to fly. Airports around the world featured luxury restaurants, pampering passengers with fine food and drink. Every touchpoint for the air traveller featured a level of service previously reserved for upscale hotels and the ocean liners that passenger airplanes replaced. Those days were long gone, until Deluce decided there was room for a new airline committed to creating the ultimate flying experience for every single customer. The results showcase service design in action. The Porter business plan focused on designing and delivering a superb travel experience. Every element of the Porter flying experience, from marketing campaigns to booking to the actual flight,
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was carefully choreographed and meticulously executed. Every touchpoint supports the brand platform: ‘Flying Refined’. Toronto, Porter’s base of operations, is home to Pearson International, one of the continent’s busiest airports, located 30 miles from the centre of the city. With no direct rail links, getting to and from Pearson is a stress-filled experience of traffic jams, frequent road closures and costly cab fares and parking rates. But minutes from downtown, on an island in Toronto’s inner harbour, sat an underused airstrip and terminal building. Deluce looked beyond the dilapidated facilities and envisioned a brand new terminal and gambled that the 60-second ferry ride would not deter time-pressed business travellers. Deluce understood that the success of Porter would not be about designing a $50 million terminal: spatial design needed to play a pivotal role in bringing the Porter brand to life. figure3, the
experiential design firm, could not have asked for a better opportunity to put service design into action. Deluce first retained Tyler Brûlé’s agency, Winkreative, to create the Porter brand: the positioning, graphic identity, collateral marketing materials and website. Winkreative extended the brand across a variety of key brand touchpoints, including staff uniforms and the in-flight service details, even creating a playful raccoon mascot as the cheeky personality of the upstart airline. Alongside Winkreative, figure3 was engaged to envision the spatial touchpoints of interaction of passengers with the brand: kiosks, check-in, waiting lounges, business centre, downtown shuttle bus service and even the ferry ride. Every interaction point was thoughtfully considered in the choreographed Porter brand journey. The design process began with a deep immersion into the then-current passenger experience, exploring and breaking down each touchpoint to better understand what could be reinvented. From the moment a passenger plans a trip to their arrival at the destination, each movement and interaction was considered. This process included ethnography (observation, intercepts and mystery tours) to understand the frustrations of the holistic service experience. touchpoint 51
figure3 focused on articulating the complex demands of the business traveller, knowing that Porter needed to set a new standard for both business and leisure flyers, one that harks back to an era when people looked forward to flying. Indeed, the uniforms for the flight attendants feature the retro pillbox hats as a salute to the golden days of commercial aviation. Building on series of internal working sessions with Porter, the entire passenger brand journey was mapped out, recognising that physical space is a key influence on behavioural emotional response. Using this experience roadmap, the philosophy, criteria and design principles needed to deliver on Porter’s ‘Flying Refined’ brand promise were defined. The conceptual design resulting from this experience brief balances functionality with elegance and delivers the same experience of refined luxury to all Porter customers. Upon entering the lounge, all passengers are pampered with complimentary snacks, cappuccinos, magazines and Wi-Fi. Unlike the seats you find in airports around the world, the lounge seats are designed for comfort, not quick-wipe cleaning. With raised expectations, passengers eagerly anticipate the next step: getting on board. The planes are regional jets, configured with two seats on each side, with ample legroom. Seats are wrapped in soft, inviting leather. Flight attendants, decked out in stylish and hip retro uniforms, warmly greet passengers. Free beverages, including beer and wine, are served in real glass or porcelain. Passengers are presented with an elegant box that inspires almost child-like curiosity. Inside are healthy light meals. Judging by their constant flow of glowing tweets, passengers are experiencing something very special with Porter. An apt analogy might be like stumbling upon a restaurant so exceptional – and reasonably priced – that you feel smart just knowing it exists. And, unlike fast-rising culinary stars, Porter remains humble and steadfastly focused on consistently delivering excellent service. Moreover, there is no need for name-dropping to get a reservation. Everyone is treated as a VIP. 52
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Porter’s launch in 2006 won over the skeptics. The inaugural flights garnered widespread media coverage: after all, it’s not every day that someone launches a new airline in such uncertain times. Journalists gushed over the unique customer experience, anchored by the sexy, comfortable lounges. Reviews universally applauded Porter for raising the bar with exceptional service. Launching only five years after 9/11 and in an environment of soaring fuel costs and enhanced security, market watchers doubted the sustainability of the business model. Well, Porter has just celebrated its fifth anniversary and has steadily expanded its routes. It now flies to 18 cities in Canada and the United States. figure3 is currently designing the new terminal lounge in Newark, NJ with more expansion planned in 2012. Today, Porter is the only Canadian airline to earn a coveted Four-Star ranking from SKYTRAX. The Porter success story proves that taking the service design approach doesn’t necessarily mean bigger budgets. In fact, by closely analysing every component of the service experience, Porter has shown that its business model focused on the passenger experience may have higher operating costs in the short-term, but can deliver long-term profitability with repeat, loyal customers. Porter has not only been successful in competing with the big carriers, it has engendered so much advocacy that it is quickly becoming the preferred airline of choice among business and leisure travellers alike. It is even gaining American fans flying from the US into Canada. Deluce’s success in breathing new life into Toronto’s Billy Bishop Island Airport
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“figure3 was engaged to envision the spatial touchpoints of interaction of passengers with the brand: kiosks, checkin, waiting lounges, business centre, downtown shuttle bus service and even the ferry ride.” was not lost on arch rival Air Canada. The behemoth went to court for the right to fly its discount airline, Jazz, out of the island airport. Some observers worried that Air Canada’s frequent flier program, part of Global Star Alliance, would woo Porter fliers. They were wrong. Collecting Air Canada points couldn’t trump Porter’s excellent and consistent service experience. Despite the head-to-head competition with Air Canada since May of 2011, Porter continues to thrive. The upstart has grown from an initial 300 employees to over 1,300. As a writer for Toronto’s The Globe and Mail newspaper declared in a 2011 year-end interview with Deluce: “The airline has become a case study for how a new entrant can carve out a niche in a volatile industry.”
This is intelligent service design at its best: driving a competitive business advantage. Porter understands that every business decision must reinforce the ultimate customer experience, one that sets the brand apart. The differentiating capacity of service design has rarely been as definitive. Porter’s uniquely personal customer experience has truly captured the hearts and wallets of loyal flyers, and they are not shy about telling everyone they know. A brand cannot ask for more.
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Helsinki Central Library as a Gateway to the City
SeYoung Kim, Service Designer, Kuudes Kerros, Helsinki, Finland. SeYoung Kim recently obtained her MA in Industrial and Strategic Design from Aalto University School of Art and Design. For the last three years SeYoung has been involved for various multidisciplinary projects on design for services and strategies, and she has prior experience in graphic and web design for seven years.
Satu Miettinen, PhD, Professor of Applied Art and Design University of Lapland Faculty of Art and Design
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For years, many tourists have required a new type of travel experience, one in which they are more physically and emotionally involved in the destination, rather than just being entertained. How can we create a better tourist experience that could turn out to be a meaningful life experience? How do we make tourists experience genuine local culture beyond a staged tourism experience? This article introduces a new service proposal for authentic tourist experience, emphasising the role of service design as a strategic tool both in tourist engagement and in creative tourism development, in relation to libraries. This project was carried out at the concept stage in collaboration with Helsinki City Library and is an MA thesis project for the Aalto University School of Art and Design. In recent years, the needs for authenticity in the tourist experience has emerged due to the commoditisation of local culture by emulating the successful place-making strategies of cities1. Although, depending on what tourists encounter, the meaning of ‘authenticity’ could be diverse, the authentic experience can frequently be achieved through local reality with genuine contact. This is why many tourists seek the opportunities for participative experience to help immerse themselves in the destination. However, public libraries, where all local knowledge and characteristics is gathered and are created, are rarely considered by
tourists as a valuable destination where they can find the opportunity to discover a vivid part of the local culture2. Helsinki City Library has been broadening its responsibility by planning the New Helsinki Central Library, based on a long and proud tradition in Finnish society. This project aimed to develop the new service concept offering from the library that would support tourists in discovering a way of understanding their own authentic experience of Finland, while, at the same time, making a positive contribution to the library and local community.
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modern, broad, progressive collective library service engagement platform for community expanded service stages for tourist
level 4: bring people together as a cultural hub level 3: foster communication and exchange cultural diversity in the community level 2: become multi-use destination that individual development advocates level 1: being conduits of wealthy knowledgeable resources
Figure1: Four stages of library service platform expand the service capability in a broad context from only local residents to international visitors for improving their experience in the new tourism service.
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Service Design in Creating Authenticity In order to design a tourist experience in connection with libraries, the service design approach worked as the essential medium. The customer journey map was used to discover the probable touchpoints that make the target tourists step into the library, engaging with the new service based on their needs. A co-design workshop with the tourists, the librarians and local residents was also carried out to reveal service opportunities, since these are the focal stakeholders who have great potential to enhance the capability of the service, both as experts in the local culture and as regular customers of the library. The most crucial finding driving this project was the target tourists’ prejudice against the public library. This meant that the tourists felt like outsiders, invading the local residents’ everyday life, and so they were reluctant to consider the library as a destination. Thus, the need for service element to motivate the tourists to visit the library, led to the service vision of: “This new service makes visitors feel part of the city, and able to interact more easily with the day-to-day culture, especially with locals with whose lives they can identify.” Aito, a New Service Concept Proposition ‘AITO’ is a service concept for authentic tourist experience that offers a diverse way of engaging in genuine Finnish culture, based on an emotional interaction with local people. ‘AITO’ means ‘authentic’ or ‘genuine’ in Finnish, thus it reflects the philosophy of this service, along with the service slogan, ‘look closely, think widely’. The AITO service, targeted at those tourists who prefer off-the-beaten-track Helsinki, is structured by considering different levels of tourist desires, from passive to active involvement in the destination, based on personal interests and needs. The root of this idea was from one striking finding that a different expectation of ‘authenticity’ regarding Finland exists among people, depending on their cultural background or their personal context. In order for this finding to frame a service system, it was developed on the basis of the four stages of a library service platform for the community. Therefore, the library service model developed by this project expands the service capability in a broad context, from only local residents to international visitors (Figure 1). AITO consists of a ‘Welcome Package’ and four stages of participatory services (Figure 2). As the criti56
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cal element, the aim of the Welcome Package is to lower the barrier to entry to the library. The tourist can simply order the package through the AITO website before departure, and they can pick it up in the library when they arrive. The Welcome Package is designed for each tourist with a temporary library card in their name, and it primarily consists of a list of selected local culture, library materials and programs – including the AITO service – based on personal interests, selected in advance through the website. Through the service, the tourists have not only the same rights as locals to access all the materials and services of the library, but also have more self-motivation to visit the library without any preconceptions. The ‘AITO Story’ is developed from the fact that many tourists invest time in searching through reliable resources in order to reduce any travel-related uncertainty. The library offers exclusive and reliable local knowledge in cooperation with local residents to support the tourists in gaining a distinct and profound view of the city. ‘AITO Kits’ are the various resource kits with specific themes, provided by the library, that give the tourists an opportunity to encounter hidden, uncommercialised aspects of Finnish culture. For instance, ‘Bike Kits’, including a free city bike, a map with recommended routes for cycling and a bicycle repair guide and tools, can assist the tourist in exploring a different side of Helsinki. The aim of ‘AITO Culture’ is to open all library-based cultural programs to all visitors, including tourists. A successful experience at this level would make locals and tourists feel connected to each other, while respecting their differences in a practical activity, such as a one-day Finnish cuisine class. As the vital phrase, the last level of service, ‘AITO Buddy’, aims to ensure that the focus of tourist attention shifts away from external cultural objects and instead looks deep into themselves through authentic travel practices. Both tourist and local can find someone who shares similar interests among the various AITO buddy profiles containing specific personal preferences that they create in advance. They can then design all sorts of experiences together in Finland, such as having a cup of coffee, discussing shared interests, language-learning exchanges or short day trips. The tourists are able to participate in real local life through genuine contact, and local residents can also have the opportunity to meet, on their own home turf, people
eat, sleep, play aito service website
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To provide the tourist with novel and reliable information that creates in cooperation with local and library
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aito buddy To encourage the tourist and locals in developing their own context from mutual interest as forming a relationship by involving in the process
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ON THE SPOT
aito buddy; travel card
To create the Travel Card to describe tourists and locals themselves in advance, if they want to use AITO Buddy service
To open the all cultural programs with tourist to initiate them into engaging in the community
welcoming package
LEVEL 2
aito kits To offer various resources kits for the tourist to assist realization of their expectations and aspirations e.g. Bike Kit with a free city bike, a map and bicycle repaire guide and tools
Tourist can order the package before depature, and the contents of package can be selected on the lists via the website e.g. a temporary library card, recommened information based on tourist interests
the helsinki central library Pick up the Welcoming package
Figure 2.: ‘AITO’ Service Diagram. The service considers different levels of tourist’s desires from passive to active involvement in the destination, covering not only during their stay, but before and after travel.
from all over the world who share common interests. The role of the library is a reliable and safe platform that empowers all visitors to openly and freely create their own authentic stories from mutual interests. Final Thoughts As the cultural diversity of societies grows rapidly the world over, the role of service design will become more important in uniting different fields to cater for a wider range of demands. Although AITO is still at the concept stage, its full or partial implementation is being considered for the New Central library. Developing the detailed service process using a service blueprint and service scenarios has supported this project in envisioning positive impact both in tourism and in the library domain. In the pilot test, an interviewee said that this concept has inspired him to check out the local library next time before travelling, and he is becoming more and more active in using his local library.
So, we, hope that this service experience will enrich lives by offering internal stimuli for self-discovery both for the tourists and locals, and will also offer the library an opportunity to strengthen its responsibility as a real cultural-based foundation for a wide range of audiences while, at the same time, leading the way in promoting Helsinki as a city which places a high value on social equality for all.
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References 1 Richards, G. & Wilson, J. (2006): Developing Creativity in Tourist Experiences: a Solution to the Serial Reproduction of Culture?. Tourism Management, 27, 1209-1223 2 Whitman John R. (2003): Libraries and Tourism. The UNESCO Network of Associated libraries.
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Tourism and Service Design Thinking Who Learns from Whom?
Marc Stickdorn, Research Fellow & Lecturer, MCI – Management Center Innsbruck. Marc lectures in service design in the Entrepreneurship & Tourism MA study program at the Management Center Innsbruck. He coordinates the EU-funded research project Service Design in Tourism and consults for private and public organisations as an associate of DesignThinkers. He is editor and co-author of This is Service Design Thinking.
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Tourism is a service-dominated industry in which success has always been dependent on the ultimate customer experience. Who created these experiences during the last few decades? Researchers identified the numerous tourism entrepreneurs as one of the main agents of change who, “…through a combination of perceptiveness, creativity and the fortuitous confluence of events, are constantly identifying opportunities as they arise and creating the organisations to pursue them.”2 Sounds like fertile ground for service design thinking! The idea of an iterative innovation process is far from new for tourism entrepreneurs. Outstanding entrepreneurs live the basic principles of service design thinking every day: • Hands-on insights when hoteliers work along with their employees: from frontline staff to the back-office. • Contextual interviews with customers: every time they sit together at their hotel bar. • Empowering their staff to develop new ideas and solutions. • Constant evaluation and rethinking of existing processes with a customer perspective • Adapting best practices and solutions from outside the industry.
However, processes of innovation are often intuitive and not built on a strategic design process, due to the fact that the tourism industry is dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Ninety-four percent of European tourism companies have fewer than six employees. Such a fragmented industry involves both challenges and opportunities for business, since SMEs have to cope with limited budgets for product development and advertising. However, on the other hand, SMEs also have corporate responsibility and flat organisational structures, both of which are ideal conditions for innovation. Memories of outstanding tourism experiences generate word-of-mouth, which nowadays has enormous reach
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Marketing shifts from communications to experiences
through social media and tourism review websites. In particular, the latter has an impact on the industry that can’t be stressed enough. Tourism products underlie a unique buying decision process, since most customers decide and pay often months in advance and, in the case of leisure tourism, invest not only money, but their precious holiday time. In this decision process, trust towards tourism brands and their products is most important. Tourism companies attempt to convince guests of a certain service quality standard through strong brands or quality labels, although nowadays tourists first and foremost trust other guests’ experiences. A recent study of German tourists shows that significantly more guests trust the opinions of other customers than any corporate communication. Ninety-five percent consider online customer reviews to be trustworthy, and 65% would no longer book any travel without previously checking customer reviews on respective websites3. Through this apparent increase in transpar-
ency of tourism offerings, marketing strategies need to shift from advertising to genuine service quality. It’s the individual guest’s experience that makes or breaks a successful tourism product. Tourism products are bundles of various services. A leisure holiday involves a variety of different services, which are often provided by several companies: The travel to the destination, local transportation, accommodation, gastronomy and leisure activities, to name but a few. Tourists, however, evaluate the whole experience within a destination, which makes tourism products particularly challenging for service designers. Even if the task is to design a single service for one provider, a complex service ecosystem needs to be considered. This consists not only of stakeholders of the service on hand, but also the whole ecosystem that a customer faces within a certain destination. A destination is a “…geographic area that the respective visitor selects as a travel destination. It encompasses all necessary amenities for a stay, including accommodation, catering, entertainment and activities. touchpoint 59
It is therefore the actual competitive unit within incoming tourism that must be run as a strategic business unit.”1. A lthough there are also destinations that are centrally managed and owned by one company, such as theme parks or resorts, most destinations consist of a fragmented system of companies and actors. However, ultimately, it is the tourist who defines a destination and, as a rule of thumb, the perceived size of a destination increases with the distance that tourists travel. The unique buying decision process of tourists includes another characteristic regarding its gradual set of choice. The decision for a destination involves various alternatives beyond obvious competitors: tourists choose between city, sun & beach or mountain destinations in all seasons of the year, which makes it hard – if not even impossible – for destinations to know their direct competitors. An authentic destination identity across all involved stakeholders leads to a consistent destination image in the tourists’ minds. This clear image is crucial for a profound decision in the tourists’ buying process, but, on the other hand, demands a high level of cooperation between the destination’s stakeholders. The concept of destination personality – comparable to the description of a destination as a persona – supports stakeholders in finding a common viewpoint and in understanding their destination image from a customer’s point of view. Following the buying decision process during the next set of tourist choices, many of those very same stakeholders are competitors and, as such, need to differentiate themselves from each other within the destination. This leads to a classic ‘prisoner’s dilemma’ and, in fact, 60
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represents one of the main challenges of destination management. At the same time, this is one of the biggest future opportunities for service design in tourism. Service design thinking provides processes and methods to create organisational structures and to understand the culture required to deliver superior customer experiences within a complex ecosystem of both public and private organisations. Approaches like ethnographic research, storytelling, mapping customer journeys and stakeholder value networks are invaluable tools for destination management. The recent discussion on the gap between customers’ expectations and their experiences of services is a wellresearched topic in service marketing and of particular interest for the tourism industry. Since the late 1970s, the confirmation-disconfirmation paradigm became established in the behavioural literature as a relevant process model for customer satisfaction analyses. According to this approach, satisfaction is highly dependent on the comparison of expectations towards a certain subject matter and the actual experience of it. In this context, quality attributes, such as touchpoints within a customer journey, as well as more general service quality factors, can be classified in three categories: • Basic factors cause dissatisfaction if experiences do not reach expectations, but commonly do not lead to satisfaction even if expectations are exceeded. • Performance factors lead to satisfaction when expectations are met, as well as to dissatisfaction when certain expectations are not met. They form a continuum with
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no thresholds, though they do build on the fulfilment of basic factors. • Excitement factors trigger satisfaction, but not necessarily dissatisfaction if they are not met, since excitement factors are not explicitly expected. Thus, they increase the perceived value, but cannot be offset against a lack of basic factors. Customer satisfaction arises hierarchically from the confirmation of basic factors to the positive evaluation of performance factors and, potentially, the perception of excitement factors. Additionally, the individual factors are subject to change over time and, hence, give the model a dynamic nature. Over time, excitement factors degrade to performance and, later, to basic factors, since experiences affect expectations and, therefore, customers come to expect former unexpected factors. Service designers need to be aware of these dynamics and to consider different scenarios regarding the future development of expectations towards introduced factors. Service design thinking has an evident potential to support the tourism industry in developing superior tourism experiences. In particular, tourism SMEs can nowadays compete with large tourism chains, since the change in the tourist’s buying decision process from advertisement to the reviews of other tourists has moved the focus from advertising budgets to outstanding service quality. Like no other industry, tourism managers are close to both employees and customers with a clear focus on customer experiences. Service design thinking provides a methodological
framework for tourism entrepreneurs that includes important characteristics such as a user-centred, multi-channel perspective and co-creative methods to include multiple stakeholders of a service ecosystem. However, it is not only tourism that can benefit from service design thinking and, by that same token, the service design community can learn from an industry that has been developing excellence in experiences for decades.
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References 1 Bieger, T. (2005): Management von Destinationen, 6. Auflage. München: Oldenbourg. 2 Russel, R., & Faulkner, B. (2004): Entrepreneurship, Chaos and the Tourism Area Lifecycle. Annals of Tourism Research, 31(3), pp. 556-579. 3 IUBH (2011): Untersuchung der Bedeutung & Glaubwürdigkeit von Bewertungen auf Internetportalen. International University of Applied Sciences Bad Honnef. 4 Oliver, R. L. (1980): A Cognitive Model of the Antecedents and Consequences of Satisfaction Decisions. Journal of Marketing Research, November, 460-469.
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Service Design for the Fitness Experience Taking Inspiration from Game Design The interaction design elements of simulated games can be utilised to develop engaging and innovative services. Highlighting the intersection points between game design and service design is significant in understanding the success factors that apply to the leisure and entertainment industries. Deniz Sayar, Doctoral student at Istanbul Technical University’s Industrial Product Design Department and lecturer at Izmir University of Economics.
Game design can be a great source of inspiration for service designers in creating and enhancing experiences in the leisure and entertainment industries. A game can be described as successful if a person enjoys the game enough to keep playing it1. This principle can also be applied to service experiences. For example, fitness centres now focus on providing enjoyable sports activities to build long-term relationships with their members. Sports are important sources for game designers as well, mainly because of the richness in their variety and interactive dimension. The ‘Game Feel’ Approach ‘Game feel’2 is a term used to describe simulated games that entail ‘aesthetic sensation of control’, ‘pleasure of learning, practicing and mastering a skill’, and ‘extension of the senses and identity’. Such games are able to craft ‘momentto-moment interaction’ between the system and the player within a unique
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‘simulated space’. The game designer seeks to bring the player as close to reality as possible. Therefore, the level that the illusion is achieved influences the quality of the experience. ‘Simulated space’ in game design refers to simulated physical interactions in virtual space that give meaning to the motion of an avatar by providing objects to move around and between, to bump into and by creating an impression of speed, in order to give its players the tactile, physical sense of interacting with virtual environments in the same way that they interact with everyday physical spaces2. In a sports game, virtual stadiums and tennis courts are examples of simulated spaces. ‘Extension of the senses and identity’ is another important aspect in game design. This involves a deep, expressive interaction where the players develop a sense of controlling an extension of their bodies, such as the experience of driving a car. Sports video games also create a similar feeling
photo: gigi 62 / flickr
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In the fitness experience case, fitness centres and pilates / yoga studios can be referred to as ‘simulated spaces’, since most of the sports activities offered in these centres are ‘simulations’ of popular team-sports or adaptations of outdoor sports. For example, ‘spinning’ is a fitness activity that simulates the outdoor biking experience.
because they give players the chance to compete in a fixture like a professional athlete. ‘The aesthetic sensation of control’ can be described as the starting experience of game feel, as it is the pure, aesthetic pleasure of steering something around and feeling it respond to input 2. In a soccer video game, for instance, the game makes it possible to construct a different team every time or to take part in a tournament with whatever team the players can imagine. The more freedom the game gives its players, the more favourable the experience becomes. Game design also includes the ‘pleasure of learning, practicing and mastering a skill’. The players learn, practice and get used to
the actions that the game requires, and so it becomes possible to score more points within the same time. Finally, ‘momentto-moment interaction’ in game design means precise and seamless interactions between players and the object being controlled during the game. This is very similar to interacting with service staff and getting information about the different phases of the service offering. Service designers can generate unique and innovative ideas by taking the fundamentals of game design into consideration for enhanced customer experiences. In the fitness experience case, fitness centres and pilates/yoga studios can be referred to as ‘simulated touchpoint 63
spaces’, since most of the sports activities offered in these centres are ‘simulations’ of popular team-sports or adaptations of outdoor sports. For example, ‘spinning’ is a fitness activity that simulates the outdoor biking experience. This experience is transformed into an indoor service offering by providing a unique space, specialised spinning bikes and a trained instructor. Moreover, the experience is supported by other touchpoints, such as digital calorie and heart rate counters, to keep track of the workout performance and to maintain consistent moment-to-moment interaction. Many other classes provided in fitness centres involve exercises that combine cardio-vascular activities with martial arts, or moves and equipment from well-known team sports. This increases the variety of the service offerings so that customers are able to choose the activity they would like to participate in, to personalise their own fitness program and to try multiple activities at the same time. All of these benefits lead to a satisfactory service experience. Designing Services with ‘Game Feel’ The ‘simulated space’ within a game consists of specific props, colours, sound effects and atmospherics in which the required tasks are performed. Service 64
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designers should also provide the best setting, device, environment and platform through which customers can have the best possible experience. For this reason, the use of simulation software is an effective tool for service designers for optimising several sensory aspects of the customer experience and for attaining the active involvement of customers. Stories and narratives are significant aspects of game design. These again refer to the ‘extension of the senses and identity’ concept, as all games are based on ‘stories’ where each player becomes a different character. This helps players process the challenges in the game more holistically. From the viewpoint of service design, storytelling and narratives are highly compelling for communicating experiences to customers, and for creating personalisation, fluidity and the sense of ownership. To enable high quality and consistent interactions during the game is an indispensable element for ‘Game Feel’. The same design understanding should be applied to services as well. Hence, another feature of ‘Game Feel’ that can be utilised in service design is ‘momentto-moment interaction’. It is significant for service designers to follow an ongoing process of data collection and analysis in order to be able to measure short-term and long-term performance. For example,
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satisfaction surveys should be distributed to customers, or new operational structures should be designed to improve responsiveness to users’ concerns and needs. The resulting data should be processed immediately so that continuous measurements and feedback will be available to service staff and managers on a regular basis. A successful game makes its players feel empowered, as it gives them the control to choose among a variety of characters, settings, levels and tasks. Just like ‘the sense of control’ in a game, developing new service platforms and extending the variety of services to encompass a portfolio of interrelated offerings help service providers build innovative relationships with their customers. Moreover, adopting the usercentredness of game design to improve the customer experience and service development creates emotional bonds with customers and, therefore, drives retention and loyalty. Good ‘Game Feel’ is about finding the perfect balance between player skill and the challenge that the game presents. In the same manner, good service design is about finding the perfect balance between customer needs and the components of the service offering. Service designers in the leisure and entertainment industries can create
service experiences that engender ‘Game Feel’ by designing spaces with both visual and aesthetic appeal and by offering service experiences that provide real-time control, the enjoyment of learning and mastering and continuous feedback about the interactions that result.
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References: 1 Isbister, K. (2011). Emotion and Motion: Games as inspiration for shaping the future of interface. Interactions, 18(5), 24-27. 2 Swink, S. (2009). Game Feel: A Game Designer’s Guide to Virtual Sensation. USA: Elsevier.
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Creating the Organic Experience Designing Touchpoints in Organic Hospitality Companies on Different Experience Levels
In 2010, tourismusdesign was contracted to support the Bioparadies SalzburgerLand in improving their organic services. This association of organic hotels, restaurants and farms was founded by companies who have one thing in common: they provide organic food for their guests. A few of them offer additional organic experiences, such as organically produced bed linen or an eco-friendly swimming pool. The association’s partners were supposed to strengthen their brand by developing new activities and services across company and industry borders. The aim was to provide guests with a different organic experience from just eating organic food. Guests should feel, experience and share the organic ethos along their whole customer journey. How intense and varied are guests’ experiences of their stay at a Bioparadies partner? The experience pyramid, a method that was developed by LEO – the Lapland Experience Design Cluster in Finland – helped to explore this question. Existing offers were arranged within the five levels of the pyramid. This revealed that people are rarely touched emotionally by organic services. Guests are aware of the fact that breakfast and other meals are prepared with ingredi66
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ents that are sourced organically. Signs, information sheets, organic products and personal conversations bring guests into contact with the corporate culture, which is driven by the will to take responsibility for sustainable living. The Experience Design Pyramid showed where service design should be enhanced to more deeply involve guests in organic experiences: on the level of learning, emotion and mental change. Two personas were created to explore the special needs and expectations of guests: Elvira (35) from Germany – the favourite guest – who already stays at Bioparadies SalzburgerLand and adds the highest value; and Ulrike (38) – the future guest – who is attracted by the awareness of an organic way of life and also wants to experience this outside of her holidays. She seeks inspiration and appreciates services
that support her in becoming more familiar with sustainable living. We asked ourselves which touchpoints could be created in order to meet Ulrike’s needs and where she could be supported in her wish to live conscientiously and organically. In a service design workshop, we organised the touchpoints into groups that comply with traditional organic principles. These are ecological, economic and socio-cultural modes: • Sleeping and living (eg. furniture, bed linen, washing, cleaning, natural resources and materials…) • Caring, curing and recharging (eg. cosmetics, organic oils for massage, curative teas…) • Cultivating, harvesting, processing (eg. spices, kitchen garden, planting your own herbs…) • Cooking and eating (organic food & beverages, recipes, baking bread, cooking sessions with friends & family, organic breakfasts on the early morning hike…) • Transport and activity (hiking with producers, mountain biking to producers…) • Community and dedication (specialised library…) In order to design the service touchpoints we applied the Customer Journey together with the Experience Design Pyramid (image 1). The following questions were the driving fvorces in this part of the workshop: How can Ulrike get in touch with organic services before her arrival? Which services allow Ulrike to learn more about organic products and organic life style? How can
Source: LCEEI - Lapland Centre of Expertise for the Experience Industry
eat, sleep, play mental level change emotional level experience intellectual level learning physical level sense perception motivational level interest individuality authenticity story multi-sensory contrast interaction perception
The Experience Design Pyramid supports the evaluation and creation of meaningful experiences.
she be touched emotionally by these organic experiences? What brings her closer to organic living back home? The category of ‘sleeping and living’ gives an impression of the detailed and elaborate service design: On the website, Ulrike finds clear information about the services that are offered to provide organic sleeping and living in the Bioparadies SalzburgerLand. After booking, she is sent two swatches, together with an invitation to choose her preferred quality of organic cotton bed linen. When she arrives, the first morning she learns the story about the heady herbal fragrance and the organic detergent that is used for the bed linen and about the chemical-free cleaning methods employed throughout the hotel. She is invited to chose an alternative oil for the fragrance lamp in her room and appreciates the organic products that she is offered to test and buy. Organic sleeping is celebrated in order to enrich the stay and also to introduce organic living back home. In the touchpoint group, ‘cultivating, harvesting and processing’ services were created to meet people’s growing wish to do something useful during their holidays, i.e, to involve themselves in the circle of life (image 2). After booking, Ulrike receives an envelope with dried hay flowers.
She will be welcomed at her chosen Bioparadies partner by a signifier object: a planter with herbs in front of the door. During her stay, Ulrike is invited to plant and cultivate her own regional plant and she might make friends in the kitchen garden, which is designed as a meeting point. The host shares their knowledge of herbal lore and provides maybe a brochure that explains when the plant will bloom or a guided walk, on which herbs are collected for drying or cooking. To round off Ulrike’s stay, she is given a gift to take home with her: seeds or perhaps a young plant. In each of the touchpoint groups, a wide range of ideas for
before change
services was collected, ready to be picked up by the Bioparadies partners and ready to be combined into further meaningful organic experiences. Service design has supported the Bioparadies partners in finding a common understanding of their guests’ needs and expectations. Thanks to the service design methods, the organic companies were able to create meaningful organic experiences in a very focused and structured way across company borders.
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Landscape architect Agnes Feigl and Martin Schobert, an expert in tourism and communication, founded their agency tourismusdesign in 2010. Service design is one of the disciplines they apply in order to create meaningful experiences in tourism.
during the stay
young plant or seed as a gift for at home
meeting point vegetable garden
experience learning
herbal lore
sense perception
plant your own regional plant
interest hayflower odour sent in an envelope after booking
after
information broschure about flowering times of regional plants and herbs
identity object: planter with herbs at the front door
Touchpoints related to the cultivation and the use of plants could be created, as shown in the customer journey above.
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photo: kallejipp / photocase.com
Tools and Methods Service Design Related Techniques, Activities and Deliverables
Reimagining the Museum Experience Tools for Participatory Planning
Elliot Felix is a director at brightspot strategy. He designs services, spaces, and organisations to enable better work and learning experiences.
Antonina Simeti is a senior consultant at DEGW, an AECOM company. She works with cultural, academic and corporate institutions to understand work and learning and improve organisational performance. She brings insights on the relationship between the creative economy, city and community to the strategic planning process.
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The role of art museums is changing. Visitors expect more active participation, a more customised offer for their needs and interests and a more social and technology-rich experience. There is also increasing competition for leisure time and funding among a diminishing population of museum-goers. The museum experience can no longer only be about quietly seeing works of art: it must be about the interplay of seeing, hearing, playing, meeting and socialising. How do you help museums to explore new approaches to visitor experience and visitor services? We recently worked with San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) to re-imagine the experience of their visitors – both on-site and online – and to enable the museum to mean more to more people. We led museum staff through three exercises – scenario planning, storyborrowing and experience role-play – in order to enable them to understand aspirational visitor experiences and the implications for services such as ticketing, visitor orientation, social and educational event programming, membership programs, and marketing initiatives. This article will walk you through the tool used, provide recommendations for successful facilitation and illustrate how a participatory planning process
can help cultural and other types of institutions plan for the future. Scenario Planning How can you plan for the future when things are changing? By using a 2x2 matrix of course! Although scenario planning is based on this simple matrix, it is a powerful tool for developing different potential futures and understanding how different drivers of change interact. Pioneered by military think tanks in the 1950s and later adopted for business strategy, scenario planning can be applied to solve many types of problems1. Scenario planning is best done in a long workshop early in the planning process, bringing together diverse
photo: Christopher Beland / wikimedia commons
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stakeholders to take an external view of how the world is changing and may impact the organisation. Stakeholders should identify two independent forces that will impact the organisation and its offerings, and then position these as crossing axes that create four quadrants or possible futures. This can be done many times with different drivers and combinations of drivers. Once the futures are named and described in narrative, you can decide how to prepare for them: perhaps you have ideas that work well in all cases or perhaps there is a scenario or two you should focus on? At SFMOMA, we used scenario planning to explore visitor experience and the distribution of museum operations, examining two key questions as axes. First, would the art experience continue to be primarily individual and contemplative or would it evolve to be more diverse and inclusive of other activities, spaces and people? Second, should SFMOMA consolidate all its front- and back-of-house operations and storage in one location or should they be geographically dispersed? By playing out the different scenarios of Museum as ‘Theater’, ‘Marketplace’, ‘Storefront’, and ‘Warehouse’, we determined that the Marketplace – with its need for increased access, inclusivity, and diversity of artworks, spaces and services
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
– was the scenario to which SFMOMA aspired and for which we should plan. Storyborrowing Once you’ve done some scenario planning to think about the impact of external forces and have begun to develop a plan for the future, you might want to look out to other industries. ‘Storyborrowing’ is a term and a simple technique that we developed to help organisations find and apply outside inspirations and touchpoint 71
Photos: courtesy of Snøhetta
Left: Traditional Experience with Rothko at sf moma. Right: New, multi-faceted experience in the new sf moma lobby space
examples in a concrete way. Of course, it’s hardly as easy as cutting-and-pasting something that’s worked elsewhere, but being open to established practices in a different industry could help you be groundbreaking in yours. Storyborrowing is done by identifying both organisational trends and aspirations, choosing the best practices, distilling summaries of why the actions worked, and applying those traits to your situation. It is best done in a workshop setting where small groups each analyse an example and create a storyboard to illustrate a new type of customer experience that embodies the best practices. Each takeaway should be represented by at least one frame of the story. At SFMOMA we jumpstarted the storyborrowing process by convening a series of panel discussions with experts from other industries (e.g. hospitality) so that we could share stories and see how others had already tackled problems (e.g. customer relationship management). 72
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We then looked at characteristics of inspirational experiences – a baseball game, an Apple Store, a national park and a marketplace – and analysed overall strategies and specific tactics that made them successful. Perhaps the most critical conclusion came from the Apple Store example, in that SFMOMA uncovered their own aspiration to improve access to and demystify art in much the same way that Apple has done with technology, through the use of proactive, ‘high-touch’ staff. Experience Role-play A successful vision for the future incorporates a careful look at an institution’s own strengths and weaknesses, as well as what’s changing in the world. But vision doesn’t change the world, execution does. A vision must be developed with a real sense of what it will mean for the customer experience and how it is supported by staffing, operations, technology, marketing and other front- and back-stage activities.
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Experience maps are a way to holistically imagine the visitor experience as a lifecycle – what motivates a visit, what is experienced during the visit and how that visit is extended – and to identify key tangible touchpoints along the way. There are a variety of experience mapping frameworks and tools that incorporate the concept of touchpoints experienced by different users or personas over time. Maps can be developed in a workshop setting with small teams or one large group, showing the touchpoints for each visitor persona with a word, phrase, Post-it or photograph. The map should cover at least the five stages of experience identified by Conifer Research: Entice, Enter, Engage, Exit, and Extend2. Working with SFMOMA to imagine future visitor experiences, we developed experience maps for a set of previously developed visitor personas
(e.g. local family, cultural tourist) and added the element of light role-play. Staff teams acted out their experience maps as a way to understand how a variety of spaces, services, and art experiences would be needed to support a range of visitor types. The process also helped build staff empathy for the visitors and reinforced the museum’s commitment to a transformative visitor experience. Tips for a Successful Engagement Process Think carefully about when to use the tools: it’s generally a good idea to use the tools we introduced in the order presented above, starting the process by thinking big and getting more specific in terms of the focus of the exercise over time. But the process is likely to be iterative: as you learn more details, you may have to make adjustments to your overall direction. touchpoint 73
Planning workshop with San Francisco moma staff
Be thoughtful about who you invite to the table: museums have staff with a very broad range of expertise and interest. Make sure to engage the right expertise at the right time, and match the specificity of the desired workshop outcome with the appropriate organisational roles of the participants (e.g. senior strategic planning staff for ‘big-picture’ scenario planning). Demonstrate findings: participatory planning takes time and an effective process should leave all participants feeling like they used their time well 74
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What are the Benefits of Planning with these Tools? Rethinking the visitor experience requires collaboration between many stakeholders to build an understanding of the process of – and relationships between – the many elements of experience. It requires understanding what people value, being open to new ways of working and ongoing iteration to refine the vision. All this work is worth the effort because these tools can enable museums to:
Image courtesy DEGW / brightspot
and added value to the process. The best way to do this is to report findings from the exercises directly back to the participants in a way that illustrates how their participation has contributed and makes clear what will come next. A participatory planning process should be well-rounded: the three tools presented here are highlights from a broader set of research tools that we used at SFMOMA. We did our due diligence to make sure that we captured a range of perspectives, through both quantitative and qualitative data captured in order to validate the feasibility of the vision for a new type of experience at SFMOMA. Data collection should be balanced and best reflect the range of needs and aspirations of different stakeholder groups.
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Storyboard, inspired by baseball game experience
• cater to the full range of visitor identities3 • leverage existing staff knowledge rather than reinventing the wheel • embed the process of change management and gain buy-in from all levels of the organisation to new ways of doing things • incorporate a user point of view by empathising with visitors and shifting planning priorities to focus on customer experience • discover alternative models and innovating service delivery by thinking outside the box
These tools are a starting point for you to uncover the aspirations of your organisation and to inspire you to think about visitor experience in a new way. We hope you’ll find them as helpful as we have as you add them to your toolbox.
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References 1
Wilkinson, Lawrence (1995): How to Build Scenarios: Planning for ‘Long-fuse, Big-Bang’ Problems in an Era of Uncertainty. http://www.gbn.com/articles/pdfs/ wilkinson_wired_how%20to%20build%20scenarios.pdf
2
Conifer Research (2002): How to Find Buried Treasure Using Experience Maps. http://www.coniferresearch.com/.
3
Falk, J. (2009): Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.
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Anatomy of an Experience Map How Experience Maps Can Be Used in Service Design
Chris Risdon is a lead experience designer for Adaptive Path in Austin, Texas. Chris has spent the past 12 years focusing on information architecture and interaction design, helping to improve the experience of digital products, with an increasing focus on multi-channel services.
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Experience maps have become more prominent over the past few years, largely because companies are recognising the interconnectednessofthecross-channelexperience.It'sbecoming increasingly useful to gain insight in order to orchestrate service touchpoints over time and space: part of the core aspects of a service design project. But I still see a dearth of quality references. However, I believe their importance exceeds their prevalence. I’m often asked what defines a good experience map. You could call an experience map a deliverable, although, as the current 4-letter word of UX, that may make some people cringe. But really, it’s a model. A model on steroids. It’s an artefact that serves to illuminate the complete experience a person may have with a product or service. But it’s not just about the illustration of the journey. And it’s not a service blueprint which shows how a system works in enough detail to verify, implement and maintain it. The experience shown here (figure 1) was part of an overall initiative by US-based travel distributor Rail Europe, to offer North American travellers a single place to book rail tickets and passes throughout Europe, instead of going to numerous websites. They already had a good website and an award-winning con-
tact centre, but they wanted to get a better handle on their customers’ journeys across all touchpoints, which would allow them to more fully understand where they should focus their budget, design and technology resources. Derived from this overall ‘diagnostic’ evaluation, of which the map was just one part, were a number of recommendations for focused initiatives. The experience map helped create a shared, empathic understanding of the customers’ interactions with the Rail Europe touchpoints over time and space. I almost always apply five critical components that make an experience map useful: , the ‘lens’, the ‘journey model’, ‘qualitative insights’, ‘quantitative information’ and the ‘takeaways’. And when I say useful, I’m thinking of two key criteria: First, it needs to stand on its own, meaning it can be circulated across an organisation without
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t s hard to trust rip dvisor Everyone is so negative eeping track o all the di erent products is con using m sure this is the trip want to take
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the need to be e xplained, framed or qualified. Like others, we make our experience maps large, often longer than five feet (1.5m). They’re meant to create a shared reference of the experience, a consensus of the good and the bad. Second, it’s clearly a means to something actionable – ideally something to guide the design of your product, system or service – and not a dead-end activity. A good experience map feels like a catalyst, not a conclusion. First Steps Before we dive into those five dimen sions, though, there’s one other part I want to point out: the activities that should lead up to the creation of the map. A map should have some qualitative and quantitative information in order for it to take shape in a meaningful way. In the case of Rail Europe, we created a survey that garnered over 2,500 responses, while also conducting field research with Rail Europe customers. If the experience journey has a good number of touchpoints, then it becomes hard to highlight every touchpoint in the experience map: the map would start to lose focus and meaning. Instead, we start with a touchpoint inventory (figure 2), cataloging all touchpoints that a customer has with the product or service, both great and small. But, except for some logical groupings, I don’t worry how they relate to each other. It is more important to identify the nature of each touchpoint or the phase in which it exists. Once you start to synthesise your research, you can start matching those insights with the critical, complementary 78
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and superfluous touchpoints from the inventory. With that groundwork laid, you can apply the five dimensions of the map. The Lens The lens is an overriding filter through which you view the journey. If you have clearly different personas, or user types with fairly different paths, then the lens will likely be a summary of the persona, in which case you’ll make multiple maps for each persona. But, often, the core of the experience (and the opportunities and pain points that the map highlights) will be the same, because you may be focusing on core touchpoints that apply to each persona. In this case, the lens could be some overarching principles, such as design principles or a value proposition. So you look at the journey, and specifically the touchpoints within the journey, and ask yourself, “Does this match up to the principles?” “Does this meet the needs for this persona?” The key is that you want to look at the journey against the criteria of personas, value propositions, or principles. The Journey Model I call the illustrated journey ‘the journey model’ (see figure 1) because it doesn’t have to be illustrated the same way each time. It all depends on the nature of the journey, meaning it could be rendered, or modelled, in a number of different ways. It should also illuminate the most important dimensions, which, for example, could be the transition from phase to phase, or the switching between different channels. This is where you may want to ‘get your Tufte on’ and make sure that you aren’t simply illustrating
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Figure 2
the journey step-by-step, but ideally revealing something about it based on how you model the data, e.g. how many people use one channel over the other, which part of the experience is blatantly broken or which part of the experience hasn’t been considered much? The map on page 80 (figure 3), has the same five components as the Rail Europe example, but the journey is modelled differently because the switching amongst channels was an important dimension to illustrate. Qualitative Insight When applying qualitative insight, we often use a framework of ‘doing, thinking, feeling’. Here, the ‘doing’
is the journey model, the “thinking’ is framed as questions such as “Can I use this?”, “Will this work?”, or “I like how this feels”. Lastly, ‘feeling’ concerns responses such as frustration, satisfaction, sadness, and confusion. These are important components in order to understand the importance and value of a particular touchpoint for your customers. Quantitative Information Quantitative information is also important, but can be easy to overlook. Perhaps your research included a survey, or maybe it’s just gleaned from web traffic reports. Ideally, you can illuminate touchpoint 79
Figure 3 Enjoyability Relevance of Rail Europe Helpfulness of Rail Europe
Figure 4
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the journey through quantitative information. For example, it can be used to emphasise certain parts of the journey (“Only 10% encounter this touchpoint, whereas 70% encounter that touchpoint.”). In other cases, survey results might reveal insights about the touchpoints themselves. For Rail Europe, we conducted a survey and were able to get three very valuable data points: the enjoyability of a particular phase of the journey, the relevance of Rail Europe to that phase (for example, Rail Europe was very important in the booking, but not as important after the trip), and the perceived helpfulness of Rail Europe in that phase. This highlighted gaps as well as showed where there was a good alignment between relevance and helpfulness (figure 4). But the data could be almost anything: a graph illustrating the enjoyment level of each phase or step, the usage level or traffic. Like everything on this map, as long as you have all the important dimensions, how they are rendered can depend on the context. In the second example above, the quantitative information is shown through arrow density, used to communicate how much channel switching was occurring at a particular touchpoint.
Experience maps aren’t limited to multi- or cross-channel experiences. They are about orchestrating multiple touchpoints that occur over time. And there’s no right way to do an experience map. As with everything, context is important, and your needs may necessitate something similar, yet different. I rarely apply the same set and sequence of methodologies and processes on projects, because they all present a unique challenge. But this set of guidelines has helped me identify when to use an experience map, what I should get out of it, and how it fits into the overall research and design process.
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Takeaways Since the map is meant to be a catalyst, not a conclusion, the takeaways drive the next phase of the design or strategy by illuminating the journey and helping to identify the opportunities, pain points and calls-to-action. This will depend on what your next steps are, for example driving strategy or carrying out tactical design. touchpoint 81
Mikko Koivisto is Lead Service Designer at Diagonal, Helsinki, Co-Author of the book ‘Designing Services with Innovative Methods’ and Board member of International Design Foundation (World Design Capital Helsinki 2012).
“I see my role in the board as promoting the use of service design and sharing my knowledge about it with different stakeholders.” Touchpoint spoke to Mikko Koivisto about the role of service design in the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 and his position in the WDC board. 82
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The International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) has designated Helsinki as World Design Capital for 2012. Does this role only refer to product design? How strongly is service design represented? One of the reasons why Helsinki was chosen as a world design capital from 47 applicant cities was not only its glorious design heritage in product design, but also its commitment to embedding the use of design profoundly within its social, economic and cultural development. The year-long programme consists of 300 events, projects and initiatives in which Helsinki will examine the ways in which design is embedded in everyday life. The WDC Helsinki 2012 vision extends the concept of design strongly from products to services and systems. Which service design-related initiatives and events will take place in Helsinki in 2012? Numerous service design projects will be carried out during the year: for example, the Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy and the Ministry of Transport and Communications are promoting the utilisation of service design in its pilot projects. The City of Helsinki
profiles
Occupational Health Centre project aims to create an innovative overall occupational healthcare concept through use of service design. The city of Espoo is encouraging people to participate in developing their own residential area. The methods of service design are also in use here. Helsinki Airport is striving to provide an improved customer experience through service design. Also, Helsinki University Library is aiming to create a coherent, user-oriented and flexible service concept through a service design project. These are just a few examples of service designrelated projects. Please visit WDC Helsinki 2012 website to learn more. You studied product design, interior architecture and service design, and are now lead service designer at Diagonal, how did you become a board member of the World Design Capital? I was one of the pioneers in Finland of service design. For the last six years, I have been a consultant to numerous service com companies and organi organiIn the ection sations in their Profile s ferent c u d e dif we intro es from the service developti li persona esign. ervice d s f o d ment challenges. to rl wo like uld you Who wo et us know: I have also been ?L see here esignservice-d journal@ ork.org netw
teaching service design at Aalto University and Laurea University of Applied Sciences. I have also been involved in two books on the topic. One of the books, ‘Designing Services with Innovative Methods’, which I edited together with doctor Satu Miettinen, was one of the first books in the field. It has also been important for me to promote and to give lectures about service design and its application. All this, taken together, is probably why I got the honour of being appointed one of the board members. What is your role in the WDC? I was chosen to serve on the board as an individual professional, so I’m not representing any special interest organisation. I see my role in the board as promoting the use of service design and sharing my knowledge about it with different stakeholders. Certainly, I’m a professional Industrial designer as well, so I have also taken the role of presenting different designers’ groups and their wishes and needs for the year. What effects will the WDC have on the Finnish service design community? After the year is over, the concept of service design and the benefits
in 2009 mikko koivisto published the book ‘design‘design ing services with innovative methods’ together with satu miettinen. the printed version has already sold out, but the ebook version of this publication is still available at www.ellibs.com.
of using it will be clear to Finnish organisations, both in the public and the private sector. Many organisations will have carried out their first service design projects, have gained new knowledge and hopefully seen some good results. There will be numerous service design case histories to share and to learn from. Because there will be a growing need for service design, there will be a large need for educated and competent service design professionals in Finland as well.
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Interview by Miriam Becker touchpoint 83
dos & don’ts service design
share your service experiences The ‘Dos and Don’ts’ page in Touchpoint is a special feature that provides space for our readers to publish their pictures and experiences from the world of services. Make use of this opportunity and share service flaws or outstanding service successes with an international audience!
the assignment If you would like to see your story published here, please send in a photo,
Sometimes, I Just Want to Sleep in Dear most hotel and resort owners, In case you’re looking for the easiest, most reliable and cost-effective way to ruin my experience, here it is: install a mechanism on every door that causes it to slam loudly enough that it can be heard down the hall and wakes me up throughout the night and the morning. Sounds crazy, right? You’ve designed an amazing building, artfully decorated
A Rose Is A Rose International Women's Day got off to a wonderful start for me: the equal opportunities commissioner of the Cologne University of Applied Sciences handed out a single red rose to all female employees, together with a flyer with an invitation to visit her talk. How could I say no? Miriam Becker, Cologne, Germany 84
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the rooms, staffed a killer spa… yet you’ve skimped on the one thing that can make or break my day: you disturb my sleep every time someone on my floor goes in or out of their room. Quiet doors = uninterrupted sleep = better experience.
together with a few lines describing the situation depicted illustrating your personal service design highlights (or lowlights) to: journal@service-designnetwork.org. The Service Design Network office sifts through the all stories that you send us and chooses three to four examples for publication
Love, Craig Craig Peters, San Francisco, USA
in each issue.
Touchpoint 3 #1 ‘Learning, Changing, Growing’ looks at how service design contributes to business growth and explores the processes of educating and learning.
Change’: isational #2 ‘Organ ute to 3 tr nt n oi n co ib Touchp ice desig rv se n How ca isations? ithin organ change w
Touchpoint 2 #1 ‘Service design and Behavioural Change’ gives an insight view of theoretical models and practical projects dealing with behavioural change.
Touchpoint 1 #1 ‘What is Service Design?’: The first issue of Touchpoint explores the basics of service design and aimes at creating a forum for discussion amongst service design practitioners.
Touchpoint 3 #3 ‘From Sketchbook to Spreadsheet’ explores the impact that service design is now making to organisations’ bottom lines.
Touchpoint 2 #3 ‘Conne Touchpoint 2 #2 ‘Business Impact of Ser- Dot cting the s’ picks up the topics vice Design’ focuses on service design and cu and disss io ns of the Se its impact on business. rvice Des ference in O ctober 2010 ign Conin Berlin.
Touchpoint 1 #2 ‘He alth and Service De sign’ explores the ind ividual, social and economic relevance of health systems and the potential of service design to redesign and reinvent health services.
Touchpoint 1 #3 ‘Beyond Basics’ invites you to dive into the discussions and reflections of the second international Service Design Conference in October 2009.
photos: Anna Shapiro
Impressions of the Global Service Jam in Cologne, Germany. For more information about the Global Service Jam, have a look at the article ‘Playgrounds for Design – Jamming at the Global Jams’ by Markus Hormeß and Adam Lawrence on page 40. 86
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inside sdn
Service Jamming in Cologne
Continuing our yearly participation in the Global Service Jam, we took on this year’s 48-hour challenge: to create a new service over the course of one weekend. Service Design Network (SDN) and Köln International School of Design proudly hosted this year's jam, which allowed participants from different professions and backgrounds to get together.
the look at Take a at: s lt u t re s projec 12! d is k _ jam bit.ly/
Starting off with a positive feeling that lasted throughout the whole weekend, an open-minded and unique atmosphere was created: an opening presentation by Prof. Birgit Mager provided an introduction to service design for those who came from different professional backgrounds, while, at the same time, getting everyone into the creative spirit. After watching the official Theme Video from the GSJ headquarters, everyone warmed up by brainstorming while wandering through the communal work room, adhering to Aristotle's concept of peripatetic thinking. This warm-up excercise was followed by everyone getting into their groups and then sitting down to dinner together. A few hours later, the previously empty, white room was filled with Stattys and Post-it notes cluttering the walls and representing the vivid, idearich environment created on the first day of devising concepts. Sleep rhythms went all to pot, all group members working late and taking naps on the fatboys provided instead. In between Skyping with other jams, watching ustream channels of other countries’ jams and having local pre-presentions, ideas were exchanged, following the idea of ‘cooperation not competition’.
On the third and last day, the intense work on prototyping service concepts started and finished up in a wave of enthusiasm: In a final presentation, the prototypes that had been developed were shown. One team got a symbolic (and literal) Service Jam Award in form of a jam jar although, of course, no-one really lost or won. The organisers – Ashleigh West, Andrea Rusuu, Mario Frank and Janina Rösch – would like to thank all ‘jammers’ for this intense weekend of joy, fun and hard work. Furthermore, we would like to say a big ‘thank you’ for the great support provided by Früh Kölsch, Statty Notes, Peipers Druckzentrum, SDN and KISD.
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Mario Frank, co-organiser of the Cologne Service Jam and student at Köln International School of Design
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SDN Goes East! Get to Know the Korean National Chapter
The Korean National Chapter of the Service Design Network (kSDN) held its kick-off meeting on October 21, 2011 at the Palace Hotel, San Francisco during the SDN global conference.
The reception of the Korean SDN Chapter 88
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Planned activities of kSDN were discussed among the kSDN members with Birgit Mager, Stefan Holmlid and Christophe Tallec who joined as guests. The main objectives at kSDN are to expand service design knowledge in Korea, to provide interfaces and networking among service design organisations and individuals in Korea, to provide bridges between SDN and the Korean service design community and to promote interdisciplinary collaboration on service design in Korea. Also, kSDN will collaborate with other national chapters to promote the activities of SDN globally. To achieve these objectives, kSDN will host diverse service design (SD) events such as receptions, drinks, dinners and national conferences. As the first local event by kSDN, an SD Reception was held on November 23, 2011, at the International Hall of Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, Korea, hosted by the Creative Design Institute (CDI), the very first Korean member of the SDN. More than 85 service design professionals and students joined the reception, including Gavin Maguire of Engine Service Design, UK. At the reception, a demonstration of the service design support software systems developed by CDI was given as well. A snapshot of the SD Reception at CDI can be found on YouTube where Yong Se Kim, a representative of kSDN, was interviewed in Korean on the kSDN’s plans (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OmfWj1X8zs).
d A r u o Y e c a l P t n i o p in Touch
The next event held by kSDN was the SD Drink, hosted by Team Interface, on February 21, 2012, where the chilly European winter was evoked by serving mulled wine. The first Korean Service Design National Conference will be held on July 19, 2012 and it will include the international track, where service design representatives from the Asian region will also participate. The current operating team at kSDN is comprised as follows: Yong Se Kim of the Creative Design Institute, Sungkyunkwan University, is the founding representative; Seung Hye Lee from Team Interface is the industry liaison; Hansung University’s Hong-Bae Kim is the academic liaison; and Joung-Youn Lee from the Korean-German Institute of Technology is its secretary. If you want to get in touch, contact the Korean Chapter at korea@ service-design-network.org or visit the National Conference on July 19!
Do you want to make your institution or company known throughout the world of services? Do you want to grab the interest of future students, employees or customers? Then seize the chance and advertise in Touchpoint – the first and only international service design magazine! We have set up interesting new advertising packages including free copies of the journal. Members of SDN will enjoy special discounts! Download the Mediasheets here: http://bit.ly/tpmedia
bu to u c y hpo onlin int e
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Yong Se Kim, representative of kSDN and Director of Creative Design Institute, Seoul, Korea
Touchpoint, the SDN Service Design Journal, was launched in May 2009 and is the first journal on service design worldwide. Each issue focusses on one topic and features news and trends, interviews, insightful discussions and case studies. All issues of Touchpoint are available on the SDN website both as printed version and ebook. To purchase single issues or an annual suscription of three issues per year visit http://bit.ly/sdntouchpoint touchpoint 89
member map service design network
Australia BT Financial Group, Sydney Georges Klopotowsk, Sydney Huddle Design, VIC Melbourne Meld Studios, Stanmore Proto Partners, Sydney Serco Consulting, Melbourne Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne Symplicit, Melbourne University of Canberra, Bruce Austria C Plus, Vienna DTF Business Development GmbH, Vienna IITF - Institut für Innovations- und Trendforschung, Graz ISN - Innovation Service Network GmbH, Graz MCI Management Center Innsbruck, Innsbruck Mobilkom Austria, Vienna tourismusdesign, Tulln an der Donau Brazil Driven Design Intelligence, Belo Horizonte Igorsaraiva.com, Brasilia UFRJ/COPPE- Federal University of Rio de Janeiro - DESIS group, Rio de Janeiro UFSC, Santa Catarina Belgium CIC, Yvoir Kite Consultants, Waarschoot Originn, Brussels Namahn, Brussels Yellow Window, Antwerpen Canada Ascent Group, Vancouver Cooler Solutions, Toronto lvl studio, Montreal YuCentrik Inc., Montréal Chile Procorp, Metropolitana China Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing Guangzhou Acadamie of Fine Art, Guangzhou Jiangnan University, Wuxi TUSD Tsinghua University, Beijing Colombia Los Andes University, Bogota Denmark Aalborg University - School of Architecture and Design, Aalborg Anette Hiltunen, Sonderborg Implement Consulting Group, Hørsholm Innovation Center Copenhagen, Copenhagen MAN Diesel & Turbo, Frederikshavn Morten Skovvang, Copenhagen Nicholas Jary, Copenhagen
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Estonia Brand Manual, Tallinn University of Tartu, Pärnu College, Pärnu France Attoma, Paris Axance, Paris DESIGN FOR YOU, Bordeaux Ingersoll Rand, Angers NEKOE, Orleans Orange-ftpgroup, Paris Pedro Hernandez, Malakoff Uinfoshare, Paris USER STUDIO, Paris Voyages-sncf.com, Paris VEEB DESIGN, Rhone Finland Culminatum Ltd, Espoo Diagonal Mental Structure, Helsinki e21 Solutions Oy, Helsinki Grey Direct & Digital, Helsinki Invest in Finland, Helsinki Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences, Jyväskylä Kuopio University of Design, Kuopio Lahti University of Applied Sciences, Lahti Laurea University of Applied Sciences , Espoo Palmu Inc., Helsinki Yatta Corporation Ltd., Helsinki Germany Christoph Thomas Merdes, Munich Fjord, Berlin gravity, Munich Hoffmann Consulting, Hamburg KIT - Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe Köln International School of Design, Cologne Macromedia Hochschule für Medien und Design, Munich MetaDesign, Berlin service works, Cologne Southwalk., Rheine StrategicPlay, Hamburg Sturm & Drang, Hamburg Tieto Deutschland, Eschborn T-Labs, Berlin Volkswagen, Wolfsburg Whitespring, Munich Work•Play•Experience, Schwaig
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Kiel Ireland Centre for Design Innovation - Institute of Technology Sligo, Sligo Japan Keio University, Tokyo Korea Creative Design Institute, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon CYPHICS, Seoul design BNR Co. Ltd., Seoul Handong Global University, Pohang Hansung University, Seoul Hyun Kim, Seoul i-CLUE DESIGN, Seoul KAIST Information-based Design Research Group, Daejeon Kaywon School of Art and Design, Gyeonggi-do Korean German Institute of Technology, Seoul Kyung-jin Hwang, Seoul NCsoft Corporation, Seoul sampartners.co.kr, Seoul Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd, Suwon-si SK Telecom, Seoul teaminterface, Seoul Yonsei University, Seoul Xener Systems, Seoul Israel Whiteboard, Bnei Brak
Edenspiekermann, Amsterdam Informaat, Baarn Media Catalyst, Amsterdam MOC consultants, Breda Océ-Technologies B.V., Venlo Philips Research, Eindhoven Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, Rotterdam Service Science Factory, Maastricht T+Huis, Eindhoven The Other Side Of The Moon, Amsterdam Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht zilver innovation bv, Rotterdam
Italy Experientia, Torino Domus Academy, Milano Politecnico di Milano - Facoltá del Design, Milano Luxembourg integratedPlace, Luxembourg Mexico Afirme Financial Group, San Pedro Garza Garcia insitum, Mexico City Julieta Bueno Valerio, Mexico City New Zealand DNA, Wellington Ministry of Justice New Zealand, Wellington Nigeria House of Logic, Lagos Intels Nigeria Ltd., Port Harcourt Norway AHO University, Oslo Dennis Heltne Hou,Bergen Designit, Oslo Itera ASA, Oslo Making Waves, Oslo Poland Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny w Poznaniu, Poznan Portugal Liliana Dias, Oeiras University of Madeira – Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute, Funchal
Slovenia Gorenje design studio d.o.o., Velenje Spain FunkyProjects, Bilbao Sweden Bisnode AB, Stockholm Business & Design Lab University of Gothenburg, Göteborg Daytona, Stockholm Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg Ergonomidesign, Bromma Design Västerbotten, Umeå Doberman, Stockholm Linköping University, Linköping Transformator, Stockholm Switzerland customfuture SA, Baar Dimando AG, Zurich Luzern Universtiy of Applied Sciences and Arts, Luzern Sketchin Sagl, Manno Stimmt, Zurich Taiwan Chili Consulting Corp., Taipei Institute for Information Industry, Taipei Taiwan Design Center, Taipei The Netherlands Delft University of Technology , Delft Dr. Kominski's Social Service Design, Amsterdam
United Kingdom Capita, London Christina Kinnear, Glasgow Cranfield University, Centre for Creative Competitive Design (C4D), Bedfordshire Design London | Imperial College Business School, London Design Wales, Cardiff Elaine Finn, St Albans Engine, London Eurostar Group Ltd, London Flywheel Ltd, Beaconsfield IDEO, London Jamie Power, Waterford live|work, London Markus Hohl, Twickenham Naked Eye Research, London NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, Warwick Prospect , London Anna Rzepczynski, Dundee Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield Seren Partners, London STBY, London University of Dundee, Dundee Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd, Crawley Vodafone, Coventry USA Adaptive Path, San Francisco Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburg Continuum, West Newton facebook, Palo Alto Genentech, Inc, San Francisco Info Retail, Atlanta Kristine Angel, Chicago Lopez Negrete Communications Inc., Houston LUMA Institute, Pittsburgh Mc Donald´s Corporation, Oak Broo Michael Sedelmeyer, Cambridge Moment, New York Parsons The New School for Design, New York RKS Design, Thousand Oaks SCAD University, Savannah Skyworks Solutions Inc., Woburn Steelcase Inc., Grand Rapids The Service Design Group, Chapel Hill THE MEME, Cambridge
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THE NATIONAL SERVICE DESIGN CONFERENCES!
TAIWAN TAIPEI TBA
GERMANY COLOGNE JUNE 22 – 23, 2012 www.sdnc12.de
KOREA SEOUL
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JULY 19, 2012
About Service Design Network The Service Design Network is a forum for practitioners and academics to advance the field of service design. Our purpose is to develop and strengthen the knowledge and expertise in the science and practise of innovation. Service Design Network Office | Ubierring 40 | 50678 Cologne | Germany | www.service-design-network.org
