All posts about
Service design

Service as Design

Added on 1 March 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Yogi Berra said, “You can observe a lot from watching.” Over the last several years, a unique set of students has been challenged to think about design for healthcare services. In my role as a professor at Carnegie Mellon I had the opportunity to observe their work and it offered many insights into design, design thinking, and just how big the healthcare service challenge is. In my new role in Microsoft’s FUSE lab I’m looking at the future of social experience. My experience with the students and healthcare exposed the underlying notion that people participating in service—whether providers, consumers, or others that are actively involved—are actually designing as they participate in the service. If we accept the service as design lens, designers may need to see their role differently—from one of developing static objects and environments—to one of creating new methods for modeling experience, and skilling everyone to be active participants in design during the service experience.” (Shelley Evenson – Interaction10 videos)

Designing value beyond the inflection point

Added on 22 February 2010 Peter Bogaards
“In 1999, Pine & Gilmore presented a model for the progression of economic value in their bestseller ‘the experience economy’. The model explains the generic progression of economic value that any business in our society goes through sooner or later; the shift for commodities to experiences. Prehaps the most used example is the progression from raw coffee beans to the starbucks ‘experience’. The great thing about this model is that it’s easy to use and applicable to almost any industry.” (Marc Fonteijn – 31Volts)

Beyond the experience: In search of an operative paradigm for the industrialisation of services

Added on 30 November 2009 Peter Bogaards
“The contributions to the definition of a disciplinary corpus for service design come from two main directions: the first focuses on real cases, developing projects that are advancing the practice of service design and making service design visible to private business and public administrations. The second area concerns the definition of a methodological framework for service design. The main concern in those studies is on the development of methodological tools for analysing, designing and representing services.” (Nicola Morelli – Re-public) – courtesy of markvanderbeeken

The Service Design Thinks Videos

Added on 24 November 2009 Peter Bogaards
“Alice Casey and Jo Harrington introduced a range of new tools, perspectives and ideas from their public service design projects at Involve, NESTA and Barnet Council. Joel Bailey gave us a brisk tour of service design on the front line of one of the UKs biggest websites – businesslink.gov.uk – and Karl Humphreys talked us through his two killer apps for service designing – Propositions and Prototyping through his work on the Heathrow Personal Rapid Transit programme.”

Customer journey mapping

Added on 11 November 2009 Peter Bogaards
“Customer journey mapping is the process of tracking and describing all the experiences that customers have as they encounter a service or set of services, taking into account not only what happens to them, but also their responses to their experiences. Used well, it can reveal opportunities for improvement and innovation in that experience, acting as a strategic tool to ensure every interaction with the customer is as positive as it can be.” (Cabinet Office)

Science and Design

Added on 30 October 2009 Peter Bogaards
“But as the world grows more complex, more interconnected, with the underlying infrastructure less and less visible, hidden inside electronic and optical mechanisms, conveyed as all-powerful yet invisible information and knowledge, design more than ever needs a body of reliable, verifiable procedures. Science is the systematic method of building a reliable, verifiable, repeatable, and generalizable body of knowledge. Science is not a body of facts: it is a process. Design is the deliberate shaping of the environment in ways that satisfy individual and societal needs. Scientific methods can inform design. Designers can create a science of design.” (Donald A. Norman – IASDR09)

Would you like service design with that?

Added on 20 October 2009 Peter Bogaards
“Service design is a new discipline which focuses on understanding what customers want, then designing services which meet their needs. Sound familiar? Web designers have focused on user-centered design for years to create websites and applications that are user friendly. Service design is well established in Europe and North America and there’s already a handful of Australian businesses offering service design. What is it? Does experience in designing for screen interaction translate to designing services too? Will service design be the next big thing?” (Service Design Hub)

Participatory Design

Added on 14 September 2009 Peter Bogaards
“As I’ve read more about the history of PD it seems to be focused almost exclusively on the development of digital computing systems. I suppose that shouldn’t be surprising given the time period; in some ways it seems more akin to HCI than service design. But while the techniques don’t always seem to be a match for the problems service designers encounter many of the principles still seem to resonate.” (Design for Service)

The Amsterdam Centre for Service Innovation opens it’s doors

Added on 13 September 2009 Peter Bogaards
“The opening attracted a crowd that you would expect just by reading the description. The ratio suits vs. jeans was about 25:1. I think service designer need to be in these kind of surroundings. Like Larry said, they need to step forward to the playing-field. Being at these events also keeps you connected with the rest of the world (the non-designers). We truly need those guys who eat the business side of services for breakfast!” (31Volts)

The Philosophy of Service Design

Added on 13 September 2009 Peter Bogaards
“If we perceive any inconsistency in how a service appears, or if we perceive an inconsistency between the touchpoints of a service and the service itself, we render the service design inauthentic and we lose faith in it. This impacts on our ability as users to engage with the service and therefore impacts on the value it generates both for it’s designers and/or for the bottom line of company who provide it.” (Freg’s Blog)

Service Design: A robust way to build brands

Added on 3 September 2009 Peter Bogaards
“It appears that brand builders have a powerful new process to help them build strong brand relationships. The design methodology called service design gives every indication of being a robust methodology for delivering high levels of brand value. In fact, as a method of value delivery it may be more effective than traditional brand practices based on communications and persuasion.” (Brian Phipps – Brands Create Customers)