volume 5 | no. 3 | 15,80 euro
January 2014
Beyond Necessity, the Beauty of Service Discovering the Beautiful in ‘Service as Expression’ by Kipum Lee
Aesthetics, Provocation, and the Social Enterprise by Terri Block, Elsa Wong, Spencer Beacock
True Beauty by J. Paul Neeley
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Volume 5 No. 3
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January 2014 The Journal of Service Design ISSN 1868-6052 Publisher Service Design Network Chief Editor Birgit Mager
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from the editors
Beyond Necessity, the Beauty of Service A moral imperative: beautiful futures Excessively business-minded and overly practical approaches to service design may well prove harmful to the whole field. Far too often, service design is used as a moniker for a methodoriented line of work that remains ignorant of the expertise, needs, operations, and opportunities of service designers’ clients. This is troublesome, as the core promise of service design extends far beyond the reach of buzzwords or marketing gimmicks. Cheap and method-oriented usage of the concept threatens to undermine the whole discipline. Our constantly changing operational environment sets new horizons for designers: only by systematically forecasting and inventing the futures can we prove our usefulness and develop distinguishable know-how. Only by self-criticism and holistic understanding can a service designer rise to operate in the societal level. Service design is certainly a very transdisciplinary field. Then again, we should warmly welcome more professionals from other disciplines to work with (service) designers to enrich the whole field with fresh viewpoints and ideas. In his article “New Service Design Thinking in the Ubiquitous Media” (see page 34) Dr. Kaivo-oja discusses the ubiquitous society and the possibilities it generates; he talks about the challenge digital evolution poses to service design, media houses, and journalism. In “Discovering the Beautiful in ‘Service as Expression’” (see page 41), Kipum Lee offers further intellectual approaches. He gently promotes the shift from the self-evident, clinical, and practical to the artistic and the unexpected. Lee says we have lost sight of the poetic. Searching “True beauty” (see page 20), J. Paul Neeley suggests a New Kind of Design in Anytime we consider anything less than everything, we are missing something: “As we radically expand our scale and scope, we start to see new paths to understanding the realities of the complex world that we design within.” Recognising aesthetics as a branch of philosophy, Grove and Dorsch contemplate on the nature of art, beauty, and taste (and, by the way, critique). Harviainen and Viskari-Perttu as well as Block, Wong, and Beacock present practical cases that provide a glimpse of the field for anyone less familiar with service design. Beauty always escapes definitions. It has a universal extent and, on the other hand, strong cultural roots. Beauty unmasks itself abruptly; it appears when context and the beholder’s history, know-how, and personality encounter. This is why ‘experience design’ seems such a strange idea to me. Indeed, there is a common conceptual mistake regarding the whole concept. Namely, the experiences of an individual — let alone a group — cannot be designed. Experiences are lived through each individual’s own history, beliefs, and understanding. They may be affected by designed service environments and processes, but no experience is an outcome of brand communication or service design. Beauty is part of meaningful living. When one tries to ignore its delicate power and surrounds himself with numbers, the aesthetic transcends towards the nondescript and unknown in-betweens. In the near future smart, mediated, contextual, and adjustable environments as well as digitalisation, robotisation, wearable technology, semantic web & internet of things, etc. offer us a whole new landscape for personalised services and aesthetics. But better futures are yet to be invented. Perhaps service designers could take a leading role discussing the futures, inventing the futures, and quickly put best ideas into practice in a way that allows the aesthetic to prevail.
Birgit Mager is professor for service design at Köln International School of Design (KISD), Cologne, Germany. She is co-founder and president of Service Design Network and chief editor of Touchpoint. Jesse Grimes has thirteen years experience as an interaction designer and consultant, now specialising in service design. He has worked in London, Copenhagen, Düsseldorf and Sydney, and is now based in Amsterdam with Dutch agency Informaat. Pia Betton links design thinking to business. She has worked with brands such as Audi and VW, Lego, Carlsberg, Nokia and Novo Nordisk – identifying new business opportunities and increasing their innovation power. Pia joined Edenspiekermann (Berlin) in 2011. Jari Koskinen currently concentrates on participatory foresight and co-design at AlternativeFutures. He endorses self-reflective and intellectual approaches that capacitate service designers to operate in the societal level. Lara Penin is assistant professor at Parsons the New School for Design, where she coordinates the Area of Study of Service Design at the Integrated Design Program. Lara is also co-founder of Parsons DESIS Lab.
Jari Koskinen for the editorial Board test
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50 16 2 imprint 3 from the editors 6 news
forrester’s take 10 Innovation: You’re Doing
It Wrong
Kerry Bodine
cross-discipline 12 Participatory Foresight and
Service Design Tuomo Kuosa
20 True Beauty J. Paul Neeley
25 Aesthetic Redesign,
Non-Customer Data and Service Visibility J. Tuomas Harviainen, Ulla Viskari-Perttu
30 Evoking Customer
Response through Aesthetics in Service Design Stephen J. Grove, Michael J. Dorsch
34 New Service Design
Bridges of Thinking
Thinking in the Ubiquitous Media
Mika Kylänen
Jari Kaivo-oja
16 From Isolated Islands to
4
feature: beyond necessity, the beauty of service
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41 Discovering the Beautiful
in ‘Service as Expression’ Kipum Lee
46 Service Design in
Museums & Cultural Environments Sergio Correa
50 Aesthetics, Provocation,
and the Social Enterprise Terri Block, Elsa Wong, Spencer Beacock
54 Transformative Service
Design
Kirsten Bonde Sørensen
60 The Aesthetic of the
Everyday, by Design Jacqueline Wallace
contents
76 66
education and research 76 A Guideline for Business
Mash-ups
tools and methods 66 A Hybrid Approach to Server
City
Birgit Mager, Bianca Bender, Pia Drechsel
80 Work-based Learning in
Service Management
Julia Leihener, Mauro Rego, Alexander Lancelot Wordel
71 Equitable Communication in
Chinese Hospitals
Wang Guosheng, Chen Qian, Rao Yonggang, Yu Dandan
Mika Kylänen
profiles 82 Interview:
Erik Spiekermann & Pia Betton touchpoint 5-3
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Insider
dear readers Since its first publication, the third issue of each volume of Touchpoint has covered to the Service Design Global Conference, organised every year in autumn by the Service Design Network. For this specific issue, the speakers become authors and deliver articles summing up their talks. The 2013 conference was held in late November and, as you can guess, that didn’t leave much time for speakers to compose their articles. That is why we decided that, from now on, the conference issue would be the first issue of next year’s volume. If you want to learn more about the SDNC13 theme of ‘Transformation through Service Design’, we invite you to read Touchpoint Vol. 6 No. 1, which will be released in spring 2014!
languages of interaction design
Interaction14 will be held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, from 5 to 8 February 2014. Explore the wide diversity of interaction
design practices and seek inspiration from related disciplines. Four days of presentations and workshops with unique opportunities to share your point of view and get inspired by stories from around the world! More information on: interaction14.ixda.org
sdnc13 online Can’t wait for Touchpoint Vol. 6 No. 1 to be released? Didn’t attend the conference and are curious to know what went on? Or maybe you were in Cardiff but you would like to see what talks you missed while you attended a workshop? Visit the conference website and discover each speaker’s presentations and videos! www.sdnc13.com 6
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engine reflects on sdnc13 November saw Cardiff host the 6th Annual Service Design Global Conference. It was the first to be held in the UK and, with a broad spectrum of businesses represented, set a notably different tone to previous years. The mood of the conference was characterised by an underlying belief that service design is well placed in helping businesses to move through the difficult transitions they now face. Both Nicola Piercy from E.ON and Andy Jones from Xerox Global Services showed us that changing the mind-set of an organisation or shifting its business model requires long term investment and an approach that works within the constraints of the business. But this optimism was tempered with a distinct air of caution. Service design is maturing, and in order for it to continue to be adopted it needs to cement its value and credibility by demonstrating its effectiveness through results. Lee Sankey, design director of innovation and experience at Barclays, tapped into this zeitgeist, receiving a round of applause with the question “Is service design more in love with the process than the outcomes. Do we want to be defined by processes, or outcomes and impact?”. A sentiment that closely aligned with Lydia Howland, IDEO’s design and portfolio director who spoke about the importance of ‘Design in Real-Time’.
This years conference revealed a growing sense that the types of transformations businesses need to make requires service designers to up their game. To become more embedded in the organisations they serve; or as Joel Baily from Capita puts it, “to go deep, or go home”. The next issue of Touchpoint will focus exclusively on the conference. It will feature the themes mentioned above and Engine’s point of view on the three major organisational transformations occurring today:
the shift from business to customercentricity; from product to services development; and a change in mindset from solely analytical to imaginative approaches to improvement and innovation. For those who missed the conference, don’t miss the next issue of Touchpoint. And for those who attended, take the opportunity to engage further in the issues raised and continue the conversation. James Samperi
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Next events:
meet fellow service designer in helsinki!
Tuesday 14.01.2014 The power of combining futures research and service design
Every first Tuesday of the month, SDN Finland organises the Helsinki Service Design Drinks. A great occasion to connect with people from the service design world! The venue and theme change every month, so stay tuned on the Facebook page to get the information on time!
sdn new chapter in san francisco! With so much traction toward service design in the San Francisco Bay Area, the timing was natural for our chapter to form. The SDN SF Chapter became official in October 2013, founded by a multidisciplinary core team with strong ties to the local design community. The intent is to take an inclusive, interdisciplinary approach to broaden the service design community through events and virtual discussions. We leverage connections to various aspects of the design field, such as sustainability, systems thinking, urban planning, and healthcare to focus on different aspects of service design. We are poised to shape knowledge and take action around service design rather than focus on defining service design and remaining theoretical. We want to provide the community with a setting to expose 8
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Tuesday 04.02.2014 Design for good www.facebook.com/ HelsinkiServiceDesignDrinks
where service design is currently being performed in San Francisco and where there could be potential for the field to grow. Events are curated around topics that target both nondesigners and designers alike. As the new SDN SF chapter we are excited that the constantly growing traction towards service design in San Francisco gives us the opportunity to host a monthly service design event. We are currently planning topics and lining up speakers for 2014 and will be ready to release the Q1program very soon. Our inaugural event
in November featured Patrick Quattlebaum from Adaptive Path who presented his talk “On Service Design.” At our December event we had Dave Gray via Skype talk about using service design to create shifts within organisations. So far, we are on a roll with our events and we are igniting the local service design community. Stay tuned @SDNSF and on the Linkedin Group Service Design Network San Francisco! We look forward to seeing you at our next event January 16, 2014. SDN SF
visual project
global sustainability jam
In the VISUAL project, a consortium of Norwegian and Swedish research institutions and companies has been developing a visual language, supported by methods and tools for service design. The language will enable specification, implementation and maintenance of new and existing services through a common terminology and extensive use of visualisation. This will ease the cross-departmental communication and provide a common language for customer experience. In the first phase of the project, which is currently running, key terminology
will be identified, definitions will be established and a basic visual language to describe customer interactions will be developed. The Research Council of Norway is funding the project for three and a half years through its UserDriven Research Based Innovation (BIA) programme, and the project consortium consists of Halogen AS, Hafslund Strøm AS, FINN.no AS, DIPS ASA, SINTEF ICT and Linköping University. Follow the project at www.visualproject.org R. Halvorsrud, S. Holmlid
Last November, the Global Sustainability Jam, the little sister of the Global Service Jam, took place in about 60 locations! The ‘GSusJam’ is similar to the Global Service Jam, but open to non-service innovation (products, devices, initiatives, networks… and things we haven’t thought of yet) and all under the umbrella of sustainability. Jammers found hundreds of ways to address the cryptic theme ‘AB3’. You can discover the 236 projects that were created during this jam on planet.globalsustainabilityjam.org/ gsusj13/projects
The first lesson the audience learnt was that universal design is the key. User interfaces must be accessible to everyone. Furthermore, the topics of the big data landscape and complex medical records created space for discussion. These areas are crying out for for simplicity at the front end. What designers and scientists should not forget is
that people just want to feel better: they don’t care about data and how it is evaluated. “People are lazy apes, they don’t want to move from their comfort zone, and they do it only if they live great experiences.” (UXconference) Well, then, we’re really looking forward to next year’s UX conference in Lugano, which will be all about UX and money! Jennifer Bagehorn
ux conference in lugano People are lazy apes! This year’s UX conference in Lugano was on the future of healthcare... and apes. A selection of great speakers from around the world presented their thoughts, projects and prototypes for a better user experience in healthcare. Thanks to the organisers from Sketchin, the conference was a wonderful source of inspiration and networking, topped off with charming Italian-Swiss hospitality. Inspiring presentations on onehand typing, healthcare in Africa, stress measuring, mental illness management or experiences with prostheses showed where UX design can make a difference.
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Innovation: You’re Doing It Wrong
The pace of business, technology, and behaviour change is accelerating. Look around you and you’ll find that: Customers’ expectations are skyrocketing. People innately want variety and novelty. And now, digital tools give people unprecedented access to what they want, whenever they want it, leading consumers to believe that their needs can and should be met at all times. In 2012, the average US smartphone user had downloaded more than 40 apps that performed specialised functions. Among them: Google Now, an app that provides information about flights, nearby attractions, sports scores, weather, appointments, and traffic throughout the day — “before you even ask.” The field of competition is widening. The competitive barriers of the past — manufacturing strength, distribution power, and access to information — have been commoditised. This shift has enabled upstarts to gain market share in every conceivable business category. Newcomers like thermostat manufacturer Nest Labs and eyewear manufacturer Warby Parker now compete head-to-head 10
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Kerry Bodine
with established industry giants like Honeywell International and LensCrafters (owned by Italian firm Luxottica). And online financial services provider Simple Finance Technology offers consumers a wholly new type of banking relationship. Any competitive advantage is short-lived. As development cycle times get shorter and shorter, the lustre associated with any given service innovation — and therefore the brand that introduced it — fades fast. American bank USAA had a brief leg up on its competition when it launched its mobile check deposit app in 2009. But the feature has since been copied by companies including Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase, Charles Schwab, and State Farm — turning mobile cheque deposit into table stakes for any financial services provider. THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE BANDWAGON ROLLS INTO TOWN
Forrester recently surveyed a panel of 100 customer experience professionals. Our research finds that their firms:
• Seek differentiation through customer experience. Forty-seven percent of respondents said that their executive team’s strategy for customer experience is market differentiation. And an ambitious 13% will settle for nothing less than having the best customer experience across every industry. • Believe innovation will get them there. Sixty-nine percent of our respondents reported that their companies have dedicated personnel for customer experience innovation. Sixty-four percent have allocated time to innovation activities. Fifty-five percent have dedicated innovation budgets. • Trust that their efforts are paying off. A whopping 73% of interviewees said that they planned to launch innovative customer experiences in the upcoming year. Two-thirds claimed that they already have. BUT TIMIDITY AND BLIND FAITH HAMPER EFFORTS
Though firms crave differentiation, the truth is that even companies with dedicated time and budget for innovation: • Try to keep up with the Joneses. Fifty-eight percent of our
forrester’s take
respondents said that their firms drive customer experience innovations by watching what their direct competitors are doing. A full 72% look to copy companies in other industries. • Pray that technology can save them. Sixty-two percent of our panelists report that technology advancements drive their firms’ innovation activities. • Overlook customer understanding. Relative to their zeal for competitive analysis and new technology, a modest 53% say that conducting ethnographic research and developing customer empathy dominate their approach. Let’s face it: The market is confused. Everyone wants to innovate, but only a minority has mastered service improvement basics. Worse still, our respondents pursue their innovations from a weak position, engaging in activities that scuttle dreams of differentiation. The scores in Forrester’s annual Customer Experience Index have plateaued — there’s been no major migration toward “good” or “excellent” scores over the past six years. Even in the three industries with brands that received “excellent” scores in 2013 — retailers, hotels, and banks — there are no runaway winners and only a few points separate the top handful of companies. The dominant trend is not differentiation, but parity. Many so-called innovation efforts also waste time and money. Companies that blindly
add shiny new features or trendy technologies to their mix of customer experiences put the cart before the horse. Consider the auto insurance company that invested in a new mobile app and back-end integration to connect customers in an emergency with a call centre agent. While it looked good on paper, the plan failed to account for the fact that drivers didn’t download the app in anticipation of getting into a car crash — and had more pressing things on their minds than browsing an app store once an accident occurred. Result? Another failed “innovation.” SERVICE INNOVATION DONE RIGHT
Service innovation differs from typical service improvement processes. As a process, it requires a structured approach that goes beyond traditional find-and-fix methods and helps firms identify and create experiences that really matter. To put their innovation efforts on the right track, customer experience professionals and service designers must: 1. Reframe service innovation opportunities based on people’s needs. To shed scattershot innovation efforts, customer experience professionals must examine their business challenges and associated opportunities in a different way — from the outside in. This first and vital step in the innovation process requires immersion in customers’ lives to discover their unmet needs — and removal of the barriers that
typically constrain brainstorming and problem solving. 2. Ground service innovations in the business model. Service designers need to determine if new types of interactions have the potential to create lasting value for the organisation. This means analysing innovation ideas within the context of core business mechanics — like key partners, key activities, and cost structure — and connecting them to the activities of backstage employees and partners. 3. Infuse service innovations with the brand. The brand is a company’s genetic material — a powerful code that enables the organisation to express itself appropriately in an infinite number of customer interactions. To wield this power for innovation initiatives, service designers must ensure that the qualities that reflect key brand attributes permeate new customer interactions.
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Kerry Bodine is vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research and the coauthor of Outside In. Her research, analysis, and opinions appear frequently on sites such as Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Fast Company.
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Participatory Foresight and Service Design This article introduces participatory foresight and discusses its interrelation with co-design methods and service design FORESIGHT AS A GROUNDED SOURCE OF IDEATION Dr Tuomo Kuosa is strategic and participatory foresight expert at AlternativeFutures/ Ubiverse Ltd. Tuomo got his PhD in economic sociology from the Turku School of Economics, Finland, in 2009. After that, he worked for the Singaporean government for a year as a foresight expert. Since 2011, he has worked in the AlternativeFutures/Ubiverse (www.alternativefutures.fi) consulting company, which merges strategic and participatory foresight with ideation, concept design, service design and fast prototyping.
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The word foresight was mentioned for the first time in a BBC broadcast in 1932 by visionary author H.G. Wells, who called for the establishment of “Departments and Professors of Foresight”. This makes the term one of the oldest in the field of futures studies. The first characteristic of any good foresight is its ability to generate new ideas that are simultaneously out-of-thebox and grounded. Secondly, foresight is meant to provide a holistic spectrum of interesting events that we can expect with a certain level of certainty. The role of such grounded future knowledge is increasingly becoming the firm foundation for any new services, productor business concepts, participatory ideation and concept design. Today, the term foresight refers to a systematic process whereby one attempts to say something comprehensive and grounded about the future probabilities, change drivers, change factors, interrelations and options for actions. The guiding principle of all foresight is that, in almost all cases, the future cannot Tuomo Kuosa
be predicted as it is not here yet. But the future can be created through the actions of today and, therefore, can be partly known, too. And much of the future is here already in today’s values, objectives, drivers and trends, and that can be studied systematically. The process of foresight is meant to be systematic and holistic, and it is supposed to integrate hindsight, insight and forecasting in a meaningful way. The ‘backbone’ of foresight is (hind)sight, which is about more or less systematically understanding the past and the processes and constraints of change. The ‘body’ of foresight is (in)sight1, which is an attempt to comprehensively understand the true nature of the present and its structures, actors and drivers. The ‘eyesight’ of foresight is (fore)casting, which refers to understanding the probable pathdependencies of the existing trends and phenomena. One more key component of foresight is the attempt to pack holistic understanding into well-defined alternative scenarios, visions and actions. There are three main types of foresight: strategic foresight, deskwork foresight and participatory foresight.
cross-discipline
1. Strategic foresight 2 refers to customer-oriented projects with well-defined targets. It aims to produce strategically viable policy alternatives for public or private decision makers in power who want to stay in power, and who want to win political, military or economic battles. In strategic foresight, the alternatives are strategic and quite often secret and they are created either in cooperation between experts and decision makers or just by external experts. 2. Deskwork foresight refers to an academic approach of integrating systematic futures thinking to a particular detached research project, planning process or report writing. Hence deskwork foresight, which is especially common in futures studies, refers to a selfcontained project that is done by experts without close cooperation, either with the hands-on stakeholders and practitioners or with the paying clients and decision makers. In deskwork foresight, the alternatives are created for academic or public purposes by experts. 3. Participatory foresight refers to broad stakeholder involvement and empowerment in a desired futures visioning, anticipation and co-designing process. It encourages employees, customers, citizens, activists, NGOs, etc. to tackle identified problems and to promote preferred visions from a grass roots-level perspective. In participatory foresight, the alternatives are created together with stakeholders. THE EVOLUTION OF SERVICE DESIGN, CO-DESIGN AND DESIGN THINKING
Service design is a relatively new field of expertise. It has mostly developed over the past 20 years. The deepest historical roots of both design and service design are in arts, crafts, and organised planning. Later, the actual
concept of design with many of its subareas, such as architecture and jewellery as well as textile, furniture, and graphic design started to emerge. Then, servicebusiness development, service marketing, industrial design, and especially ergonomics, interaction design, usability design, and information design grew out from the thick root of design. Eventually, service design was formalised, together with its two sibling or rival concepts, design thinking and co-design.3 Service design has stronger European roots. The actual concept of service design and the idea behind it originates from the domain of marketing research. The concept was introduced for the first time by Shostack4 in 1982. She proposed the integrated design of material components (products) and immaterial components (services). This design process can be documented and codified using a ‘service blueprint’ to map the sequence of events in a service and its essential functions in an objective and explicit manner. Furthermore, modelling and blueprinting offer marketers a system that can lead to the kind of experimentation and management necessary to service innovation and development. Design thinking is an American approach. To be more specific, it is an invention of the IDEO design agency, now further developed and studied in touchpoint 5-3
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d.school: Institute of Design at Stanford. In d.school, design thinking means a practical approach to understanding the processes that can be linked to the development of any organisation, product, or service.5 In d.school, design thinking is a process rehearsed in collaboration with students and customers. At its core are doing, radical collaboration and empathy towards the end-user, with prototyping and testing having important roles as well. Students are taught to come up with ideas quickly. Sometimes, they are only given a few minutes for creative concept development. Co-design has traditionally referred to designing with, for and by society, supported by a societal, cooperative ambition to become more sustainable. Nowadays, it also refers to an upstream and downstream method, to an idea of giving a voice to those traditionally not involved in the design process and a set of process and tools for collaborative engagement of users and stakeholders.6 PARTICIPATORY FORESIGHT AND THE FUTURE OF DESIGN AND SERVICE DESIGN
Based on the results of our three year ‘ServiceD’ project (2009-2012) within the EU’s Central Baltic Interreg IV A Programme and the Design Tree (2012) roadmap that summarised our new understanding of the field’s development, we may argue that there is a paradigm shift going on. Design results will transform the design world towards the immaterial, and tangible object design such as design of mugs is no longer the main issue. In the service design world, the prevailing core is ever-increasingly ideation and rapid concept design, and there is a lot of 14
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emerging pioneer work underway. The future of service design points towards the emerging ubiquitous computing society, alongside with emerging participatory economy or ‘prosumerism’, which states that the ordinary customers can be the producers at the same time. We may argue that the role of participatory foresight, the method of sense-making and grasping the future possibilities together with stakeholders, is increasing in service design, as it is an intermediating level between strategic foresight and co-design type of methods (see Figure 1). Hence, it is a true method of user empowerment that doesn’t exist in traditional design or service design work. The biggest strength of participatory foresight is in its ability to first show what are the growing phenomena and potential seeds of change of certain business areas or themes. Next, the threats and opportunities that this future knowledge carries are assessed and mapped together with representatives of all relevant stakeholder groups. Then the ideation process, which is based on the grounded and mutually assessed foresight knowledge, can begin. This ideation phase should be followed by a phase in which we assess together what ideas are the best and therefore suitable for rapid concept design. Finally the most promising concepts can be tested in rapid prototyping phase. These new alternative concepts and prototypes may contain service design products, interior design products, strategy products, scenarios for developing the whole business, solutions to imminent problems and a list of actions needed for this year, next year, The year after that, and so on.
•
cross-discipline
MEGATRENDS CHANGING PHENOMENA
PARTICIPATORY FORESIGHT THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES
TIMEFRAME RE-ACTIVITY
EMERGING ISSUES
PRE-ACTIVITY
SEEDS OF CHANGE
PRO-ACTIVITY
EFFECTIVENESS
SERVICE DESIGN
IDEAS
RELEVANCE
RAPID CONCEPTS
PROGRESSIVENESS COST-EFFICIENCY
ARCHITECTURE
RAPID PLANS
ETC.
COMMUNICATION
STRATEGIES
SCENARIOS
FAST PROTOTYPES PILOT
STRATEGIES COMPREHENSIVE MAP TO THE EMERGING FUTURE
ALTERNATIVE TRACKS OF ACTIONS
RELEVANCE
DRIVERS
WILD CARDS
TEST OR ASSESSMENT
ASSESSING AND OPENING UP THE POTENTIALS OF THE EMERGING THINGS. ALL STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVED
PROSUMERISM CROWDSOURCING
DESIGN THINKING
INTERIOR DESIGN
DIGITAL INTERPHASE DESIGN BUSINESS PLANS MOST VIABLE IDEAS AND CONCEPTS ARE PUT INTO ACTION
Figure 1. Participatory foresight as an intermediating method
References 1 Simmonds, W.W. Clive (1993). Monograph. Insight Analysis, September 1993, 2–3. 2 Kuosa, Tuomo (2012). The Evolution of Strategic Foresight – Navigating Public Policy Making. Surrey, Gower publishing; Voros, Joseph (2001). Reframing environmental scanning: An integral approach. Foresight, 5 (3) 2001, 10-21. 3 Kuosa, Tuomo & Westerlund, Leo (2012): Introduction. In Tuomo Kuosa & Leo Westerlund, Service Design – On the evolution of Design Expertise. Lahti University of Applied Sciences Series A, Research reports, part 16; Kuosa, Tuomo & Koskinen, Jari (2012): Design Tree. In Tuomo Kuosa & Leo Westerlund, Service Design – On the evolution of Design Expertise. Lahti University of Applied Sciences Series A, Research reports, part 16; Design Tree (2012): Evolution of Service Design Expertise. In Service Design Magazine (2012). Lahti University of Applied Sciences Series C, Articles, reports and other current publications, part 107, poster folded between the magazine. Available online.
Shostack, G. Lynn (1982). How to Design a Service. European Journal of Marketing. Vol. 16, Iss: 1, pp. 49–63. 5 Kelley, Tom (2001). The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Desing Firm. New York, Crown Business. 6 Fuad-Luke, Alastair (2012). Co-Designing Services for a City. In Kuosa & Westerlund (eds.), Service Design: On the Evolution of Design Expertise. Lahti University of Applied Sciences Series A, Research reports, part 16. p. 104. 4
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Kuosa / AlternativeFutures 2013
STRATEGIC FORESIGHT
CO-DESIGN / PARTICIPATORY DESIGN WORKSHOPS
From Isolated Islands to Bridges of Thinking
Service design has been introduced as an interesting cavalcade of insights and tools for creating service concepts, service environments and service processes. However, it seems that its full potential has not yet been harnessed. In this article, I discuss this dilemma from a cross-disciplinary angle. FROM DESIGN TO DESIGNING
Service design is about foresight, evaluation and development of services, service encounters and service business concepts. Service design offers us ways to model, illustrate and develop the immaterial value that a service may bring to both service providers and users. As Curedale (2013)1 puts it, service design is, by its very nature, a cross-disciplinary approach. Interestingly, Kuosa and Koskinen (2012)2 locate the birth of service design firstly in parallel to the disciplines of co-design and design thinking and secondly to the history of arts, crafts, technology, business development and, naturally, that of design. For Curedale (2013, 6–9) the roots of services marketing, service design and service development are convergent. 16
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However, it seems that the current service design debate has remained on the somewhat distinct paths identified by Kuosa and Koskinen (2012) in their Design Tree illustration. This is problematic, as service design has not been considered and, thus, used to its full potential to date. At best, service design can prove to be an open forum for cross-disciplinary discussion and a fertile source of new service innovation culture based on experimentation, rapid prototyping and expecting the unexpected. Indeed, it seems that service design is, on the one hand, considered as a ‘second cousin’ of the discipline of design. At times, it seems that design is not the best of ‘families’ for service design. On the other hand, it has been bullied by more established disciplines and approaches such as service science,
service marketing and new service development (NSD). For these scholars, but also practitioners, service design is approached with a tricky question: ‘What’s (really) new?’ The service designers themselves seem to have various backgrounds, but what is common to them all is their unwavering belief in its possibilities. Furthermore, they even wish to lift it up as a discipline among disciplines. However, the emphasis should be on the possible synergies of alternative avenues of thinking, instead of their borderlines. Namely, all approaches aim at developing business practices and service offerings. Moreover, it is important to keep in mind that, in the long run, the constantly higher degree of processing and an ever-changing business logic make good services, smooth customer service and meaningful user experiences a prerequisite, not a success factor (see Pine & Gilmore 20113). SERVICE DESIGN AS AN OPEN FORUM
The arguments for building a solid, cross-disciplinary base for service design, instead of separate blocks, are five-fold: 1. Service design can be a family, not the black sheep. Considering the young age and thin theoreticalempirical base of service design, it is not wise to restrain it even more by closing doors and building isolated islands of thinking. 2. Service design as a lone rider or a sub-discipline may not grant
cross-discipline
One broad path is stronger than many smaller ones
access to apply service design thinking and tools to service and organisational development as part of the growing service industry and the changing logic of business. 3. By keeping doors open, service designers can benefit from a vast number of angles and principles, ranging from art to technology and from design to marketing and management. 4. Traditional marketing and management approaches can learn from other — even surprising — disciplines via service design and help to realise the preconditions of the culture of experimentation, flexibility and radical innovation: instead of ‘business as usual’, business as unusual. 5. The challenges of service development are common to all approaches, namely, the fact that it takes place within the interaction of many co-developers, and, not least, the users themselves. Therefore, it is reasonable to take a look across disciplines and to take a leap in the dark: both at designers, service designers and service developers. Indeed, it may be rewarding to see how service design (e.g. Curedale 2013), marketing 3.0 (Kotler, Kartajaya & Setiawan 20104) and experience economy (Pine & Gilmore 2011) come together and inspire one another. As has been said, they all consider as their defining goal the co-creation of circumstances for meaningful user experiences.
In closing, new markets and new business logic call for new expertise that comes down to the ability to develop innovative services and to co-create value in a creative, usercentric, participatory, responsible and profitable way. Interestingly enough, as Cautela, Rizzo and Zurlo (2009)5 underline, the more widely service design is connected to more established debates (e.g. service management and service development), the more it may itself prosper, too. Instead of building walls between approaches, service designers should invite many disciplines to interact, in order to identify and enhance value that services may offer to their users and providers.
University of Applied Sciences Series A, Research reports, part 17. Lahti, 11–33. 3 Pine II, B. J., & Gilmore, J. H. (2011). The Experience Economy. Work is Theatre and Every Business a Stage. The 2nd edition. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. 4 Kotler, P., Kartajaya, H., & Setiawan, I. (2010). Marketing 3.0: from Products to Customers to the Human Spirit. New York: John Wiley & Sons. 5 Cautela, C., Rizzo, F., & Zurlo, F. (2009). Service Design Logic. An Approach Based on Different Service Categories. Retrieved October 7, 2013, from http://www.ida.liu.se/~steho/iasdr/ CautelaRizzoZurlo.pdf
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References 1 Curedale, R. (2013). Service Design Pocket Guide. Topanga: Design Community College Inc. 2 Kuosa, T., & Koskinen, J. (2012). ‘Design Tree’. In Kuosa, T. & Westerlund, L. (eds): Service Design: On the Evolution of Design Expertise. Lahti
Mika Kylänen works as principal lecturer at the Lahti UAS (Finland). He specialises in organisation, management and marketing studies, including IORs, coopetition, service management, service development, and the experience economy. He has authored a number of articles on those themes.
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Feature
Beyond Necessity, The Beauty of Service Discover the role of beauty and aesthetics in service design.
True Beauty Definitions of beauty in a complex world
Understanding the relative nature of beauty in service systems turns us, in a search for true beauty, towards a consideration of everything.
J. Paul Neeley is a service designer & researcher based in London. He consults in speculative design at Neeley Worldwide, optimises happiness at Masamichi Souzou, finds metaphors at YossarianLives and tutors in Service Design at the Royal College of Art. J. Paul holds an M.A. in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art. jpaulneeley.com | @jape
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“Anytime we consider anything less than everything, we are missing something.” New Kind of Design When we design services today, we tend to isolate problems, narrowing down the scope and scale of the issues at play until we feel we have something we can solve for. We then create solutions for these problems and celebrate those solutions. But, in reality, we have no idea exactly what we have done, our knowledge of the systems in which we interact is always limited and incomplete, and in focusing on any particular problem, we have really just ignored everything else. We’ve failed to engage with the complex realities of a world where everything is interconnected and nothing exists in isolation, and in our attempts at solutions have often only created more problems. This idea became very clear to me in my work over the years in the US healthcare system, exploring the design of patient experience and care delivery models. It is impossible to solve for a
J. Paul Neeley
particular condition in isolation, as it interacts in complex ways with the rest of the body. When you consider the entire body, you soon realise that you can’t solve for the health of the individual in isolation, as it interacts in complex ways with the social systems, culture, the environment, and so on. There is no part of the entire system that is not affected by every other part of the entire system. Changes to any part of that system can have dramatic, complex, unforeseen, unintended and often unknown consequences in other parts of the system. Even more problematic is that the cumulative effects of our ‘solutions’ on the entire system can be devastating. We look to maximise utility, but there are moments when all of our interventions together can actually make us worse off than had we never done anything to begin with. As we continue to intervene,
beyond necessity, the beauty of service
there are moments when the system buckles under the change and even moves towards collapse. We tend to seek a type of growth in design and business, completely at odds with the tendency of Earth’s systems to move towards equilibrium and balance. In a way, it doesn’t matter if our interventions are good or bad, it is just change to the current state. And, as the pace of change increases and our ability to rapidly scale the interventions grows, these changes can destabilise the system in dangerous ways, and we have to start asking difficult questions about the health of everything. The obesity epidemic, global warming and global financial instability can all be seen as the cumulative effects of designing and optimising for parts, without consideration for the whole. In a way, we are designing cancers: products and services that grow and spread without, in many ways, consideration for the entire system. If cancer were a business you would invest in it immediately: it’s faster and stronger then the other cells, it dominates local markets and it has amazing growth plans. In many ways, cancer is a beautiful thing when considered and understood at the cellular level, but this amazing growth mechanism is devastating and ugly when considered within the larger system. Beauty is relative. Declarations of beauty
are inseparably connected to specific scales or domains of work. And, very often, a flip from beauty to ugliness (or the reverse) follows as we increase the scale of consideration. Even the most beautifully designed service or system, if considered in its relationship to other larger systems or all other systems, can — and often does — become a great ugliness. ALL OF THIS LEADS US TO ASK: WHAT IS TRUE BEAUTY?
When we really understand the implications of these ideas around relative beauty, we soon realise that to approach true beauty in our design of anything, we must, in a way, consider everything. Only when we begin to understand the total implications of our designs in the world are we truly in a position to call the result beautiful. And, while a perfect and total understanding is not possible, the attempt can dramatically enhance our approach. Systems thinking, service-system ecology, cradle-to-grave and other frameworks become a welcome beginning to address some of these issues at play, but all are still far too limited in their purview. Works like Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and New Kind of Science by Steven Wolfram that acknowledge the complex nature of our reality become some of the most interesting future directions for this type of design consideration. touchpoint 5-3 21
We need A New Kind of Design, one that suggests that anytime we consider anything less than everything, we are missing something; that nothing can ever be isolated from anything, because it’s always connected to everything; that good is good and bad, and bad is bad and good and often we can’t tell the difference; that anytime we do something, we don’t know exactly what we’ve done; that we’ll never know everything and never even know everything we don’t know; that we’ll never know what will happen tomorrow, until tomorrow; and that a theory of everything, applied to everything, is our only hope of saving everything. While theoretical, exploration of these ideas in design practice leads us to exciting new questions, new types of prioritisation, grand trade-offs, new needs, built-in stops, designed limits, considerations of addiction, new timeframes, radical humility & scepticism, limited propagation speeds, new ethics, dramatically new scopes and scale, and so on and so on. Service design is a discipline that, by its very nature, asks us to consider more of the world we are designing within than does any other design discipline. We must not only understand the details and nuance of each interaction, but we must understand the larger experiences that emerge
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‘Cellular Automata,’ which highlight a new type of exploration into complexity, are discussed in the book New Kind of Science by Steven Wolfram
and the narratives that develop from these interactions over time. But where does our consideration end? Are there appropriate limits of time or of domain? The definition of the edges of this consideration set has everything to do with our understanding of beauty, and, as most current constraints come from corporations, markets, and other places with no vested interest in understanding the whole, we are left with results always far shy of true beauty. While theoretically impossible to consider everything, the very attempt dramatically changes our design intent, our understanding of problems and solutions and our definitions of beauty. As we radically expand our scale and scope, we start to see new paths to understanding the realities of the complex world that we design within. Service design as a discipline was in many ways born out of the realisation that our narrow views of experience were problematic and now we must realise that our current frames of the world are still not expansive enough. Understanding this, and the new approaches that will emerge from this understanding, will lead us out of the relative beauty of current work into spaces of true beauty.
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J. Tuomas Harviainen (M.Th., Ph.D.) works as a chief information specialist at the Vantaa City Library and designs games for entertainment, education and service design. As a hobby, he studies games and management, edits two journals and supervises doctoral students for three universities.
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Ulla Viskari-Perttu holds a BA from the University of Applied Sciences Degree Programme in Cultural Management. She has several years of experience in cultural and media productions in many organisations. Viskari-Perttu currently freelances as a cultural producer, specialising in service design, visual communications and empowerment methods.
beyond necessity, the beauty of service
Aesthetic Redesign, Non-Customer Data and Service Visibility Rejuvenating a public library service
Harri Pikka
This article presents the redesign process of a public library department through the use of service design methods. The change was highly successful, increasing both service visibility and customer satisfaction, due to a combination of data and the aesthetic creation of inviting complexity. Data was gathered from both customers and non-customers and the aesthetic design included both elements selected by an architect and decorations created by local youth.
Re-designed space, integrating fabrics, complexity and participatory decorations
In this article, we showcase the research and design that was implemented to improve customer satisfaction in a public library department, as well as some preliminary results of that process. The department deals primarily with music and ‘media’ (DVDs, video games, and so forth) content. We furthermore assess the significance of combining the redesign of traditional library services with new aesthetic concepts implemented in the service environment. Some of the aesthetic ideas were chosen by an architect specialising in interior design and some by local youth groups guided by a cultural producer. The data for this article was collected by observation, guidance of the change process itself, several interviews and two surveys. The purpose was to redesign the services for people who do not see music libraries as significant to them, without losing existing customers in the process. In this article, we show how accommodating both demographics through service design was not only possible, but resulted in a definite increase in both the number of customers as well as in customer satisfaction. The key to our success, J. Tuomas Harviainen, Ulla Viskari-Perttu
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we believe, was that through participatory aesthetic design, we significantly increased service visibility: the ability of our customers to actually see the quality of the service that they receive. A DYING SERVICE?
Few areas have been as harshly hit by online streaming services as have public libraries that lend hard copies of music. Library use depends strongly on three factors: convenience, lack of expenses and the quality of services. Free or very inexpensive online services such as Spotify and YouTube are able to surpass public libraries on the first two criteria without trouble, at least in most cases. Since 2006, the year when CDs started losing popularity in libraries in Finland, the lending of hard-copy music has decreased by over 43%. Attempts to create streaming systems owned by libraries have thus far met with failure and a lack of interest from consumers, and public services rarely have the resources necessary to compete with commercial companies. Therefore, libraries have to increasingly focus on the third facet, which has traditionally also been their strongest focus, even if not always the primary attraction. 26
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The department before aesthetic redesign The city library of Vantaa, Finland, chose to fight this seemingly inevitable doom through service design. Library music services are still in high demand by certain demographics, and have thus been positioned accordingly for each segment, as is normal in service marketing. The real problem is that other demographics, particularly youth and young adults, are no longer patrons at all. Instead of libraries, they utilise direct streaming services to listen to music, as a matter of convenience. Key changes, such as new content and forms of service, had been planned in advance on the managerial level, but not implemented due to earlier organisational inertia. . Thus, a rapid process was initiated by the Chief of Library Services, with a no-return policy: changes had to be implemented quickly, in a manner that would allow no fall-back position to old practices. This was the main factor why service design was chosen as the method. This, and a very limited budget, made it impossible to pilot the new design, despite the pilot stage normally being a required part of service design. Managers on the executive level are typically unaware of the realities of front-office service, while the service staff lacks a strategic viewpoint. Therefore, the profile plans were designed on the executive level, and adapting the plans to actual service was done on the department-management level. We relied on a quick gathering of relevant data, as well as an architect who specialised in interior design, selected by the Director of District Library, who oversaw the change process.
beyond necessity, the beauty of service
Service design begins from the understanding of customers’ needs, dreams and hopes. This time, however, we were also aiming to design for people who were not customers, a set of demographics very hard to reach and study accurately. While asking three young people about their ideas may count for some as ‘youth opinion’, that is insufficient for the types of radical innovation with which service design deals. As a key tool to design for the non-users, ViskariPerttu created a survey to quantify what types of music and media library services would appeal to them. This was carried out both on paper in the department, for customers, and online, for customer and non-customer youth alike. The purpose of the survey was to chart in which services the customers and, respectively, noncustomers had potential interest, services they currently used, which of the library’s services they knew, and so forth. Most of the questions contained scaled options, so that respondents were able to indicate relative interest for various listed concepts, as well as to write down their own suggestions. The survey was tested with two youth groups before it was opened to the general public, who then had five weeks of time in which to respond. Compared to the number of annual customers at the department and the size of the youth non-customer demographic, responses were few. They nevertheless showed clear trends of observable segmentation, which we used as the basis of the design. Combined with the lack of chance to properly pilot the changes, this was a high-risk move, but the current results show that it has paid off. It was possible because, by this time, we had identified the service paths we would use as the basis of the redesign, and the survey data, while limited, confirmed the existence of those very paths (for details of the data and analysis, see Viskari-Perttu, 20121). AESTHETIC CUSTOMER JOURNEYS AND CO-DESIGN
Service paths are descriptions of whole service processes. As a starting point of the redesign, five basic service paths were identified by Harviainen, based on earlier observation. By nature, they overlap, but the interests of some may be mutually exclusive. Service touchpoints on
the material-based path are searches for pickups, lending and the return of hard copies, plus potentially browsing and additional loans at the other touchpoints. This was the path seen as most important by existing customers, even if they may have disagreed on details such as what type of shelving was optimal. The online path contains database searches, online reservations, email queries and the potential use of web-based music services linked from the library database (e.g. Spotify). The content production path is customer access to digitisation systems, video production and so forth, including access to necessary equipment. The instruction path contains courses and personal guidance on the use of smartphones, software and new media. And the spatial provision path is the availability of the library space for customers’ own needs, ranging from on-site reading to organising a concert. Our aesthetic redesign sought to influence all of these, except the online path. The architect, after discussions with the department staff, chose to use fabrics in tones of green to offset the metallic black of shelves that could not be removed from the department. The idea was to create niches that would encourage patrons to browse and stay. Harviainen then localised the plans, removing some elements, to achieve the architect’s goal without risking service quality. The aesthetic additions were all modular, so that the department could be temporarily rearranged for large events, if necessary. Through this process, we achieved a low level of additional presumed complexity that provides the customers touchpoint 5-3 27
Ulla Viskari-Perttu
The initial, digital design notes of a youth co-designer
with two things: semi-private spaces, where it is more natural for them to spend time lounging and added touchpoints that encourage the customers to interact with the staff. This is because the new system is actually not complex, but elements such as semi-transparent curtains create the simultaneous impression of a maze and of being invited to explore that maze. This way, customer service becomes a welcome addition, not a gatekeeping of information. As noted by Walz (2009)2, this follows the psychogeographic enjoyment of aesthetic spatial complexity as a positive thing. It invites customers into a playful relationship of guided exploration with the department, instead of the earlier, brief retrieval visits. It makes them more interested in engaging in conversation with the staff, who initiate low-key contact with them as soon as they enter. It makes the department the customers’ space, a space where they feel comfortable with asking for assistance, not because it is necessary, but because it is enjoyable to do so. We, however, found this first level of aesthetic redesign to be insufficient. It significantly increased the satisfaction of existing customers, providing them with better and more pleasant access to the things they had listed as important in 28
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Viskari-Perttu’s study. Designing for the non-customers required a more involved approach. Using the data, we initiated new services directed at them, such as the possibility of editing their own music videos in the department. Viskari-Perttu also engaged a local-youth craft group to produce decorative artworks for the department, artwork that was placed together with the architect’s furniture and fabric additions, also allowing of these local youth to establish the area as ‘their space’. As a conclusion of the study, we found that the youth and young adults are still motivated to participate in library activities when they are able to design the services from their own point of view and have their voices heard. After the decoration, youth-customer presence in the department has quadrupled. It is still only a small demographic, but this is the first time we have seen an increase in young- and young-adult patrons in the music library since the turn of the Millennium. We expect the numbers to also rise, once more content production options (e.g. game design) are integrated later this year. DISCUSSION AND RESULTS
The more efficient libraries are in their back-office preparation, the less likely customers are to realise the professionalism and positive attitude involved in the services they receive. For example, few customers perceive the importance of exceptional cataloguing or logical shelving unless it is missing. Today, libraries have to compete by way of service-quality visibility, the service experiences, not with speed of delivery. Aesthetic design proved to be paramount in this, as it makes the customers willing to spend more time in the department and increases the number of positively
beyond necessity, the beauty of service
experienced service touchpoints. Such design must be used with caution, however: while adding physical, aesthetically pleasing niches and complexity, one must not unnecessarily complicate the service space in order to make the patrons more dependent on the personnel. The time of librarians as gatekeepers of information is, and should stay, in the past. We have observed that as a result of our redesign, positive feedback from customers has significantly increased. The monthly number of customer visits to the department has risen by 26%, and the number of people who stay, enjoying extra time there, has quadrupled. While a part of this is explained by the presence of new content, we believe it to be primarily a result of the addition of new department functions and service tasks that allow the front-office staff to better display both their knowledge and their positive service attitude. By increasing the number of potential service touchpoints where the customers might interact with the staff, we increased customer satisfaction with the service. That increase was largely accomplished by the new aesthetic of the service space. The result of the process was front-office service visibility. We consider it the most important part: by making the service processes visible, we provide customers with a more satisfying experience, because the visibility allows them to understand the quality of the service they are receiving. By tailoring the aesthetic renovations to customer data and then involving non-customer youth to decorate the space ‘as their own’, we ensured not just a significant increase in client visits, but also that those visits are now much more effective, enjoyable and appreciated by those who receive the service.
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Ulla Viskari-Perttu
Ulla Viskari-Perttu
A youth animation workshop at the department, using the new, modular decorations as a part of the project
Emma Ampronsah modeling her self-made decorations, inspired by the content of the department, against a wall soon to be painted green
References 1 Viskari-Perttu, U. (2012). Ääni kuuluviin! Osallisuuspolun muotoilua musiikkikirjastossa. Thesis. Kauniainen: Humak. 2 Walz, S. P. (2009). Toward a Ludic Architecture: The Space of Play and Games. Pittsburgh: ETC Press.
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Evoking Customer Response through Aesthetics in Service Design
Stephen J. Grove (B.A., M.A. from Texas Christian University, Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University) is Professor of marketing at Clemson University. His research focuses primarily on services marketing and the art of serving customers.
Michael J. Dorsch (B.S. from University of Wisconsin, M.B.A. from Arizona State University and Ph.D. from University of Arkansas) is Professor of marketing at Clemson University. His research focuses primarily on issues pertaining to relationship and services marketing.
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The typical service encounter offers myriad opportunities to enhance the customer experience by carefully attending to the aesthetics of the service design. In this paper we describe how aesthetic stimuli are processed, summarise the sources of aesthetic impact in service encounters and provide specific examples of aesthetic significance. We identify how aesthetics might be actualised in the design of a service delivery system to generate a superior customer response that has the potential to differentiate one’s service offering. Aesthetics is a phenomenon that has received increased attention in recent years. It is both a branch of philosophy that is concerned with the nature of art, beauty and taste and a frame by which to comprehend the way we communicate through the senses. With respect to the latter, aesthetics have the potential to create observer “...reactions without words through the look of people, place and things”1 and can accomplish this without cognitively engaging the observer. The impact of aesthetic stimuli upon individuals occurs through a perceptual process that may go unnoticed by a person, yet whose impact can be emotional and pronounced. Service organisations can harness the power of aesthetics by recognising that various Stephen J. Grove, Michael J. Dorsch
elements present in their service design have the capacity to evoke positive customer response through their artistic appeal and, subsequently, imbuing those elements with aesthetic influence. To accomplish that it is perhaps best to consider the different components of the service encounter that fashion the customer experience as separate sources of aesthetic impact. SOURCES OF AESTHETIC IMPACT
We contend that there are essentially four components in the design of a service encounter 2 that provide sources of aesthetic appeal: the service’s physical setting; the service employees; the service process and the customers receiving the service. Each component contributes
beyond necessity, the beauty of service
Figure 1. Source of aesthetic impact
directly or indirectly and with varying degrees to what can be conceived as the Service Mosaic: the overall image of excellence that customers perceive that is assembled piece by piece.3 Moreover, each component offers multiple touchpoints that can used to enhance and to bring into focus the aesthetic quality of the service design for the customer. By coordinating decisions with respect to all four components, it is possible for an organisation to convey a specific aesthetic message that is both compelling and emotive.
can complement that of the ambiance-generating atmospherics. Even the signage and artefacts that are part of the service setting can be imbued to reflect an aesthetic quality. When these various touchpoints are carefully designed and integrated, a range of aesthetic messages such as ‘cheerful’ or ‘exciting’ to ‘subdued’ or ‘soothing’ and beyond are possible via the service setting.
THE SERVICE SETTING
Perhaps no component of the service encounter offers a greater number of touchpoints that can be cultivated to enhance their aesthetic influence than does the service setting. A unique aesthetic reality can be created by attending to and coordinating various service setting aspects collectively referred to as atmospherics, such as the décor, lighting, background music, colours, furnishings and equipment, and air quality. These combine to produce the ambient character of the servicescape, which evokes responses from customers and workers alike.4 In addition, the use of space and the design of the setting’s layout possess an aesthetic impact beyond their operational function that
THE SERVICE EMPLOYEES
From the customers’ point of view, for many services, the employees with whom they interact are the service. Hence, it makes a lot of sense to consider the ways in which employees’ presence can enhance the aesthetic nature of the service. For instance, the employees’ appearance in terms of grooming and dress or uniforms can be a vehicle of expression that can be designed to communicate a specific aesthetic message such as casual or formal, or joyful or serious. In addition to dress, the demeanour or manner in which employees carry themselves, for instance, upbeat or business-like, or relaxed or methodical, can exhibit aesthetic resonance, as can their gestures and non-verbal behaviour such as facial expression, eye-contact and posture. The key, of course, is to recognise various aesthetic resources possibly associated with the service employees and attend to them to create the desired effect. touchpoint 5-3
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Š Avianca airline
THE SERVICE PROCESS
The new uniforms of Avianca airline's employees have a strong aesthetic appeal
The process by which the service unfolds presents opportunities for aesthetic influence that extend beyond the steps necessary for task completion. An aesthetic identity related to the service process springs more from how the service was delivered rather than what was delivered. The nature of the service performance in terms of its sequence of events, progression and duration can create a distinct emotional or artistic effect that is quite memorable.5 For example, the actions comprising the service delivery can be tightly scripted to evoke an aesthetic of efficiency or loosely scripted to prompt an aesthetic of ease and accommodation. In labourintensive services, the movements of the employees can be orchestrated to create an aura of seamless teamwork that possesses an artistic appeal rather than a robotic quality. The service process affords the chance to convey an array of emotions such as enthusiasm or patience, or trust and confidence through its design and enactment by the employees, particularly when interacting directly with the customers. THE SERVICE CUSTOMERS
The service customers are perhaps the least obvious source of aesthetic influence in a service encounter, yet this component also offers a potentially strong impact. When the service is delivered to multiple customers sharing the service setting, such as the case of an airline or restaurant, the mix of customers in terms of age, dress, gender and the like, and the interaction among the customers can foster a social ambiance.6 Furthermore, the social bonding that may occur can make an encounter more pleasurable. Organisational efforts to manage customer compatibility can be 32
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designed to create that likelihood through targeting endeavours, seating arrangements and use of space and customer education that encourages desired customer participation. When compatibility management is well implemented, an emotional contagion effect emanating from the customer mix is possible across a range of emotions such as joy, serenity or excitement. Some religious services, symphony performances and athletic contests, respectively, generate such an aesthetic. IMPLEMENTING AN AESTHETIC IMPERATIVE
To implement a specific aesthetic character that permeates the various components of the service encounter, several steps in response to key questions can be followed: • Choose: what is the aesthetic message to be conveyed? (Should it be serious and business-like, upbeat and fun, casual and Informal, etc.?) • Consider: how can various touchpoints across the four components of the service encounter be designed to reflect that aesthetic? (Select those that easiest to infuse with aesthetic cues and are likely to have the greatest impact first.) • Coordinate: does the effort achieve a coherent aesthetic presence with inputs from each component? (Integrate the undertaken to include inputs from each.) • Confirm: is the overall impact aesthetic impact discernible? (Verify that the effort achieves the aesthetic message desired through feedback from customers garnered via research and tweak it if necessary.)
When successfully implemented, the service design reflects an aesthetic that can help brand and differentiate the entity. Consider how various resort properties offered by Disney World in Florida, ranging from its Yacht Club Resort7 to its Wilderness Lodge8 and beyond, accomplish just that. CONCLUSION
Creating a pleasant and appealing aesthetic character with respect to a service can enhance customers’ experience ‘beyond the necessary’ that is accomplished via the functional aspects of service design. Our holistic treatment of service aesthetics poses arguments underscoring the importance of designing the aesthetic appeal of services with respect to various aspects found across the four components of the service encounter. By planning and implementing an aesthetic imperative, a service mosaic comes into focus, enriched with an emotional quality that can engage the customer and generate an emotive response, as well as identify and distinguish the service organisation.
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References 1 Postrel, V. (2003), The Substance of Style, NY, NY: HarperCollins, p. 6. 2 Fisk, R. P., S. J. Grove and J. John (2014), Services Marketing: An Interactive Approach, 4th Edition, Mason, OH: Cengage. 3 Lovelock, C. H. (1994), Product Plus, NY, NY: McGraw-Hill. 4 Bitner, M. J. (1992), ‘Servicescapes: The Impact of Physical Surrounding on Customers and Employees,’ Journal of Marketing, Vol. 56, No. 2, 57-71. 5 Pine, B. J. and J. H. Gilmore (1994), The Experience Economy, Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. 6 Grove, S.J. and R. P. Fisk (1997), ‘The Impact of Others upon Service Experiences: A Critical Incident Examination of ‘Getting Along’, Journal of Retailing, Vol.73, No. 1, 63-85. 7 https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/resorts/yacht-club-resort/ 8 https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/resorts/wilderness-lodge-resort/
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New Service Design Thinking in the Ubiquitous Media New ideas for journalism that help and serve people
Jari Kaivo-oja, expert in the fields of foresight and innovation, is research director and adjunct Professor. He works at the Finland Futures Research Centre at the Turku School of Economics. Recently he has studied the future of media and journalism and the key trends of ubiquitous society and transmedia houses for the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation. He has worked for the EU in the DG Enterprise and Industry in the field of the European R&D in favour of service innovation and consumer-driven innovation policy.
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This article is focused on new service design thinking in the ubiquitous media. It outlines fresh, new ideas as to how journalism can serve citizens. The future of media houses are hotly contested and highly uncertain, reflecting developments in media technologies (digitalisation, ubiquitous technologies, e-commerce etc.), shifting business strategies for online news, changing media organisational and regulatory structures, the continuing fragmentation of audiences and a growing public concern about aspects of tabloid journalism reporting (thin content, etc.), as well as broader political, sociological and cultural changes that make many communication issues sensitive. In this situation, there is an urgent need for better service design solutions. New service designs are related to the emerging new business models of media houses. These models are: the provision of static and dynamic content including news and product information, directto-customer business model, value-netintegrator model, full service provider and infrastructure service provider. These business models require fresh service design thinking and pose new challenges. These challenges include an analysis of new UC media innovations and their relation to needed interactive service designs. New business models in Jari Kaivo-oja
media houses require many interactive service designs that work in different realms of realities. This is one of most challenging fields of service architecture and service design. This article discusses new service design challenges of emerging transmedia houses, their business models and digital storytelling. As we know, the decision environment of media houses has changed dramatically in recent years, especially with the emergence of Internet and social media. Media revenues from subscriptions and
beyond necessity, the beauty of service
advertising have decreased in many media houses. This means that they are now in need of new ideas for better revenue creation. Better service architectures and service designs are needed. The production model in media houses is today based on professional, team or socio-technical team models. This means that most of these challenges are met in professional teams. Many journalists and media professionals are independent professionals. AESTHETICS IN UBIQUITOUS SOCIETY
What is the role of aesthetics in ubiquitous society and service design processes? How do we incorporate aesthetics into media services of the future? These two questions are key questions of service design. Firstly, service design can create unity with aesthetics. The whole is greater than sum of its parts. With aesthetics in ubiquitous society, better synergies can be created. The second key issue related to aesthetics is the challenge of proximity. The law of proximity states that objects are more likely to be perceived as related when they are positioned close together. The overall unity and aesthetics of a service design can promote proximity. Third, the principle of alignment encourages designers to position objects that belong together along a common edge or implied line. Fourth, the law of similarity states that the brain will perceive visual objects as belonging together when their style attributes are similar and uniform. Again, aesthetics can create similarity in ubiquitous society. Fifth, repetition is an effective tool for strengthening the overall unity of service design. Repeating visual elements such as lines, shapes, colours, logos and patterns strengthen the unity of service architecture and design. (Costello et all 2012, pp. 114-117) Aesthetics can help in emphasising things and issues. A good service design has a primary focal point or centre of interest. Service design tools that promote emphasis are contrast, colour, depth and proportion (Costello et all 2012, pp. 118-121). To sum up: Service design with aesthetics can make ubiquitous society a better place for people and business.
TRANSITIONING TOWARDS UBIQUITOUS MEDIA AND ASSOCIATED SERVICES
It is good to understand that it is neither a single technology nor a specific functionality that is behind Ubiquitous Computing (UC), but rather a bundle of technological functions that together allow for the creation of a new quality of computing and data and information management. Human-machine interaction is a key issue for planning ubiquitous services. Digital evolution is based on complex interactions amongst humans, machines and AI applications. Here, we do not want take any strict position on biological evolution processes, but just note that UC allows many alternative evolutionary development possibilities (e.g. Internet of Things etc.) for organisations and firms. Evolution is here understood as gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form. In this section, we are mostly building our analysis on review paper of Elgar Fleisch & FrĂŠdĂŠrik Thiesse (2007). This paper outlines technical potential business opportunities of ubiquitous media and communications. Ubiquitous computer-related research is characterised by a multidisciplinary approach that includes aspects of electrical engineering, computer science, psychology, marketing, internet economics, network analysis, innovation management and many other fields of science (see Satyanarayanan, 2002). The key challenge of ubiquitous media is to combine complex technical knowhow to transparent service architectures and service designs. touchpoint 5-3 35
For this reason, the following list of smart objects’ functionalities can be regarded as typical technical options but does not claim 100% completeness:
for industry. It can serve the supply chains but also broader value networks. The organisation of processing logic is one key challenge of the service design and planning.
1. Identification Smart objects can be uniquely identified, e.g. by means of a numbering scheme. This identification allows the object to be linked with services and information on the object that is stored on a remote server in the network. Identification is a key technical function in ubiquitous media. Thus, ubiquitous computing allows many new forms of identification services (human identification, product identification, service identification, biological identification, material identification, etc.).
4. Networking In contrast with the simple pocket calculator, smart objects are able to connect with resources in a network or even amongst themselves (referred to as ‘ad-hoc networking’) for the reciprocal use of data and services. Ubiquitous computing is providing fascinating new tools and services for smart and automated networking. It has huge potential to lower transaction costs and increase productivity in companies, corporations and in the public sector.
2. Memory The object has storage capacity so that it can carry information on its past or future, e.g. a product that records its manufacturing process. Providing memory is a key technical function of ubiquitous media. Thus, ubiquitous computing allows human support services for memory. Reliable memory is a service that has many advantages as a human-centred service design option. The knowhow of human-centred computing (HCC) is very useful for service designers. 3. Processing logic Smart objects may be able to make decisions automatically without a central planning instance, e.g. an industrial container that determines its own route through the supply chain. Ubiquitous computing allows new logistical solutions 36
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5. Sensor technology The object can collect information about its environment (temperature, wind direction, light conditions, other objects, etc.) and records it and/or reacts to it (referred to as ‘context awareness’). Thus, ubiquitous computing allows a huge number of novel smart services that utilise sensor technology. Contextual information can have a very high added value. 6. User interface With the merging of computer and physical object, new requirements must be met by the user interface. This calls for new approaches similar to the mouse & desktop metaphor of graphical user interfaces, e.g. haptic interfaces. Probably we have seen only small number of potential new interfaces linked to ubiquitous computing applications. For example, Google Smart Glasses is a good example about new dynamic user interface: www.smart-glasses.org/google-smart-glasses 7. Positioning & tracking Smart objects know their location (positioning) or can be located by others (tracking), for example at the global level by GPS or inside buildings by ultrasound. Positioning and tracking functions can provide new platforms for many indoor and outdoor navigation services.
beyond necessity, the beauty of service
Figure 1. New service design possibilities for ubiquitous media In Figure 1 we can summarise new service design possibilities for ubiquitous media. THE DIGITAL EVOLUTION CHALLENGE TO SERVICE DESIGN
There are many ways to define digital evolution. Here we shall focus on digital evolution from the organisational perspective. We can note that digital evolution is connected closely to information management processes of organisations. From this organisational view, we can identify four types of digital evolution processes. Firstly, we can define that computerisation of individual phases inside an organisation can be called a process intelligence. In the initial stages of electronic data processing, the aim of informatising isolated functions was to automate individual business functions, such as billing and storage management. Here, manual operations are transferred to the computer but remain unchanged. This resulted typically in isolated business solutions, i.e. separate information systems that efficiently support individual operations. Secondly, when one branch of an organisation (finance, marketing, HRM, production, distribution etc.) is computerised, we can call it limited business intelligence. By informatising some of the most important function areas, integration was achieved and thus the efficiency of entire departments of firms improved. Information technology enabled the application of new methods for the first time such as financial planning and production process, through which business processes could be redesigned and re-engineered.
Thirdly, when we computerise integrated processes, we can call it integrated business intelligence. The development of so called Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems offered firms the possibility of introducing integrated processes across departments and/or across business functions. This development meant that consistent processes could be set up from the customer (e.g. sales, order entry) and to the customer (e.g. distribution, billing, payment receipt, after-sales services, etc.). Finally when one is able to coordinate proc esses across the borders of organisations, we can call it ubiquitous intelligence or ambient intelligence. Many new possibilities of e-commerce are linked to ubiquitous intelligence. Thus, digital evolution includes elements of process intelligence (inside organisation), limited business intelligence (inside organisations), integrated business intelligence (inside organisations) and ubiquitous intelligence (beyond organisational limits). We can refer to these processes and say that digital evolution has enabled these kinds of new information management processes. One special challenge in the context of ubiquitous service development is privacy questions. By using privacy enhancing technologies, many problems can be avoided. Examples of existing privacy enhancing technologies are: (1) Communication anonymisers hiding the real online identity (email address, IP address, etc.) and replacing it with a non-traceable identity (disposable/one-time email address, random IP address of hosts participating in touchpoint 5-3 37
variables
Table 1. Realms in the ubiquitous society and in the multiverse (Pine II & Korn 2011, p. 17)
realm
1. time
space
matter
reality
2. time
space
no-matter
augmented reality
3. time
no-space
matter
physical reality
4. time
no-space
no-matter
mirrored reality
5. no-time
space
matter
warped reality
6. no-time
space
no-matter
alternative reality
7. no-time
no-space
matter
augmented virtuality
8. no-time
no-space
no-matter
virtuality
an anonymising network, pseudonym, etc.); (2) shared bogus online accounts and (3) access to personal data: The service provider’s infrastructure allows users to inspect, correct or delete all their data stored at the service provider (see more details, van Blarkom, Borking & Olk 2003). BUSINESS MODELS AND SERVICE DESIGN CHALLENGES IN TRANSMEDIA HOUSES
Today many media houses want to be so-called ‘transmedia’ houses, providing various services, especially digital storytelling processes. Transmedia houses use various kinds of business models. Conventional multimedia houses were focused on static and time-based media operations. Static media includes graphics, text and photography. Time-based media includes audio production and sound and video recording. In the multimedia houses there is also time-based editing media (Costello et al 2012). Today, transmedia houses want to be something more than conventional multimedia houses. Transmedia houses are interested in using ubiquitous technologies and applications. Thus, nowadays, there are various other dynamic business models where journalists are involved in media houses. The most conventional business model is to be a content provider. The provision of static and dynamic content, including news and product information, is still the key product for many media houses. A second model, Direct-to-Customer, entails direct service provisions to customers and businesses. Such a model includes tailor-made pages and subscription options. This model also includes transaction functions. Typical functions are service catalogue, self-service, shopping cart, appointment, 38
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tracking and tracing and financial settlements. (Janssen, Kuk & Wagenaar 2008, p. 209). A third important business model is value-netintegrators. This model coordinates the collection, processing and distribution of information from several organisations. This kind of networked business model is typically tailored to a particular customer segment. Various organisations collaborate in a network to provide a one-stop shop business model. Typically all providers keep their own identity and service requests, which are routed to the responsible organisations. (Janssen, Kuk & Wagenaar 2008, p. 209). A fourth model in the Internet environment is full-service provider. This facilitates customer interaction through direct information and service provisioning, Involving collaboration among a number of organisations to provide a one-stop shop. This business model is more comprehensive than the value-net-integrator model. Many media houses like this business model, because it provides a broader business potential for them. The key functions of this business model are similar with the value-net integrators model. Separate organisations providing services are not directly visible and they are often hidden (Janssen, Kuk & Wagenaar 2008, p. 209). A fifth business model relevant for media houses is infrastructure service provider. This model provides infrastructure services to support the creation of Web sites. It includes economics of scale for various organisations, based on concentrating and sharing of services in an organisation and on providing these services to many public or private organisations. Typical functions of this model are authentication, identification, payment, secure communications and other transaction support services. Sub-models of this business model are:
beyond necessity, the beauty of service
infrastructures for market exchange, for collaboration and for virtual communities (Janssen, Kuk & Wagenaar 2008, p. 209-2010). Today new emerging forms of journalism are the following phenomena: • Mobile (map) journalism, • Live-blogging journalism, • Crisis-story telling journalism, • Live Video streaming journalism, • Hyper-local stories journalism, • Robot journalism, • Flyer journalism, • Gonzo journalism, • Real-time data journalism. All these new forms of journalism need various service designs to function properly. One of the greatest challenges of media and journalism will be various realms of ubiquitous society. In Table 1 these realms are defined. In the future, service design is not only needed in reality, but in the alternative reality, in the augmented reality, in the physical reality, in the mirrored reality, in the warped reality, in the alternative reality, in the augmented reality and in the virtuality. Table 1 tells us that service designers must understand the fundamental nature of three elements of reality: time, space and matter. Service design is needed in the multiverse, not only in the universe. What is obvious is that service designers must work very closely with media professionals and journalists to manage these critical realms of ubiquitous society. The role of journalists has become more demanding because the complexity of business models has increased. The independent role of journalism is not a self-evident fact in this complex reality. The role of customers has strengthened because of developments regarding the Internet and social media. Many experts now talk about skills brokerage business model, which may especially help business start-ups in the networked economy (Papagiannidis & Li, 2005).
SUMMARY
Media houses and media professionals are living through a transition. Today, many service designers already understand the core concepts and skills of transmedia production and digital storytelling using text, graphics, sound, motion and video. Ubiquitous computing broadens the potential business models and services to customers. Business-to-business models can also be developed by service design. Awareness of these potentials is needed among service design professionals. Service design management professionals will meet many new challenges. These key challenges are (1) multiverse of realities in ubiquitous society, (2) privacy questions, (3) planning complex nature of service architecture, (4) cross-organisational connections of service designs, (5) linking dynamic business models to service designs and (6) improving the aesthetics of service design in ubiquitous society.
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References van Blarkom, G.W., Borking, J.J. & Olk, J.G.E. (2003). Handbook of Privacy and Privacy-Enhancing Technologies. The Case of Intelligent Software Agents. TNO-FEL, The Hague, The Netherlands. Costello, V., Youngbllod, S.A. & Youngblood, N.E. (2012). Multimedia Foundations. Core Concepts for Digital Design. Focal Press. Waltham, MA, USA. Fleisch, E. & Thiesse, F. (2007) ‘On the management implications of ubiquitous computing: An IS perspective’ European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), St. Gallen. Web: http://ifiptc8.org/asp/aspecis/20070051.pdf Janssen, M., Kuk, G. & Wagenaar, R.W. (2008). ‘A survey of Web-based business models for e-government in the Netherlands’. Government Information Quarterly, 25, 202-220. Papagiannidis, S. & Li, F. (2005). ‘Skills Brokerage: A New Model for Business Start-ups in the Networked Economy’. European Management Journal, 23(4), 4, 471-482.
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beyond necessity, the beauty of service
Discovering the Beautiful in ‘Service as Expression’ Reinventing the commonplaces of service Beauty is not at the forefront of the service design practice because we have become used to thinking of services as statements as opposed to expressions. Consider this navigation element found in many services: a signboard. It provides people information so they can get to their destination but, often, does not suggest an experience of the place, even in a vicarious way. For example, the road to Disney World is filled with signboards made in the same format as those leading to a conventional rest stop off the highway. Our services are frequently designed for “directive efficacy”1: they are correct statements that may be used as directions to procure an experience, but that fail to capture the experience itself. We have come to this point in our practice because there has been a premium and prestige placed on the ‘necessity’ attributes prized by organisations. By necessity, I am referring to the close proximity that service design has had with the ‘technical functioning’ areas of organisations. Since designing a service often requires significantly changing legacy systems and processes
Even a simple, tangible material, such as toilet paper, can be considered as ‘service as expression’ Kipum Lee
Kipum Lee is an instructor and doctoral candidate in the department of Design & Innovation at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. At the Weatherhead, he co-teaches the yearlong capstone course, ‘Design in Management: Ideas, Methods, and Practices,’ to MBA and engineering graduate students. Stop by www.placesofdesign.com
deeply embedded within management, the practicing community has had to painstakingly find the arguments that articulate how our methods, tools, and unique approach are critically tied to the bottom line and the necessary ‘logic,’ or business model, of organisations. In addressing the prosaic and everyday elements of what keeps organisations running, however, we have ironically lost sight of the poetic. We help organisations conceptually map out their customers’ journeys and mental model. We provide tools and techniques to identify new opportunities and also touchpoint 5-3 41
action-oriented strategies for service engagement and recovery. However, a failure to grasp the aesthetic dimension that glues the heterogeneity of intellectual and practical touchpoints into a unified whole is a great disservice to our clients and to ourselves. For ‘aesthetic’ is not just a technical term in design (or business), but the very thing that makes us human: it lifts us out of the mundane and routine — a condition that plagues many of our systems, organisations, and services — so that we might delight in what John Dewey calls “heightened vitality.” ON EXPRESSING AND EXPRESSION
To (re)discover the poetic in our services, we look to the concept of expression. There is expression, according to George Santayana, when “...the treasures of the memory have been melted and dissolved, and are now gilding the object that supplants them.”2 Another way of saying this is that the process of expression begins with some kind of raw material — in Santayana’s case, “treasures of our memory” — that must undergo a transformation. Let’s use a tangible example of a raw material: grapes. The process of expressing requires some way to channel this raw material into a new material: “the object that supplants.” If the material goes through a direct channel where the raw material is merely discharged (e.g. squeezing grapes to produce grape juice), it cannot be called expression. However, if the raw material is put through an indirect, external channel (e.g. a wine press) and given the opportunity to fuse with a different material (e.g. interaction over time with the wooden barrels used to give colour 42
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Instead of thinking about the layers of a service blueprint categorically, we ought to start thinking about them topically as opportunities for expression.
to wine), it becomes an expression. The resultant wine is not simply a discharge of grapes but a removed and transformed aesthetic expression — an innovation — bearing traces of the original material. This concept and principle gives us a way to appreciate the beauty in our human-made products. The love songs describing heartache and pain that have been created since the dawn of civilisation are different from the discharge of anger and betrayal immediately felt during a break up or upon realisation of unrequited love: they are mature manifestations of emotions that have clung to imaginative material. The emotion of grief felt in the passing of a loved one, discharged through weeping and wailing, is different from the expressive eulogy written and the emotion that has been transformed through the new objective material of words. To understand just how powerful this concept of expression is, consider Aristotle’s Poetics: he argues that tragedy, whose subject matter is inherently grotesque and horrific, through the vehicle of staged drama, can purge our emotions and paradoxically be a vibrant example of beauty. SERVICE AS EXPRESSION
Our services are clamouring for the aesthetic and beautiful because they have been designed as discharges rather than expressions. Service designers are sometimes seen as ‘discharge experts’, providing customers and clients with what they need, when they need it, without considering how the need might fuse onto new, imaginative possibilities. Consider the discharge experience of a hospital stay, which even has the word, ‘discharge’, in its description. In a recent study from the United States,
beyond necessity, the beauty of service
RETHINKING THE LAYERS OF SERVICE AS PLACES OF EXPRESSION --------
--------
--------
--------
--------
--------
--------
--------
----------------------
----------------------
physical evidence
how use existing evidence -------or introduce new tangible -------- might we --------------- physical ---------------------- materials ---------------------------------------------------------------as expressions of service?
customer actions
how might service designers identify insights in the space of the customer journey and fuse customer behaviours and desires with delivered services?
line of interaction
front stage actions
how might the flurry of digital service touchpoints express what their human counterparts have (hopefully) been doing all along?
line of visibility
back stage actions
how might we ensure that our services in the back stage are healthy so that when they do ‘erupt’ on the front stage, they express an intrinsic beauty?
internal interaction
support systems
how might we begin to address the problem of expressionless information and introduce the aesthetic within our support processes and embedded systems?
clinically important medication errors were present among one half of patients after hospital discharge and were not significantly reduced even with the intervention by a health-literacy sensitive pharmacist. 3 In other words, having information provided directly by a specialist did not improve an already dire situation. Furthermore, in many cases, the discharge notes given to patients and families are in the same language and tone as seen by healthcare providers in the backend. Information, the raw material, is being pushed as is to patients without being given a chance to meld with new materials that could help better communicate medication instructions, as well as integrate more holistically into their lives. Like this healthcare example, information in many services is considered as something to be discharged. As statements, our services are filled with directions and instructions that lead to experiences rather than finding embodiment in creative materials that constitute the experiences themselves. They are like the signboards that direct us to Disney World without having anything Disney-esque about them. A problem facing the practice of service design is the misconception that we design for experiences when we are merely designing the corrective descriptions by which people may arrive at experiences.
RETHINKING THE LAYERS OF SERVICE AS PLACES OF EXPRESSION
The best service organisations have thought about their offerings through the filter of service as expression. Some organisations may have done this accidentally and others by chance. How might we do this more systematically? I have chosen to use the baseline layers of the service blueprint — physical evidence, customer actions, front and back stage actions and supporting systems — as the conceptual starting points to begin our exploration, since it is a framework already familiar within the service design community. Our work is to destabilise these categorical layers in order to discover opportunities for aesthetic intervention. PHYSICAL EVIDENCE
Usually referred to as the tangible layer of the service blueprint, this is a great place to explore the theme of expression. All too often, the physical places and objects used as props or supporting elements in the crafting of a service have not been considered as opportunities for expression. How might the check-in counter, the ATM machine, the receipt, the ticket stub, the parking lot and countless other tangibles be used to express the larger organising principle behind the service? A playful example from the hospitality industry is the toilet paper that is folded up — sometimes in exquisite touchpoint 5-3 43
“A problem facing the practice of service design is the misconception that we design for experiences when we are merely designing the corrective descriptions by which people may arrive at experiences” origami shapes — to communicate to a guest that the bathroom has been thoroughly cleaned since it was last occupied. There was once a time when simply cleaning the room qualified as good service, but, through the indirect channel of toilet paper, hoteliers are able to more clearly communicate that a service took place and to fulfil guests’ desires for cleanliness and peace of mind. CUSTOMER ACTIONS
There are also opportunities in the actions of customers to translate insights into expressions. Shortly after the multinational consumer-goods company Procter and Gamble thought they had a winning product with Febreze, they almost ended up ditching it entirely because they could not figure out how to situate it within the context of people’s cleaning habits. The product functioned immaculately: it got rid of unpleasant odours entirely. Yet, it failed miserably when they initially positioned it as a product that would rid your home of embarrassing smells. Febreze blossomed beautifully as a product when it was finally framed as an expression. Instead of something that eradicated unwanted odours — which would make it a direct discharge in the act of cleaning — what if it symbolised the orderliness of a completed cleaning process? What made Febreze a runaway success is the insight that its value comes from it being something indirectly related to the actual cleaning: it works as an act of expression, a refreshment, to celebrate the end of a household ritual.4 How might service designers identify insights in the customer-journey space and merge customer behaviours and desires with delivered services? Surprisingly, the opportunities may not be the actions we normally deem as ‘necessity’: they may be things that are indirect and behaviours that are unconventional. 44
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FRONT STAGE ACTIONS
As companies grow and expand their offerings, it becomes more difficult to carry forward whatever personal touch they have into indirect, nonhuman interactions. While web and digital interfaces were once considered as ‘supporting cast members’ — with the role of maintaining enough of an engagement with customers until they could finally get face-to-face with a real, ‘main cast member’ — they are now integral, digital touchpoints with enough sophistication to augment the role that human beings have traditionally performed as front-stage personnel. Some of these indirect, tangible products have transitioned from being the physical evidence of services (e.g. the original iPod), to becoming the face of the service itself (e.g. iPhone). How might the flurry of digital service touchpoints express what their human counterparts have (hopefully) been doing all along? Instead of the warmth of a smile or a handshake from a person that once demonstrated the personality and values of an organisation, these actions and gestures must now be embodied in new digital media that have an endless array of possible forms. Indeed, mobile apps are just the beginning. It is becoming critical for an organisation’s front lines to incorporate expression — the feeling that I am still connecting with a caring human being even if I’m not directly doing so — as service providers continue to expand, grow, and compete with others. In this case, the aesthetic has now become a necessity for service organisations.
beyond necessity, the beauty of service
BACK STAGE ACTIONS
One of the striking examples of a designer caring deeply about the hidden aspect of products was the late Steve Jobs. While there was no functional reason for making the inside printed circuit board of the Macintosh as beautifully laid out as the exterior, its interior beauty was important because, “...to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.”5 Here’s another one: Edward Tufte frequently shares the story about his experience with managers at MLB.com. At one point, the site had over 25% that was wasted on lines, boxes, and borders that ‘fortified’ chunks of content. It was an unfortunate expression of internal politics within different departments that led to a homepage turf war. It’s a funny phenomenon: actions at the back of the house have a way of finding expression at the front. It’s like a volcano that begins deep below but culminates in both a visible and felt eruption at some tipping point. Whether it’s rethinking the beauty of interactions at the back stages in healthcare (indeed, patients know what’s being whispered behind closed doors), or the relationships among departments of an organisation running an eCommerce site, the back stage provides a rich place to explore the aesthetic.
Even now, as we face the problem of expressionless information — like the hospital discharge experience example — we can start thinking of new ways to introduce the aesthetic within the underlying systems that support our services. EXPRESSION IN THE WHOLE SERVICE
SUPPORTING SYSTEMS
There is finally the matter of the totality of a service, which can be thought of as a massive expression of the organising principle that sits above the entire organisation. At Severance Hospital in South Korea, the principle of ‘love’ can be indirectly felt through various, direct manifestations: in the selected verses of Scripture that hang on walls, in the charitable face-to-face interactions, in the learning environment of the surgery rooms and in the newly revamped patient-centred information systems. Another example is the Amish and Shaker communities, who have a reputation of producing quality products under the unifying banner of service. It should come as no surprise that service is also used in a religious context — as in ‘worship service’ — where our worthiest and greatest desires are capable of reaching their grandest expression.
Information systems that support and enable the flow of information between customers and service providers and among those interacting within the service provider organisation also need to pass through the filter of service as expression. The very idea that some of our most valued and personalised information is being stored somewhere for retrieval later on opens up this area of service to possibilities for expression. When we someday figure out how to best manage ‘big data,’ we will be able to outsource most, if not all, of our preferences and expect truly customised services from our retail purchases, hotel stays, hospital visits and educational experiences.
References 1 Dewey, J. (1934). Art as Experience. New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 2005. 2 Santayana, G. (1896). The Sense of Beauty. New York: The Modern Library, 1955. 3 Kripalani, S., et al. (2012, July). Effect of a Pharmacist Intervention on Clinically Important Medication Errors After Hospital Discharge. Annals of Internal Medicine, 157(1), 1-10. 4 Duhigg, C. (2012). The Power of Habit. New York: Random House. 5 Isaacson, W. (2011). Steve Jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster.
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Service Design in Museums & Cultural Environments
Sergio Correa is Professor at Istituto Europeo di Design, Elisava and BAU, in Barcelona. A former Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University (USA), he continues his academic, professional and research practice in the EU, having been a funded researcher for the European Commission for three years between 2003-2006. Sergio is also founder of Colibri Partners, a start-up consultancy focused on Service Design and Design for the Public Good. Sergio is particularly interested in areas such as design thinking, information design, service design and co-design.
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Museums, exhibit spaces and public learning environments today play a completely new set of roles, very distinct from those of their not-so-distant past. While the experiences of going to a museum, visiting an exhibition or exploring a library once induced in visitors a behaviour closer to an act of reverence, consecrating such spaces as temples, signalled and reinforced by virtue of formal, spatial and architectural archetypes such as steps, columns and marbled floors. However, the new relationships and interactions taking place between visitors, spaces and information have been transformed over the years. The once ‘dusty and archival’ feelings associated with such environments have given way to a new set of experiences where recreation, informal learning and communicative and social interactions are all intertwined. The prevailing model nowadays is to design or adapt such settings in the most appealing and engaging manner possible, in order to attract a broad spectrum of visitors. People are, in fact, increasingly drawn to museums, exhibits and cultural centres. Long queues, advance ticket purchasing, social networking activities, webs & apps, merchandising items and bookshops and cafes full of patrons are all indicators of and testimony to such a successful paradigm shift. Sergio Correa
These settings have reinvented themselves quite explicitly, captivating and successfully drawing large audiences in a very different way. The use of interactive media and spectacle, dramatic lighting and aesthetic refinement, welldesigned graphic and information design, effective wayfinding and user navigation, have most certainly become key factors in the phenomenon, which has brought audiences from a passive into an active state of engagement with cultural content. This new reality leads us to a couple of considerations. First, if it is generally assumed that learning takes place in these settings and that people leave them with ‘more’ than they came in with, what is the depth and significance of what is
beyond necessity, the beauty of service
assimilated after the experience? Second, if disseminating relevant information to visitors will ultimately lead to the greatest level of intellectual depth, that is, ‘knowledge’, what then are the best possible strategies to achieve it? I would argue, by the way, that these two questions are surprisingly unrelated to the success of cultural environments as such. Designers can always claim to be analytical and highly structured, diligent enough to understand user needs, mindful of people’s different perceptual abilities, purposeful and careful about the relevance of what is conveyed. But, is all of this enough? Could designers or design teams still fail to convey knowledge with such a honourable list of good deeds on their hands? I would argue that the answer is yes. And the reason is disarmingly simple: users or visitors are seldom asked if what is available and presented for them truly meets their needs, expectations and desires. In order for a deep
level of learning to take place, there is also the need of a special kind of experience that, although it is a neologism in our profession, makes perfect sense: the impactful ‘cognitive envelope’ of what we can call immersive design. It is precisely here where Service Design comes into play into the equation. Many of the characteristic tools and methods of the discipline can be applied in tandem with knowledge from motivational psychology, ethnography and behavioural studies in order to generate a much higher level of understanding of what audiences are prepared to engage with and at what level. Cultural probes can, for instance, be extremely useful in defining what types of visual and spatial narratives touchpoint 5-3 47
offer the highest ‘return’ as far as audience engagement, memorisation, interaction and the creation of such cognitive envelopes. In order for an immersive experience to take place it should contain a provocative subject matter to start with, an internal narrative logic, metaphors, ‘digestible’ information packages, coherence for audiences (even if it is non-linear), digital and physical interactions, virtual and real objects, all bringing diverse and often international audiences to a state of full engagement with the proposed experience. A great example of such an immersive experience is the permanent exhibition Making the Modern World at the Science Museum in London, designed by Farrow Design. There is a striking stack of six cars that extends from the ground all the way to the roof, airplanes flying and hung from the ceiling, objects housed within floor-standing backlit boxes, LCD monitors, all enveloping the visitor in a full sensorial and informational space. 48
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In the United States, Poulin + Morris (NYC) were responsible for (aside from a full identity and wayfinding programme,) the design of a permanent, interactive lobby exhibition for the new headquarters of National Public Radio in Washington. The designers fully understood that a user-centred visitor experience had to developed in close collaboration with all stakeholders giving the creative team a spectrum of possibilities. Several largescale wall murals were designed including one that spans a 7-story core wall of the central circulation staircase. Consisting of words relating to NPR’s mission (i.e. ‘listen’, ‘innovate,’ and ‘engage’), the mural is composed in a manner that suggests upward movement. The interactive component of the exhibition includes an interface that allows smartphone users to access a specially designed website offering a selection of audio clips to accompany each section of the exhibition. In order to put in place such user-centred design strategies, a process is needed to provide a fully collaborative involvement of visitor audiences at early planning stages. Rockefeller University in the United States is among the most respected medical research institutions in the world. Its small campus size belies its enormous accomplishments. It boasts a beautifully designed wayfinding system developed by Calori & Vanden-Eynden (NYC) with a sophisticated blending of hardware, information design and strategic pedestrian routes both indoors and outdoors, developed in close consultation with all stakeholders. The final result is not only highly effective functionally, but also beautiful and contextually responsive to the campus setting.
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References There are many new opportunities C. G. Screven, ‘Information Design in Informal Settings: for service design to be applied in the Museums and Other Public Spaces’, Information Design, development of complex communication edited by Robert Jacobson. The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1999. settings. However, such efforts are Sergio Correa de Jesus, ‘Environmental Communication: inevitably ad hoc so relevant conclusions Design Planning for Wayfinding’, Design Issues: Volume about the potential transferable knowledge 10, Number 3, The MIT Press, 1994. of co-creation in these environments will Hilde S.Hein, The Museum in Transition: A Philosophical require the effort of core design teams with Perspective, Smithsonian Institution Press , Washington and London, 2000. the aid of other professionals formulating Roger Fawcet-Tang, Mapping: an illustrated guide to predictive- forecasting approaches. navigational systems, RotoVision SA, Hove, UK, 2005. Gathering empirical data is one dimension of a multidimensional, trans-disciplinary challenge that helps us understand the deeper, even subconscious, motivations of users and visitors. The energy and effort are worthwhile though, as the more we know about what people value, the ‘what’ in their experiences, the more we can focus on the ‘how’, which is, ultimately, our role as designers.
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Aesthetics, Provocation, and the Social Enterprise Redesigning a social enterprise caterer
Terri Block is an MBA student at Rotman School of Management, with a background in theatre and community development.
Elsa Wong graduated from the Art Institute of Vancouver with a diploma in Graphic Design.
This summer, Bridgeable worked with FoodShare to transform a social-enterprise catering service that operates under the umbrella of the larger FoodShare organisation. Service design offered FoodShare an opportunity to understand and grow their customer base. However, applying user-centred design methods within a social venture presented unique challenges to both FoodShare’s culture and aesthetic. FoodShare is Canada’s largest community food-security organisation. They facilitate empowerment and community development from the ground up, cultivating awareness, building citizenship and enhancing individual and community participation, all the while striving to improve access to good, healthy food. PROJECT BACKGROUND
Spencer Beacock is an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, majoring in Sociology.
Terri, Elsa and Spencer are currently interns at Bridgeable.
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The project was completed as part of Bridgeable’s annual pro bono program, which aims to introduce and apply design methods to deserving organisations. We began with a series of interviews and immersions, seeking to understand the intersection between catering, social enterprise and traditional non-profit organisations. Moving through a cocreative process, we helped FoodShare to define the need within the market and then refine a number of service Terri Block, Elsa Wong, Spencer Beacock
touchpoints, while also helping to chart a broader strategy for growth. Our goal is to see them become a thriving social enterprise that uses the proceeds of their catering business to fund their various programmes. INSIGHTS
Broadly, the outcome of our research process was the development of an understanding of how people experience catering. Most critically, people want their caterer to be professional, provide delicious food, and to be reliable. Anything that lacks these features can cause an erosion of trust in the customer, which is a death knell for any caterer. Our professional catering informants told us that missing a deadline was the worst faux pas. One stated: “You can’t say ‘I burned your birthday cake, would it be okay if I brought it tomorrow morning?’”
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“It should be homestyle, but not ‘slow food’. Accessible and simple, but also refined and sophisticated. Representative of the cultural diversity of our organisation, but not exploitative of that diversity.”
Specific to our client, we developed insights in three broad, interdependent themes: • Identity: internally, there was a distinction being drawn between the caterer-as-a-business and the caterer-as-a-non-profit-program. For the former, growth was contingent on professionalisation and a more entrepreneurial, service-focused attitude amongst the staff. For the latter, growth, and the greater independence that goes with it, was not a high priority, for fear of creating a perceived imbalance with the rest of the organisation’s programs. We learned that the stated mission of the organisation, ‘Good, Healthy Food for All’, with its altruistic aim of universal access, could be seen as being at odds with the professionalisation of a catering service that is positioned to compete against established players within target markets. Externally, we learned that customers were not sure what to make of the catering service, either. Because of its close affiliation with the larger FoodShare organisation, some customers perceived it as a food bank or school garden program. It was clear that the identity of the catering service needed to reflect the core values of promoting healthy food to all people while communicating to customers that it was professional, provided delicious food and was reliable. • Customer experience: we learned that there were numerous opportunities to refine touchpoints along the customer experience journey. In particular, FoodShare’s complex website made it difficult to order catering for new customers. Also, delivery had been flagged as a major point of contention. One customer summed up the general sentiment: “The driver ruins it.” There were also several touchpoints
identified as opportunities to drive differentiation and loyalty by reinforcing the uniqueness of a healthy food-committed social enterprise. • Communications and Marketing: we learned that no marketing had been done for the catering operation, beyond a small section on the organisation’s website. There were no marketing materials and all programs shared the same general visual identity and messaging. AESTHETICS IN SERVICE OF IDENTITY
Exiting our research phase, we began refining elements of the catering service to improve the customer experience, to smooth delivery, to streamline taking and processing orders and to enable greater consistency for the service as a whole. Project success, however, depended on delivering a service design identity that resonated with the broader team’s deep commitment to ‘Healthy Food For All’, while attracting clients within a competitive catering market. This identity would have to accomplish several goals. First, we could help FoodShare’s catering service appeal by refining their visual identity across key touchpoints, to bring it in line with other corporate caterers. Second, we could increase customer confidence and trust through consistent use of the brand. Finally, by producing a visual brand identity and establishing a unified aesthetic for the service, we could use these pieces as a way of starting a broader conversation about the unique identity of the service within the organisation. We soon found that this was more contentious than we had expected. touchpoint 5-3 51
PROVOCATION AND AESTHETIC
In a service design context, the aesthetic serves as one of the first lines of engagement with a potential user or customer. It takes the service out of the abstract and makes it real, evoking immediate reaction. In the case of FoodShare’s catering service, this provocation of reactions in customers was happening before we began our work, whether our client liked it or not. The absence of a visual identity meant that customers were encountering an uncoordinated aesthetic, eroding trust that the service could reliably fulfill their needs. As designers, we have an incredible opportunity to shape first impressions. We wanted to reassure potential customers of the catering service that this was a professional organisation, leaving them eager to try it rather than wary. These variable first impressions on customers or users are to be expected. What surprised us was the extent to which our aesthetic explorations provoked our client, initially in a negative way. FoodShare, like many social venture-oriented organisations, differs from a traditional company in the way that they approach change. While aesthetic changes might be a lesser concern in a service design project for a larger corporation, they represented a visual manifestation of the identity and values for FoodShare. As an organisation that runs on collective emotional investment as much as financial investment, any perceived change to their identity could incite upset. There were two main lines of concern raised by the FoodShare team: The first is that designing a beautiful service would create tension between the catering service and 52
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FoodShare’s other programs. Considering that this was a non-profit organisation and Bridgeable’s project was delivered pro bono, the organisation might not have the resources to help other parts of the organisation achieve similar goals. Second, the FoodShare team raised concerns that, by designing a specific service for a more corporate audience, we might alienate a core audience of supporters and volunteers within FoodShare who are distinctly non-corporate. This was, paradoxically, at odds with the stated desire of the project to market to a more corporate audience as a means of generating revenue for other programs. We were left with a delicate space to play in.
A card sorting exercise used to define aesthetic preference, with like, indifferent and dislike piles.
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To navigate these sensitivities, we interwove opportunities for co-creation and exploration with our client into the broader design process. One example of this is a card sorting exercise that we conducted with diverse stakeholders at FoodShare, where we asked them to categorise visual and verbal stimuli as either ‘like’, ‘dislike’ or ‘indifferent’. Explorations such as this helped us to understand what our palette could look like as we developed the aesthetic further. Furthermore, it helped to build alignment and buy-in across the organisation around the fact that we were recommending major changes. We also designed the brand identity such that it could be expanded to other programs at FoodShare relatively easily, helping to assuage some fears that it might alienate other programs. Materials also emphasised the mandate and provided examples of the people and programs taking place as a way to reinforce FoodShare’s broader social values. In the end, these efforts paid off: FoodShare has since come to view this service design project as a model for their other programs. Through co-creative process and by using aesthetic prototypes to test the waters, we were able to demonstrate a process and outcome that can serve as a guide for future efforts.
The brand identity of the FoodShare catering operation can be extended to other programs within the organisation.
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Transformative Service Design Inviting customers to have artful self-dialogues about money
Kirsten Bonde Sørensen graduated as a designer from Kolding School of Design. She has a Master of Arts degree in rhetoric (2003) and a Ph.D. in strategic design (2011). Currently employed by the Aarhus School of Architecture, teaching strategic design and service design, she is also a member of the Platform REform research group. reform.aarch.dk kirstenbondesorensen.dk
At ‘The MoneyWorkshop’ — a creative workshop conducted at a Danish bank in 2011 — bank customers were invited to have artful and creative dialogues with themselves, cutting and pasting images of their present perceptions about money as well as strategies on their desired ‘moneybehaviour’. These handmade, artistic strategies turned out to be highly self-persuasive: the majority of the participants changed their perception and behaviour in relation to money. Central in this research are generative tools — also known as ‘thinking tools’ — that can be used as “a language for co-creation…aimed at the collective creativity” (Sanders, 2002). In this research generative tools are used in a new way, as “a language for self-dialogue and value clarification” (Sørensen, 2011). This research demonstrates how services can be designed as aesthetic learning processes that can make people learn the power of both their creativity and aesthetic expression and the power of changing their dominant values and, thus, the way they think and act, in this case in relation to money. OUR RELATIONSHIP TO MONEY AND PRIVATE FINANCES
In Denmark and several other countries, an increasing number of people have lost 54
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control of their private finances. Today, around 100,000 Danish citizens between 20-40 years old are registered with a bad credit rating. Moreover, there is a growing need and desire among other groups of people to swap their values for more sustainable ones by, for example, reducing their addiction to shopping. This means there are two new types of needs, both related to a desired change in perception and behaviour in relation to money. Our perception and behaviour in relation to money is guided by our dominant values. Values are vital in our understanding of ourselves, the world and of other people. Values answer the questions of why people do what they do, and their relationships and motivations regarding things, work, money etc. Over the years, numerous researchers and practitioners within
Bonde Sørensen, 2011
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business development (Peter Senge 1990, Peter Drucker, 1999, Richard Norman, 2001) and personal development (Convey, 2004, Senge 1999) have pointed to this obvious need for understanding and clarifying values and mental models prior to personal change and organisational innovation. Recently new types of theories have emerged. One of them is Otto Scharmer’s Theory U published in Theory U — Leading from the Future As It Emerges (2007). “Stop downloading,” Scharmer argues. Downloading means taking an existing framework and applying it to a situation in a certain context. Theory U also emphasises the need for fundamentally changing our perspectives and the values that dominate our habitual ways of thinking and acting by “travelling down one side of the U” and emerging on the other side. Scharmer recommends “surfacing our deep assumptions,” “reframing” and “recreating new thinking and principles” (Scharmer, 2007, 28). Theory U is heavily influenced by Eastern philosophies and provides a language and structure for arts- and aesthetics-based learning, dialogue and reflection.
Participants in a creative workshop having artful dialogues with themselves
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Bonde Sørensen, 2011
The box with all the creative tasks — developed for this specific research project
THE POWER OF AESTHETICS AND ARTFUL DIALOGUES
The term ‘aesthetics’ comes from the Greek aistesis and can be translated as sensation, sense or feeling. There is a widespread interpretation of aesthetics that refers to religion, special views on sensory perception and individual taste preferences. In this paper, I will include a definition from the book Aesthetics and Learning by Austring & Sørensen, in which aesthetics refers to the special symbolic language that we use when working with artistic forms of expression, like in the MoneyWorkshop: “Aesthetics is a sensual symbolic form that contains an interpretation of ourselves and the world and which is particularly capable of communicating from, to and about emotions” Austring & Sørensen, 2011
Another relevant and especially significant feature of aesthetic activity is that it can be used to express ‘the unspeakable’: “The unspeakable can be thoughts and knowledge that you are not capable of putting into words and thus capture in discursive language…”
These definitions, combined with notions from design theory like Schöns notion “reflection-in-action” and “conversation with materials”, means that aesthetic expressions can be considered a potential catalyst for a deeper inquiry, 56
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an invitation to have a conversation either with yourself or with others. As Austring & Sørensen argue: "Through the aesthetic mediation of the unspeakable, we thus become able to reflect on and communicate about the things we would not otherwise be able to speak of ” Austring & Sørensen, 2011 TRANSFORMATIVE SERVICE DESIGN
This paper refers to my Ph.D. thesis (Sørensen, K. B. 2011), in which a radical new financial service, The MoneyWorkshop, was developed for a Danish bank. In this research, and in additional research, I demonstrated the hypothesis that a design process and design activities can be considered an aesthetic learning process and ‘a language for self-dialogue and value clarification’ aimed at surfacing and reframing or changing ‘the unspeakable’, ‘the unconscious’ and deep dominant values and assumptions. The MoneyWorkshop was a guided creative journey where participants were urged to make and create collages that visualise their perception of money, their money behaviour, their memories about money and their wishes for the future. Participants were cutting, shaping and gluing both their value clarifications and their new personal strategies.
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Personal statement made by the Flying Lady, “So fly, goddamit!”
EXTRACTS FROM INTERVIEWS WITH CUSTOMERS PARTICIPATING IN THE MONEYWORKSHOP
‘The Flying Lady’, is a bank customer around 50 years old. Working on the present situation, she states and illustrates that her perception of money is “a dreary job of balancing the account and making sure there are not too many figures in red when you check your online bank statement.” Working with her memories of money, she makes this collage revealing “the baggage I carry through life.” Below is an excerpt from her presentation of her memories.
Collage made by ‘the Flying Lady’ describing her past situation, illustrating a picture of her mother, her father, the big whole where all money disappeared into
“That’s the baggage I carry through life… My mother always had to take the calls from the Credit Union, because we needed a postponement of our payments: my father went out and started digging in his little kitchen garden. That’s where all the extra money went. I wore second-hand clothes, we never went on vacation, I never had pocket money…”
After participants had completed different creative assignments related to the present and the past, they were presented with assignments that relate to the future, ‘doing’ creative inner dialogue and reflections on the future. This can be an overwhelming and provocative assignment, as we are not familiar with dreaming or wishing. Rather, we are often more familiar with thinking about things we do not want. Cognitive science demonstrates that our imagination of the future has an impact on our actual experience of the future. Therefore it is extremely important to imagine our wishes for the future (Oshner, 2002). At the end of the workshop, participants were offered the possibility of making a personal statement, which acts as a kind of personal visual strategy. The Flying Lady made the statement: “So, fly, goddammit!” (in Danish: Flyv for fanden!). After approximately six weeks, participants were invited to a follow-up workshop, primarily in order to learn the effect of their participation in the workshop. The following section brings an excerpt from this follow-up interview. touchpoint 5-3 57
The interviewer: What has happened since you participated in the MoneyWorkshop? The Flying Lady: During this process I became aware of something that I had forgotten: that, for me, money is tied to energy. For years, my perception of money has been a dreary job of balancing the account and making sure there are not too many figures in red when I check my online bank statement. I have changed my perception of money: money starts things, makes things possible and I suddenly remembered that — that view of money — it’s been quite interesting to have this revived and kept in the back of my mind, considering what I have been involved in over the last four weeks. It’s really been useful. The interviewer: What do you remember best from the workshop? The Flying Lady: That I managed to transform my father’s last, defensive, sad words: “Maybe I should have taken more chances in my life” to the forward-looking, positive: “So, fly, goddammit”, and that expression has been VERY important for me the last few weeks. The interviewer: How? The Flying Lady: Because my place of work is in total chaos and I may get my marching orders the day after tomorrow. This workshop four weeks ago made me take action: I thought: “I have to do something — I cannot just sit passive and wait for someone to do something to ME.” So I have started plenty of different activities, outlining what I really want to do with the rest of my life. So this has been quite a process. It would probably have happened at some point, but the MoneyWorkshop started the process and accelerated it, no doubt about that. The interviewer: That’s great to hear. Can you describe what happens when you look at those pictures? Would it have been the same if I had interviewed you and asked you to tell me about your money memories? The Flying Lady: It would have been very different, because it would not have been something we created. We really created this by cutting out the pictures, by choosing the things that meant something to US. These pictures somehow open some other doors in your consciousness, than if you just had to answer a question: you explore your own mind, I think. 58
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THE POWER OF ‘MAKING’ AND AESTHETIC
CONCLUSIONS AND PERSPECTIVES
EXPERIENCE
This research demonstrates how services can be designed as aesthetic learning processes that can make people learn the power of both their creativity and their aesthetic expression and the power of changing their dominant values and thus the way they think and act, in this case in relation to money. In this research generative tools are moved from a language for co-creation aimed at the collective creativity (Sanders 2000) into “a language for self-dialogue and value clarification aimed at the creativity of the individual” (Sørensen, K.B., 2011). A theoretical explanation is found in Manz & Neck’s theory about “Thought Self-Leadership” (1992, 1999). The visual-making language and the aesthetic learning process stimulate the development of new cognitive strategies and, thus, make us capable of changing our habitual ways of thinking and acting. Carrying this notion forward, I have named these customers, “Self-leading customers,” as they have taken control and have become self-leading. In a broader perspective, I can see this type of transformative service empowering people and turning them into creative and self-leading customers, patients, students, citizens, etc.
The MoneyWorkshop offers an aesthetic learning process and urges participants to make, to create and to express themselves visually and aesthetically. As the illustrations demonstrate, participants made visual and handmade strategies for the future. These strategies proved to be highly self-persuasive: six weeks later, the majority of the participants had changed their behaviour — like the Flying Lady — in accordance with their new strategies. Participants demonstrated how they had become increasingly aware of what they really wish, and what guiding values they want to pursue in their lives, here with a focus on their private finances. Looking into the domain of ‘transformative learning’, aesthetic experience is considered to be key (Maxine Greene). Aesthetic experience is considered to be a potent catalyst for a deeper inquiry. The images that participants create externalise the unconscious and make tacit knowledge visible. That is why generative tools are so powerful. Generative tools are known as ‘thinking tools’. E.B. Sanders (2000) calls generative tools “a language for co-creation”, aimed at the collective creativity. Sanders claims this language is characterised by two things: first of all, the language is predominantly visual and the ambiguity that often characterises visuals does indeed affect the participants’ way of thinking. Second, a key concept in the language of co-creation is ‘making’ and the fact that participants are ‘creating’, makes the use of the language a kind of creative process, a design process (Sanders, 2000):
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References Austring, B. D. & Sørensen, M. C.: Aesthetics and learning: The Future of Education Conference Proceedings 2011 by Simonelli Editore Neck, C. P., Neck, H.M., Manz, C.C., Godwin, J. (1999). ‘I think I Can, I think I Can – a Self-Leadership Perspective toward Enhancing Entrepreneur Thought Patterns, Self-Efficacy and Performance’. Journal of Managerial Psychology 14, No 6, 477-501. Sanders, E. B.-N. (2008). ‘An Evolving Map of Design Practice and Design Research’. Volume, DOI Sanders, E. B.-N. & Stappers, P.J. (2008). ‘Co-creation and the New Landscapes of Design’. CoDesign, Taylor & Francis marts 2008. Sørensen, K. B. (2011) When Designing Emerges into Strategies– in an Organisation and in Individuals. Ph.D. Thesis, Kolding School of Design.
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The Aesthetic of the Everyday, by Design Tracing beautiful experiences to beautiful ideas
Jacqueline Wallace is a design strategy consultant. Focusing on system design as a driver of social change, she works to support the efforts of organisations as they navigate complexity and develop products that use data and storytelling to design meaningful user experiences, in the digital and physical world.
The aesthetic of the everyday occurs when a person acknowledges something as beautiful while experiencing the emotional and psychological sensations that come with the appreciation of beauty in the world. Although each person’s experiences are only known to themselves, we can equate the aesthetic to the lingering pleasure of being alive in the here-and-now, with complementing feelings of ease, grace, purpose and belonging. This article will explore the role that design processes play in shaping a beautiful world through the human ability to cultivate and realise beautiful ideas, while investigating the relationship between aesthetics and design to form a more perfect union between the two. Through the lens of history, design persists as a two-fold activity in which a person sees a way to improve daily life and then embarks on a process to create a thing that fills the opportunity space. In this way, design begins at the point of realising that experiences could be improved and ends at the point of improvement. In his piece The Gift, Clive Dilnot describes designers as those with the ability to create “…a world that acknowledges, knows, and recognises us and, in that knowing, seeks also to alleviate some of the severe limitations (physical,
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physiological, psychological) that we have as human beings.”1 Designers form ideas by being critical to the present while applying a creative perspective to change. Then, they use their abilities and technical skills to make things that address some of the manifold needs we have as sensitive beings navigating an unpredictable environment. As they transmit their ideas to the public, designers create the possibility of the aesthetic of the everyday through tools that are beautiful in form and transcendent in function.
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Through time, designers have created tools of great consequence: indoor plumbing, the car, electricity, the airplane, the internet, the iPhone. To those of us who were born with them, these things are as real and as common as trees in the forest. Our adaptive nature and malleable minds allow us to embrace them as natural and to integrate them into our lives. And as we continue to design new, high-tech tools, our preferences evolve and we continue to lift the bar of expectation for future aesthetic experiences. Despite this, our experiences of beauty in the world should not rely on tools and objects alone. Other factors affect the character of the everyday. Specifically the intangible systems that influence the social and political landscapes we are situated in. These include the policies, regulations, enforcement procedures, communication systems and other invisible-yetpresent elements that shape our social contexts and services. In the radio show This American Life, Emir Kamenica, Economics professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, articulates the role that these intangibles play in the aesthetic of the everyday. Telling the story of his transition from Bosnian refugee, to the student of a bad public school in Atlanta, to finally a very good private school, he says:
“I mean, not just was the school good, I also felt safe. And this feeling of safety had been lacking for the previous few years. And I think it does something to you. I think you have no new resources to pay attention to things about the world which are beautiful, things about the world which are interesting, things about the world which are intriguing.�2 Although this is one man’s experience, it exposes a valuable insight to the determination that sound social structures play on the spectrum of human experience. Without them, our efforts are directed to the requirements of survival, leaving us little space for discovering and savouring the pleasures of the finer things. This puts the value of our welldesigned tools in danger. What is the purpose of a tool that can create beautiful individual experiences, if a majority of its potential users are subjugated to social circumstances that diminish the possibilities of its design? It is important to note that these intangible social, political and economic systems did not design themselves. touchpoint 5-3 61
They also came into the world as ideas; ideas for creating just and functional ways of living for individuals and communities. But a border separates the processes of their creation from what is understood as ‘design work’. Instead ‘design work’ is done by industry professionals who apply their talents to the creation of products and services offered for sale. On the other hand, public services are created by politicians, social workers and bureaucrats who design the legislation, enforcement procedures, operational hierarchies and communication systems that give shape to the intangible systems that we are all served by and subject to. Both sides share a stake in the possibility of the aesthetic of the everyday and the work of both call for creative thinking and thoughtful dissemination into society. However, we should inquire as to the reasons why neither the design processes nor the practitioners of these two groups are perceived as aligned. One reason could be the design industry’s commercial focus, inherited from its post-war legacy. During the late19th and 20th centuries, professional design was a relatively new field and it made its mark through its ability to drive revenue for businesses developing consumer-focused technologies (the car, the telephone, the corporate office, the 62
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airplane, the refrigerator, etc). Designers could make these products beautiful in form and companies could market them at scale. As stated by the design critic Ralph Caplan, this resulted in designers becoming, “...the handmaidens of industry,”3 working to stylise the creative efforts of those who were producing the machines and technologies that would come to define the future of innovation. As the design industry has maintained its commercial focus through time, the skill sets of its practitioners were skewed toward the commercial and the tangible. One of the greatest designers of our time, Steve Jobs, stated the consequences of this problem as follows:
“A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.”4
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What Jobs points out is that in the realm of thoughtful creation, empathy and imagination in experience can inspire the ideas needed for good design. Design that can solve problems about which we were unaware and meet needs that we didn’t know existed. As our technology, tools and social structures become increasingly complex, true creative work necessitates systemic and fluid thinking by collaborative practitioners who bring a broad range of experiences and skills sets together to realise a variety of artefacts, experiences and services. Service design is one of the first disciplines stepping into the murky middle ground between the design of intangible systems and tangible tools. At its core, service design seeks to unearth the way that objects, communications, processes and behaviours come together to produce experiences for various players participating in a shared system. It brings the highly-attuned creative expertise of designers to the breakdown of complex problems, while integrating multidisciplinary voices and ‘other’ designers (the designers of policy, regulation, operations, etc.) in creative processes to provoke the most critical and creative thinking possible. In this way, service design’s approach empowers the discipline of design by familiarising designers with the unsteady landscape of the intangible while injecting creative processes honed by the design industry into the development of policies, communications and economic models. Likewise, by looking beyond products offered to us for sale and to the symphony of experiences created by the relationship between tangible tools and intangible systems, service design has the opportunity to improve our social landscape.
This is where we can locate the beauty of service: in the thoughtful creation of systems that strive to balance the creative energy applied to welldesigned tools and well-designed social contexts. By acknowledging that the aesthetic of the everyday cannot depend on objects alone, service design leverages the relations between the tangible and the intangible to saturate our daily lives with beauty and possibility. In this way, service design gives designers license to move away from objects and closer to ideas. Because ideas are beautiful too, and we must do our best to realise them, in their many possible manifestations.
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References 1 Dilnot, C. (1993). ‘The Gift’. Design Issues, 9 (2), 51-63. 2 ‘How I Got into College’. This American Life. Natl. Public Radio. WNYC, New York. 06 September 2013. Radio. 3 Bills Design Talks: From Then to Now—The Trajectory of Design. Nov 16. 2010. Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institute, retrieved Oct 2, 2013, from https://www.cooperhewitt.org/videos/billsdesign-talks-then-now%E2%80%94-trajectory-design 4 Wolf, Gary. (1996). ‘Steve Jobs: The Next Insanely Great Thing’, The Wired Interview, 4 (2). (Online, Wired Digital) retrieved Oct 2, 2013, from http://www.wired. com/wired/archive/4.02/jobs_pr.html
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Marihum Pernia
Tools and Methods Service design techniques, activities and deliverables
A Hybrid Approach to Server City Looking beyond everyday service design techniques
Julia Leihener is a founding member of the Creation Center of Telekom Innovation Laboratories. She studied product design at the University of the Arts, Berlin and at the Royal College of Arts in London.
Mauro Rego works as a designer at the Design & Co-innovation Center – SAP.
Alexander Lancelot Wordel works as a service designer for the Creation Center of Telekom Innovation Laboratories.
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In 2009, the Creation Center — a Berlin-based interdisciplinary platform for human-centred product and service development of Telekom Innovation Laboratories — began its design research journey about the do’s and don’ts of interacting with digital media. The resulting ‘eEtiquette — 101 guidelines for the digital world’ (www.eEtiquette.com, also featured in Touchpoint Vol. 2 No. 3) became a rapid success and many requests were received, especially from the educational field, asking for a tool to empower and teach digital media literacy. As a result, we have started an initiative at the Creation Center aiming to develop a novel way of exploring the guidelines of the eEtiquette in an educational context. The project first approached the challenge by analysing the existing research on the optimal learning environments and strategies used today. This desk research produced early insights, but demanded the further, more in-depth investigation of the lives of the users (children, parents and teachers). Three different cultural probes were applied in order to explore issues related to trust and fears in the digital world. As part of our design process, users were invited to participate in a creative workshop, together with educational and media specialists, as well as Telekom
stakeholders. The goal was to design a product or service system that could answer the following questions: ‘How can we mobilise parents, especially Telekom employees, to introduce the eEtiquette guidelines to their children’s schools?’, ‘What could an eEtiquette toolbox look like, addressing employees, parents, students or teachers at eye level?’ From the great variety of ideas, two were selected for further development. The team tested the concepts with several prototypes, until the most successful idea emerged: a game called Server City. It’s a quest to save a
Julia Leihener, Mauro Rego, Alexander Lancelot Wordel
tools and methods Gameflow sketch ‘Solve a challenge’
futuristic city from an evil ‘queen bug’ spreading bad digital manners. As games have always successfully engaged humans — children as well as adults — we chose this powerful format in order to reach our goal. Games, especially in the field of education, are seen as strong tools to lure children into what they may perceive to be otherwise unpleasant tasks. However, as Gabe Zichermann, the author of the book The Gamification Revolution said:, “Children can smell work from a distance.” A simple, gamified content approach would not be enough to engage the users. Therefore, instead of only adding some elements of gamification (e.g, rewards system, badges, etc.), the team applied serious game design methods to draw participants into the action. The game was prototyped in physical as well as digital formats and went through various tests and iterations together with children, parents, educators and game specialists until its beta version. Having conducted many service design projects in the past years, we have realised that each project is truly unique. To be successful, we have to react to the demands of the evolving tasks. The iterative approach of the innovation process encourages us to question the tools and methods we use on a constant basis. In recognising that the solution most befitting our users was, in fact, a game, we had reached the limits of our service design toolset. We needed to integrate new methods and to look beyond the classic service design approach in order to really accomplish our goals. Gamification has many interesting theories and approaches that are valid for the service design process. We highlight three elements that we consider important for a good ‘game-service-design’.
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2.
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1. User testing with pupils, teachers and parents 2. Cultural probe ‘My fairytale of the digital world’ 3. Server City board game prototype: casing & characters touchpoint 5-3 67
The hero journey as a core element of storytelling
the call to action everyday / mundane world return
(sage/master/guru)
the refusal
synchronicity
(signs/symbols/experiences)
pinnacle
(self knowing)
initiate journey (mentors/guides)
passage
(gateways/guardians)
1. STORYTELLING The core element of many successful games, TED talks and Hollywood blockbusters, storytelling applies perfectly to the user experience of a service concept. If the service or product aims to change behaviour, increase retention, or work with several conceptual layers, the ‘Hero Journey’, in particular, proves to be a promising tool. The Joseph Campbell Hero Journey is a pattern of story plots identified in all classic and modern narratives (e.g. religion, fairytales, films…). It describes the milestones present in the journey of an archetypical hero in order to accomplish a specific deed. The value relies not only on the quality of the story itself, but in the empathy built between the reader (or player) and the hero. The reader recognises the deed as if it is their own and assumes the mission. In doing so, they become the hero themselves. This binding is the fundamental element to create the immersion in the context of the game. 68
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The immersion leads to a faster loop of learning by experiencing. The learning parameter described as ‘Continuity’1 is the recall of previous knowledge by reflection when confronted with a certain situation. It gives the perception of relevance of information or knowledge. The game creates the situation in which certain knowledge is called for in order to deal with a contextual challenge in the journey of the hero.
2. MECHANICS Mechanics refers to the system of rules that defines roles and the gameplay. The game is a pre-defined universe with particular rules that all the players agree on. It defines the constraints and establishes how relationships take place. It takes some effort to balance the number of rules and to maintain a challenging gaming environment: either the rule set gets too complex and frustrating at some point, or it’s too simple and loose and lacks the coherent engagement and identification of the player. Mechanics also plays a role in the learning process. The winning conditions define the meaning of success and what is needed to reach it. For example, the winning conditions for Server City are that the players know more about the eEtiquette, but they also impart the relevance of digital behaviour.
Adapted from Baraka Institute
revelation/revolution
tools and methods
3. INTERACTION
SUMMARY
Players interact with each other guided by mechanics, rules and tools, and this interaction is key to the user experience. Hierarchy, power and interdependencies can be created and dismissed. It leverages experienced players and lucky ones, giving to all of them a chance to win. The design of the player’s interaction creates an environment of constant dialogue and discussion, enabling debate and reflection about behaviour in the digital world amongst all players, especially those from different generations. As in all serious or educational games, this game is designed for the purpose of media literacy and not simply pure entertainment. Therefore, the interaction needs to leave space for conscious, topic-related conversations next to rather unconscious, incentive-driven activities.
The openness to other methods and areas within our process was fundamental for this project. Although at first stated as a broad design question, the project required a different frame. Suddenly, the team of service designers turned into a game developer team. Deepdiving into the topic and inviting specialists including users to debate processes and results, made this shift possible. In conclusion, we believe that service design is a living tool that needs to grow with its requests and context. Depending on the challenges to be tackled, we need to look out for valuable additions to our toolset. Therefore, at the Creation Center, we are regularly integrating new and enriching methods in order to continue to learn and grow as a service design team. With the tools of gamification, we believe we can enhance many of the current services we are designing, even non-game-oriented services. Who does not want to tell a good story, guide a user along clear pathway and provide vivid user interaction? Just as cars have been combining classic motors with electric ones to address the energy needs of our economy, we will have to shift to a hybrid form of conducting innovation processes. Our suggestion is to learn from adjacent fields so that we may address the needs of an even more-rapidly evolving and complex world with quality designs. Are you ready for a hybrid service design approach?
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References 1 Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and Education, Simon & Schuster.
Server City Pop-up Character ‘Mamsi’
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tools and methods
Equitable Communication in Chinese Hospitals Enhancing the relationship between hospitals and patients Hospitals have attracted attention across China as society develops, and the conflict between scarce medical resources and increasing medical demands is becoming more and more intense. These problems in China’s hospitals are caused by many complex reasons, and defective Hospital Information Systems (HIS) are just one conspicuous issue in this complicated situation. But information systems can never be ignored. A well-constructed HIS can greatly alleviate the predicament in hospitals. Based on this recognition, we have limited our studies to the information systems in hospitals. After investigation in several first-rate hospitals in Beijing, we aimed to redesign the HIS in order to relieve the pressure on hospitals. Taking into consideration the healthcarerelated policy guidance of the municipal government and the cardiac surgery department of the Third Hospital, Peking University was chosen as the target for the in-depth research. Supported by the hospital, we undertook an investigation into four groups: doctors, nurses, patients and their families. Service design methods were used in this project. Designers no longer merely paid attention to a certain product: instead, the whole hospitalisation process and its various activities were considered in an
integrated fashion. In this project, we evaluated the information communication methods and media at several key points of information exchange and, on this basis, we redesigned the information system in the hospital, hoping to deliver excellent patient experiences.
Wang Guosheng is Professor of service design & design management at Tsinghua University, former secretarygeneral of Information Product Design Committee of the China Industrial Design Association. Since 2008, He researched service design and design thinking as visiting scholar at the University of Cincinnati and Case Western Reserve University with Prof. Craig Vogel and Prof. Richard Buchanan. Chen Qian, Rao Yonggang Postgraduate, product design, Tsinghua University, China. Yu Dandan Postgraduate, information design, Tsinghua University, China.
BACKGROUND
China has a large population and its density in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai is breathtaking. At the same time, because Beijing has more wellknown medium- and large-sized public hospitals than the national average, the
Wang Guosheng, Chen Qian, Rao Yonggang, Yu Dandan
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journey
registration
laboratory
• Waiting for test in a
problems
• Difficult way-finding • No orientation
long queue • Hard to get test results
• Customised navigation
needs
• Precise orientation
• Personalised test reminders • Convenient access to test results
surgery
• Opaque surgery schedule • Excluded surgery information
daily care
• Dull life without entertainment • Fussy daily record • Difficult ward-rounds
• Entertainment • Available schedule and surgery information
• Convenient daily record • Digital assistant for doctors
leave hospital
• Unclear or suspicious invoice • Lay health care
• Specific line-item cost inquiry • Easy connection to professional health care
Figure 1. Customer journey for problem finding influx of eager patients from all around the country make medical resources in Beijing extremely scarce. The challenge of managing this influx in order to reduce the pressure on large public hospitals is becoming a critical problem in the Chinese healthcare industry. On the other hand, ageing has become a more and more serious social problem, and growing numbers of patients with chronic conditions such as heart diseases and diabetes count for a large proportion of society. As a result, home nursing of the elderly and chronic disease sufferers is also a prominent issue. Since 2006, the Beijing municipal government has published several related policies to encourage those with minor ailments and chronic conditions to get diagnoses and care in community health centres first, and then to transfer to higher-level hospitals step-by-step when necessary. The policies aim to establish a remote monitoring and home care system for elderly and chronic disease patients, indicating that a large, nationwide health 72
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information system is just around the corner. A great number of health organisations (such as health centres) exist in towns and villages, while medical stations and small hospitals are found in communities or remote cities. These organisations are widespread, and number more than public hospitals. There is a potential opportunity to reduce the huge pressure on public hospitals, and the construction of a national health information system is a ripe opportunity. A bright perspective is depicted like this: patients get diagnosed in health centres, and their documents are delivered to a public hospital through the HIS (health information system). The elderly and those with chronic conditions can be monitored and receive guidance remotely at home through the HIS by public hospitals. This allows the crowds fighting for admittance to public hospitals to conveniently access more personalised medical care and improve their experience. CURRENT SITUATION
When observing patient behaviours during hospitalisation, it was found that the existing HIS is unable to meet the needs of the hospital itself. A number of problems are listed below. Furthermore, the existing information transfer methods are inefficient and expensive.
tools and methods
The 1960s saw the implementation of ‘The New HIS’ around the world, and later on in China during the domestic reforms in the 1980s. ‘The New HIS’ mainly deals with the transmission of information between hospital staff, and it significantly improved the efficiency of hospitals. It was, without a doubt, a major step forward in this area. But our investigation found that the demands of patients for medical information are still not satisfied. What’s more, a great amount of work is required by ward staff each day to try and manage patient records. This information imbalance creates a poor patient experience, and the poor HIS only increases the staff’s workload. Recognising this situation, we argue that blind spots exist in the new HIS that impact the efficiency in hospitals, while also failing to improve the experiences of patients. For example, it’s common to see that patients form a long queue for testing, even if they are undergoing transfusions. Because some tests require nil by mouth beforehand, this can result in a hungry and weak transfusion patient standing in a queue for several hours outside the laboratory, just because they don’t know when their test is scheduled! Another example are the elderly patients who are concerned about medical costs and frequently request a detailed invoice after every new treatment. These repeated requests make staff nervous and frustrated. However, they have to comply, because the unhappy patients may create payment problems. As we have seen, sufficient evidence exists to indicate that a well-considered HIS should put patients’ experience in a core position.
“The challenge of managing this influx in order to reduce the pressure on large public hospitals is becoming a critical problem in the Chinese healthcare industry.”
WHAT DID WE DO?
During fieldwork research in the hospital, four groups of interviewees were selected: doctors, nurses, patients and their family members. During the in-patient intake process, the four groups rely on getting the correct information. Although the hospital management was also involved in the construction of the HIS, they do not directly participate in the intake process. For this reason, hospital management was excluded as a target group. Our interviews focused on patients and those accompanying them, and the informal dialogue in wards uncovered a great number of negative emotions, and these insights were the most valuable, vivid and authentic inspiration for our solution. Questionnaires dealt with staff, mainly doctors and nurses. Feedback showed that convenient data collection methods are a very common request among the staff. In addition, repeated questions and inquiries from patients are big problem and they “pray to God” to have a new method to share information with patients. touchpoint 5-3 73
in-patient/staff experience journey map admission & orientation
ward-round & record
surgery process
check out
remote care
14. after treatment
13. leaving
10. operation
9. op-reminding
8. ward-records
7. ward-round
6. test sheet
4. test schedule
3. shopping
12. fee
11. entertain
5. lab test
staff effort
2. orientation
1. registration
patients‘ emotion
lab-test process
cost
Figure 2. Evaluation chart of current hospital information system Tracking and observation is an auxiliary technique, and we used it to explore the truths and emotions hidden in the behaviours of target groups, and this indicated feelings such as displeasure and hesitation. In brainstorming, we mainly focused on the shortcomings of existing methods of information transfer. We deliberated on how to improve the service experience by redesigning the HIS to satisfy its users. The final results included a set of interaction designs and a set of product designs. ‘Procedure-centred’ services are well described by service blueprints in which the whole process from the very beginning to the end of a medical treatment (or case) can be expressed well and extended to study the entire information system, instead of merely paying attention to interface design. User’s feelings are critical during the process. In order to carry out the study 74
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more intuitively and reliably, role play was adopted during the design stage. We invited doctors, nurses, patients and those accompanying them into an actual hospital scene. Immersive use of the new information delivery system ensured we got real feedback, and we re-designed the HIS in an appropriate way. DISCUSSION
Sufficient results were observed and our investigation results are briefly summarised as follows: the existing hospital information transfer methods undermined the communication among different departments in hospitals, meaning medical information could not be passed in a timely manner to the relevant people. Through observation and consideration of the whole process, the evaluation of current information systems was made into a chart (Figure 2). In this chart, three factors were chosen
tools and methods
to appraise the information transfer mode: patients’ emotion; staff effort and cost to the hospital. When analysing this chart, several points such as waiting for a test, getting laboratory reports, daily recording, closing the account and remote health care after leaving hospital attracted our attention. At these points, patients encountered the worst service experience and staff had to do much more work (most of which is repetitive) while, at the same time, the hospital’s costs reached a maximum amount. As a result of this evaluation, we marked these points as the most significant to be improved in the hospital information system. In this new information system, the medical information is directly uploaded onto the main server. For example, patients’ test results are transferred to the main server by staff in the laboratory room as soon as they are available, and then delivered to patients through DSS (Digital Signage Solution) and UTC (Ubiquitous Touch Computer). The new design changes the means of communication in a hospital, as well as releasing a burden on the medical staff. What is more important, the new system supports the patients’ ‘right-to-know’. User experience was taken as the most important factor during the design process, and painstaking effort was made to bring improved experience to patients and their families through convenient operation and practical content.
The medium-term system allows patients to receive healthcare without going to the hospital, bringing great convenience to people as well as more effectively distributing the population pressure on hospitals. CONCLUSION
This project has resulted in a hospital information system that solves a current challenge in hospitals. It was discovered that the failings of existing hospital information systems are mainly related to information imbalances between patients and the hospital. Traditional information systems suffer poor performance, and problems such as inefficiency and bad patient experiences emerge. In this project, we planned a new hospital information system in order to build a fluent and efficient information flow. The benefits of this new information system include: bringing patients more personalised service experiences; speeding up the reaction to health emergencies nationwide and, the most important, providing a new chance to establish a sustainable hospital information system. In the long term, a hospital information system linked to a nationwide healthcare network will allow the quick detection of health emergencies, accelerating the national reaction speed in events such as the SARS and H1N1 outbreaks. This is of great importance to resource conservation and the sustainable development of hospital information systems.
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A Guideline for Business Mash-ups Cross-disciplinary partnering as subject for cross-disciplinary research
Birgit Mager is Professor of service design at Köln International School of Design (KISD), Cologne, Germany. She is founder and director of sedes research, the Center forService Design Research at KISD.
Bianca Bender is a research associate in the ‘Hybrid value creation through partnering’ co-research project at sedes research.
Pia Drechsel is a designer and research associate at sedes research.
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The globalisation of markets has accelerated over the past couple of years. Information and communication networks develop rapidly, entailing technological innovation and business innovation. Simply creating new products or services is just a starting point in the competition for the best customer offerings. Young start-ups are growing, evolving new markets and industries, leaving traditional businesses breathlessly trying to keep up with innovation processes. Product and service providers alike are struggling to draw level to young, flexible entrepreneurs inventing new businesses on a daily basis. A group of service design and marketing specialists have set up a cross-disciplinary research project in order to investigate new ways of forming innovative business models for small- and medium-sized enterprises. COLLABORATION — THE KEY TO INNOVATION
Collaboration, sharing and open source are old news to the creative community and have proven themselves to be successful business models driven by technological innovation. Many big corporations face the competitive pressure of globalising markets with innovative collaborations, aiming to create the best product or service solutions for the customer. Two or more companies from different branches Birgit Mager, Bianca Bender, Pia Drechsel
collaborating on the product market is a well-known concept, such as Nespresso, the partnership of Nestlé with various producers of high quality coffee machines, or the collaboration of Phillips and Nivea launching an electric shaver with an integrated skin conditioner. Manufacturing companies extend their customer offerings to productservice systems, and service providers are upgrading to offer combinations of services, like Deutsche Bahn and
education & research
more info
on
reate. c o t in o j . www s.com wordpres logistics specialist Hermes’ luggage courier service that takes the load off travellers. The term hybrid value creation through partnering’ describes these kinds of business mash-ups whose purpose is combining products and services into one innovative and problemsolving customer offering. The offering is built out of the combination of the unique competencies of each partner and creates a higher value than its individual parts. According to Normann and Ramirez1, successful companies do not ad value, but rather reinvent a value system, within which the different stakeholders match their capabilities efficiently and effectively. Mash-ups distinguish themselves on the market by offering integrated product-service systems that one company alone could not achieve. A successful business mash-up is housingmaps.com2, a collaboration of Google’s mapping services and Craigslist’s classified ads. DriveNow3, a German car sharing service is a hybrid mash-up of BMW, who provide the cars, and car-rental company Sixt, who take care of the logistics. Key driver for these bundled offerings is the demand for complete solutions. Mash-ups make businesses more flexible, more able to adapt to market changes, more versatile in their portfolios and open them up to new customer segments. Especially for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), collaboration with a partner is a strategic opportunity to increase their scope. With the focus on how SMEs can engage in innovative business mash-ups, the research project ‘Join to create — hybrid value-creation through partnering’ was started in 2011 by sedes research, the Center for Service Design Research under the leadership of Professor Birgit Mager at the Köln International School of Design
and Science Marketing, the Science-toBusiness Marketing Research Center led by Professor Dr. Thomas Baaken at the University of Applied Sciences, Münster. The project is funded by the European Union and the county of North RhineWestphalia, in close affiliation with 16 small and medium sized enterprises from the North Rhine-Westphalia region. HAPPY COUPLES
The research project was divided into several stages of exploration, creation and validation. During the exploration phase, regional companies were analysed with regards to their business partnerships and collaboration activities. On the basis of this analysis and preliminary desk research, initial hypotheses were developed. The hypotheses discuss the drivers for and barriers to collaborations with a business model based on hybrid value-creation. For example, when two or more companies are collaborating, is the use of specially tailored communication channels a strong driver for the success of a partnership, meanwhile bureaucracy often hinders convergent work streams. One finding of this preliminary research showed that SMEs do have various partnerships in their value chain. Yet, many smaller companies are put off engaging in new partnerships and in developing new concepts by the lack touchpoint 5-3 77
THE PROCESS OF HYBRID VALUE CREATION THROUGH PARTNERING
finding the right partner
organising to work as partners conception of product-service-bundle process controlling
starting with a new idea
company 1 company 2
performance measurement
of resources and experience — especially from other fields. They rarely look for partners outside their already existing networks and more opportunities on the market also mean more uncertainty and higher risks for them. As a synthesis of the exploration, a phase model was developed that depicts the process and respective activities that companies undergo when creating a business mash-up. The model visualises the most important phases in business cooperation. Each phase is equally important, yet the progression of each phase can vary from project to project. Developing a good idea is not always the first step. Having a partner first and creating the idea together could well be the starting point. The success of a business mash-up and the collaborative bundle offering is dependent on the strategic conception and collective business model of the partnering companies. The research showed that SMEs have a need for methodological support throughout the entire process. Therefore, the objective of the creation phase was to develop guidelines and a relevant set of tools for SME business mash-ups. SERVICE DESIGN METHODOLOGY AS A BASIS FOR A BUSINESS GUIDELINES
“There are many tools, but how do I know which one is the right one for me?“ CEO of a medium-sized company
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realisation and launch of product-service-bundle
As service designers, we know various methods and tools to facilitate processes and to support companies strategically. Many companies are familiar with these kinds of tools, yet find it difficult to make effective usage of them on a regular basis. Business experts stated that the effort to get to know and actually start using tools in an effective way, however useful, often exceeds the benefit for smaller businesses, especially those unfamiliar with design thinking processes. In order to get a busy small enterprise to engage with a new methodology, a clear benefit has to be self-evident. In a quantitative study, tools and methods from the fields of business management and design thinking that companies of all sizes use in partnership processes were collected and evaluated as regards their use and benefit in everyday work life. The requirements for good tools is not only their relevance to business mash-ups and their degree of innovation but also, first and foremost, their ease of use for both partners.
education & research
The phase model is the framework for the guideline. The process of a business mash-up is explained along these phases and a set of tools is presented to support each step of the partnership. The guideline illustrates the whole process of hybrid value creation through partnering, starting with the first idea and finishing by measuring the success of the partnership. It briefly describes each phase, including action plans, possible barriers and methodology to overcome. The key factors to take into account in each phase are presented using flexible checklists. For example, in the first two phases of the process, insights on general needs and motivations for a venture need to be generated within one company, and the reason for partnering must be clearly described. The company has to actively look for and openly approach a potential partner. Rather than searching for a partner in the same or similar fields, it is advisable to look into broader networks, often provided by organisations such as the transfer agencies of universities or independent research and development institutions. In the phase of getting to know potential partner companies, there are several crucial factors to consider. For example, how would the product portfolio change due to the partners’ competencies? How can the respective core competencies complement one another? What are the common goals and who will be doing what in the partnership? When both partners agree on the partnership, it is important to clearly organise the work by setting common goals, defining the means of
communication, determining milestones and agreeing on an exit strategy. The guidelines provide simplified explanations of methods and tools for all phases: templates of ready-to-use empathy tools, brainstorms, stakeholder and customer journey maps, project-target maps and ideation games focused on the requirements of business mash-ups. The guideline is supposed to be used by any business partners and is adaptable to their individual needs. As of writing this article, the work of finalising the guideline is in progress.
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References 1 Normann, Richard; Ramírez, Rafael: ‘From Value Chain to Value Constellation: Designing Interactive Strategy’, Harvard Business Review, July/August 1993, Vol. 71, Issue 4 2 http://www.housingmaps.com 3 http://www.drive-now.com
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Work-based Learning in Service Management The growth of the service industry has placed higher education for business at a crossroads. This article deals with the starting points for the establishment of a new Bachelor of Business Administration Degree Programme at the Lahti University of Applied Sciences, in Southern Finland, to meet the challenge of the growing importance of service expertise. SIX DRIVERS
The key drivers of the new Lahtibased, BBA in Service Management can be summarised to five following elements: 1. New economic structure calls for a service logic and service expertise! 2. New pedagogies are needed in higher education! 3. Working life and the ways of working are changing! 4. Lahti University of Applied Sciences (LUAS) is a proactive regenerator! 5. New campus development changes the rules of the game! First, due to the growth of the service industry, the conventional approach needs to be replaced with a new business logic. This places value co-creation and service logic to the fore (see e.g. Vargo & Lusch 2011). 80
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Mika Kylänen
The second driver deals with pedagogical insights. Management education should adopt an approach that values ‘knowing’ as a critically reflected and passionate performance (see Dey & Steyaert 2007) to highlight improvisation, invention and creativity. Pedagogically speaking, the programme is based on work-based learning (WBL), which considers students as workers (Eraut 2009) and emphasises the role of the students as active learners and co-creators of knowledge. Third, as the key of the business logic is no longer a manufactured good, but a co-created service experience, new skills are also needed. Thus, sense-making, design mindset, social intelligence and crosscultural competence can be seen as increasingly critical future work skills (Davies, Fidler & Gorbis 2011).
The last two drivers underline the proactive approach of the Lahti UAS. In 2012, right after the government-driven structural development1 took place, the planning of the new programme began. The new line of service sector-oriented business studies offers a pilot for pedagogical insights, which are needed to benefit from the Niemi campus area with new facilities that are smaller in size but more flexible by nature. LEARNING OBJECTIVES AND STUDY MODULES
Curriculum development began in late spring, April-May, 2012. The commission came directly from the president of LUAS, and the support of the management has been strong right from the beginning. The curriculum development took place both in cross-disciplinary, multiactor meetings and in smaller teams of 2-3 people. The curriculum was published in April 2013. The brightest idea in the programme is the implementation. In practice, the work-based learning means that the students are placed in service sector-based work communities for four days per week, while they study at the campus
education & research
The students get to tackle concrete service development tasks
on Wednesdays. During the first year, the students will encounter four different service companies or organisations, ranging from retail and public services to associations to industrial services. From the employer’s perspective, this offers a new recruitment channel in the long run. Also, the students operate as sources of service expertise and new ideas for the entire region. The study modules (15 ECTS) are implemented as sets of three study units (5 ECTS each), and the students will complete one broader assignment at a time. The means of reporting vary from one module to another to inspire the students to illustrate their expertise and learning outcomes in diverse ways. The modules produce a range of learning outcomes, from service expertise to business competencies to service development and service management. CLOSING REMARKS
Taken together, the pedagogical approach, the workplace partnerships and the service logic in business administration highlight the fact that service expertise and service development competencies are learned in close interaction with concrete everyday encounters, inspirational projects and a seamless dialogue of theory and practice. In January 2014, the second student group will begin their study path. Therefore, the students’ feedback and learning outcomes will be addressed in detail in the articles to come.
References Davies, A., Fidler, D., & Gorbis, M. (2011). ‘Future Work Skills 2020’. Palo Alto: Institute for the Future for the University of Phoenix Research Institute. Retrieved October 7, 2013, from http://www.iftf.org/our-work/ global-landscape/work/future-work-skills-2020/. Dey, P, & Steyaert, C. (2007). ‘The Troubadours of Knowledge: Passion and Invention in Management Education’. Organization, 14(3): 437–461. Eraut, M. (2009). ‘How Professionals Learn through Work’. Retrieved October 7, 2013, from http:// learningtobeprofessional.pbworks.com. Vargo, S. L. & Lusch, R. F. 2011. 'It's all B2B…and beyond: Toward a systems perspective of the market'. Industrial Marketing Management, 40(2), 181–187.
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1
The Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture decided to close down the Degree Programme in Tourism and Hospitality at Lahti UAS due to the structural development of Universities of Applied Sciences in Finland. At the same time, the Ministry created 40 new study places at the Faculty of Business Studies.
Mika Kylänen works as principal lecturer at the Lahti UAS (Finland). He specialises in organisation, management and marketing studies, including IORs, coopetition, service management, service development, and the experience economy. He has authored a number of articles on those themes.
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Erik Spiekermann is information architect, type designer and author. He founded MetaDesign in 1979 and FontShop in 1989. He started United Designers in 2001, which eventually became Edenspiekermann. Erik is No. 10 on Germany’s most popular Twitter list with 280k followers.
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Pia Betton links design thinking to business. She started her professional life in Danish design agencies and continued at Berlinbased MetaDesign, where she was a member of the management board. Pia joined Edenspiekermann in 2011. In her role as a senior consultant, she coaches management groups in strategy development and change processes.
Interview: Erik Spiekermann & Pia Betton This interview poses questions drawn from this issue's theme to Erik Spiekermann and Pia Betton, who are colleagues at the Berlin office of Edenspiekermann.
Interview by Jesse Grimes
The theme of this Touchpoint is on the overlap and interplay between service design and aesthetics. As the discipline matures, some people say there’s a risk that it becomes too business-focused. Do you think service design should concern itself with “beauty”, and is that something that you think can be ascribed to a service? Erik Spiekermann: Ugliness doesn’t sell, as Raymond Loewy said. People would prefer to use something that looks pleasant to something that doesn’t. Function is the most important aspect for a service, but beauty is a function of function. In other words: if something is ugly, it won’t work as well as if it was beautiful. It lowers the threshold to acceptance. Pia Betton: Consumer loyalty is quickly diminishing. We randomly put together different aspects of services we like. If given the choice, people will always go for the visually attractive options. In a shopping mall I am more likely to get drawn into a shop with a beautiful atmosphere than into a less attractive outlet. When monitoring human behavior it has even been proven that attractive service employees are more sought after than their less attractive colleagues. Aesthetics always play a role. And it actually rarely clashes with more business related interests. Beauty isn’t necessarily more expensive than not so beautiful applications, often the only difference is the quality of the design work. touchpoint 5-3 83
Service design is just one of Edenspiekermann’s current offerings, and Erik’s background especially is in typography and graphic design. What triggered your agency’s interest in the discipline, and how have you established the practice internally? Erik: I don’t see a contradiction here at all. Whenever we designed information systems, especially forms or wayfinding, we were really designing the complete service. We just didn’t call it that. One word we always used for wayfinding was the “Nutzerkette”, i.e. all the points where a user would interact with the system and thus the service. Surely we were designing the service and not just maps and signs. Pia: Indeed service design is a logic extension of more traditional design disciplines. As a designer at Edenspiekermann it has always been out role to look at the customer experience in total. Especially when working in the field of corporate design. Corporate 84
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design focuses on developing ONE design language and brand experience across all channels and platforms. Today designers extend their own design value chain in several different directions: 1) We don’t just design the platform or “wrapping” for the interaction between the customer and the service — we design the interaction itself. Also, today we start our work even earlier in the process. Throughout the discovery phase we document the desired service experience from a customer point of view, today you may say we design our own briefing. At the tail end of the process we also see it as a part of our responsibility to support the necessary changes in the organisation in order to deliver the experience.
We hear of agency Livework employing economists, and of others playing the role of ‘change agent’ within large organisations. But many service designers have design backgrounds, not MBAs. What does this mean for the creative aspects of the practice? Will the service designers of tomorrow be talented visualisers and co-creators, or number-crunching Excel wizards? Or both? Erik: Being able to visualise a service is way more powerful than presenting it in spreadsheets. That goes for the process as well as the result. As I said above: who wants to use something that hasn’t been made to look approachable and possibly even beautiful? It is high time that all the engineers and spreadsheet addicts learned to communicate. Showing numbers and flowcharts will never motivate anybody except other enginners and MBAs.
Pia: I think there will be a need for both in the future. I am convinced that design skills and method can positively influence change processes. We already see a lot of design institutes introducing new seminars to teach these skills. However from our point of view there will always be a need for service designers who focus on the actual design process. In our organisations we support both. On the one hand we need people with expert knowledge within certain design disciplines and on the other hand we need them to be able to overview — and incorporate — people with totally divers skills in the design process: the famous t-shaped designers. When we hire young people today we often experience that they already bring these divers skills to the table. In the daily project work it can be very hard to distinguish a designer from a coder or an account manager from a change agent.
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Touchpoint, the SDN Service Design Journal, was launched in May 2009 and is the first journal on service design worldwide. Each issue focuses on one topic and features news and trends, interviews, insightful discussions and case studies. Printed issues of Touchpoint can be purchased on the SDN website. www.service-design-network.org
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Deep Dive: Collecting Relevant Insights The Service Design Promise By Ben Reason
Purpose-Driven Research as Key to Successful Service Design By Stefan Moritz and Marcus Gabrielsson
When Design and Market Researchers Join Forces By Remko van der Lugt and Gerrita van der Veen
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May 2011
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Organisational Change
Learning, Changing, Growing • Being Led or Finding the Way?
Eat, Sleep, Play
From Sketchbook to Spreadsheet
‘Monkeysphere’ Challenge
Jesse Grimes and Mark Alexander Fonds
• Better Services for the People
Service Design Creates Break through Cultural Change in the Brazilian Financial Industry
Francesca Dickson, Emily Friedman, Lorna Ross
• Service Transformation:
Hospitality Service as Science and Art
By Kipum Lee
Learning the Language of Finance Gives Your Ideas the Best Chance of Success
By Christopher Wright and Jennifer Young
Melvin Brand Flu
Boom! Wow. Wow! WOW! BOOOOM!!! By Markus Hormeß and Adam Lawrence
Reinventing Flight. Porter Airlines: a Case Study
By Jürgen Tanghe
Service Design on Steroids
A Performing Arts Perspective on Service Design By Raymond P. Fisk and Stephen J. Grove
an Environment Adverse to Change to Design University Services Jürgen Faust
By Michelle McCune
By Tennyson Pinheiro, Luis Alt and Jose Mello
• Innovating in Health Care –
Sylvia Harris and Chelsea Mauldin
• Using Service Design Education
Service Design on Stage
Design Principles for Eating Sustainably
• Overcoming the
Mary Cook and Joseph Harrington
Designing Human Rights
The Lost Pleasure of Randomness and Surprise By Fabio Di Liberto
By Zack Brisson and Panthea Lee
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April 2009
Touchpoint
First Issue
the journal of service design
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Touchpoint the journal of service design
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the journal of service design
Health and Service Design
What is Service Design? Time for a New Definition
Joe Heapy
App?
Business Impact of Service Design • Service Design – The Bottom Line
Fergus Bisset and Dan Lockton
• Design and behaviour in complex
• Service Design 2020: What does
Fran Samalionis and James Moed
B2B service engagements
the future hold and (how) can we shape it?
• Revealing experiences Christine Janae-Leoniak
• Stuck in a Price War? Use Service
Ben Shaw and Melissa Cefkin
Bruce S. Tether and Ileana Stigliani
From Products to People
Design to Change the Game in B2B Relations.
• Charging Up: energy usage in
Lotte Christiansen, Rikke B E Knutzen, Søren Bolvig Poulsen
households around the world
• Great expectations: The healthcare
Geke van Dijk
journey Gianna Marzilli Ericson
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Lavrans Løvlie and Ben Reason
• How Human Is Your Business? Steve Lee
Julia Schaeper, Lynne Maher and Helen Baxter
Lavrans Løvlie
Service Design and Behavioural Change • Designing motivation or motivating
Mark Jones
• Designing from within
• Service Design:
September 2010
design? Exploring Service Design, motivation and behavioural change
• Do you really need that iPhone
Marcel Zwiers
• Design’s Odd Couple
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the journal of Service Design
Beyond Basics
Lavrans Løvlie, Ben Reason, Mark Mugglestone and John-Arne Røttingen
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• Make yourself useful
• A healthy relationship • Dutch Design:
January 2010
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January 2013
Cultural Change by Service Design Living Service Worlds ¬ How Will Services Know What You Intend? Shelley Evenson
Complete Small, Affordable and Successful Service Design Projects By Chris Brooker
A Time Machine for Service Designers By Julia Leihener and Dr. Henning Breuer
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The articles published in Touchpoint since its first publication are available online! The formatted Pdfs of single articles are now downloadable at no cost for SDN members and can be purchased by non-members. You have the opportunity to search articles by volume and issue, by keywords or by author!
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Connecting the Dots • Service Design as Business
Change Agent Mark Hartevelt and Hugo Raaijmakers
• MyPolice Lauren Currie and Sarah Drummond
• Service Design at a Crossroads Lucy Kimbell
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About Service Design Network The Service Design Network is the global centre for recognising and promoting excellence in the field of service design. Through national and international events, online and print publications, and coordination with academic institutions, the network connects multiple disciplines within agencies, business, and government to strengthen the impact of service design both in the public and private sector. Service Design Network Office | Ubierring 40 | 50678 Cologne | Germany | www.service-design-network.org
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