Filed under: design thinking, service design | Tags: design thinking, experience design, integratedplace, luxembourg, service design, UX design
I discovered this on Nick’s blog – it is very relevant to the work I am preparing for the Experience Service Design conference in Finland.
IntegratedPlace is a design consultancy specialised in service design, environmental & product design, design strategy and design management.
“We use design thinking as a methodology to solve many different types of problems. To achieve this we analyse the value of what an organisation has to offer from a customer or user point of view and how the actual products and services relate to their needs.
We carry out complete user centered design projects for our clients, from project brief definition, strategic orientation, user centered research, ideation, design proposals, prototyping, through to production or market deployment.”
Sylvain Cottong, a partner at IntegratedPlace, has created a presentation to highlight the differences between UX design, service design and design thinking. [ Spot the use of the CD cover image I discovered on slide 62 :) ]
What is UX design, service design & design thinking more
Filed under: Red Jotter Work, service design | Tags: design week, education, employment, service design
Design Week suggests Young people need more information about creative industries.
The comments are the most relevant and important part – including those by Sarah and Jonathan.
I have a question to ask those of you who are students | undergrads | postgrads | graduates | interns | ex-students..
Where do you go to find out how to get in and get on in the world of Service Design?
p.s if the answer if negative – ‘I wish i knew’ or there is ‘ no where to go’ that is ok too!
*The ‘unpaid internship’ issue mentioned in the article deserves a post of it’s very own – coming soon!
Filed under: service design | Tags: co creation, copenhagen, event, service design
Co-creation changes the game of innovation from designing FOR people to designing WITH people. “Designing for Change 09” is an international event, initiating a knowledge-sharing network concerning co-creation set up by the Danish Design Association.
“People experience business as a service. A business’ service is a combination of their brand identity, the products and services that are being sold and the organisation of the company itself.”
One example of the result of co-creation within service design is the automated baggage handling system at wok at Copenhagen Kastrup Airport. CPH Design designed and developed a cart system for baggage handling in airports to eliminate heavy manual lifting, reduce the risk of lost baggage and speed up airline turn around time at airports. This is the result of re-thinking the flow of passengers in extensive collaboration with both end users and the different organizational partners. All solutions were developed together with the ground handlers who work daily with baggage handling.
Learn more about the event here. Thanks to Kate for discovery!
Filed under: people I like, reading and writing, service design | Tags: engine, jeff howard, joe heapy, publication, reading, service design book
A new service design publication is on it’s way next summer… Service Design: A design for new challenges written by Joe Heapy, co-founder and director of Engine. I met Joe at Service Design Drinks in February, he recently collaborated with Demos to research and publish, The Journey to the Interface, a pamphlet setting out the role of user-centred approaches to service design in the public sector.
“In Service Design, Joe Heapy looks at the ways people use services, the ways innovative organisations across sectors are now looking to develop the services we use; and the new needs that they’ve created for us. The author identifies the reasons why organisations need to adopt new methods to develop their understanding of how services work and how to go about designing really good ones; and the importance of designing services with and not just for people.
Service Design outlines Engine’s approach to innovating and designing services and that of other design and non-design organisations. The author identifies trends in the design of services and the big issues and opportunities that are shaping the services that we use.”
Thank you to Jeff for discovery!
Graham just reminded me – why is it hundreds of dollars? Very inaccessible…
Filed under: people I like, service design | Tags: A4e, benefit busters, emma harrison, employment, people, service, service design, social design
The government is attempting to revolutionise the benefits system. On Thursday night Channel 4 aired the first of a documentary series that follows people on both sides of the new welfare state. Two of the programmes show A4e helping single mothers in Doncaster and long-term unemployed people in Hull.
The idea is that the government rewards private sector companies and charities for getting claimants into work.
“At the moment anyone unemployed for more than six months is mandated to attend 30 hour programmes for 13 weeks to update their job skills. For some this is not nearly enough – they need help with literacy, improving their confidence and often tackling serious problems such as alcohol abuse. For others, they have hit a patch of bad luck and may only need a few hours of direction and encouragement to find a good job.”
Emma Harrison is the chairman of A4e and features in the series – describing the new program as a ‘together thing’ rather than a ‘we are going to do this to you / for you’ thing. The way Emma described her approach really struck a chord with me, echoing that of service design practitioners :
“We want to work alongside people who want our help and together we find a way forward.By absolutely listening to everyone on the front and coming back and telling all the people at the top ( the people who make the big decisions ) what I have heard, what I have smelled, what I have touched, who I have had a chat with…that’s how I do what I do.”
As an avid blogger Emma recently invited her readers to “make a movie about your day – a customers day – something uplifting that will inspire others – something that shows something good happening. Use your phone, a camera – frankly it does not have to be fancy!” I love this idea – connecting with real people living their day to day life. Hopefully, some of the entries will be on their site soon!
Emma also facilitates regular informal meetings with her staff every month; ‘Tea with Emma’. I am excited and inspired my her approach – using her people skills to tackle a social problem.
I believe that nobody should live in poverty and claimants should get help with essentials like food, clothes, electricity and heat. Cash should not be handed out the way it is. No one should be wealthier claiming benefits than out in the workplace. It is clear that our current benefit system isn’t working.
Filed under: service design | Tags: empathy, form filling, people, service, swimming, touchpoint
Learning to swim is difficult no matter what age you are. I know a few adults who can’t swim and the truth is they are nervous and anxious about what to expect. A very good friend of mine, who just celebrated her 50th birthday, recently inquired about taking more swimming lessons to build her confidence in the water.
The member of staff at the sports centre handed her the form below: “We know it says ‘child’s name’ but just scribble that out and write your name”
My friend is now disheartened and embarrassed. Where is the sensitivity and empathy ? It may seem like a little insignificant detail to the service provider, but to the adults who have plucked up the courage to inquire it forces them back to square one.
The design initiative ‘Unfinished business’ is the unfinished words and deeds of the core team of the unfinished business project. They have highlighted an interesting way of perceiving design thinking.
If ‘design thinking’ was an object, how would you describe it?
“How might the application of a familiar analogy might help to illuminate the elusive qualities of design thinking? We thought it would be an interesting experiment to see what folks would come up with if tasked with submitting three entries or nominations for a periodic table of the elements of design thinking. FYI, the current table of chemical elements contains 117 atomic elements.
First, I put out a call on Twitter (got a few bites) and then I posted the question/task to the Google Group of the Overlap community. In short order, the folks on the Overlap list got a very good list going, along with some very interesting discussion about what to do with structure, categories, and how best to visualize these “elements” and their relationships to each other and to the meta of design thinking.
I do believe that there is merit in trying to puzzle out what happens when we put design and thinking together. I’ve always thought it was kind of like trying to put hand and head back together, to reunite the body and mind and undo the violence of their Cartesian separation. We have to, to borrow the phrase of country singer David Ball, admit we’ve got a thinkin’ problem in design.
Rather than struggle too much with an overburdened theoretical approach to the question, “so what is that design thinking thing, anyhoo” I have taken the approach that there really is something there. The evidence for that would be, I submit, that if there an “object” called design thinking, then we ought to be able to start to describe it. The elements that are emerging from this thread are already bearing out some interesting data and pattern to mull over. Please join in with you suggestions for elements, related thoughts and relevant links.
Here’s the list we have so far, merely organized by alpha for the moment. All thoughts about meta categories, and structural or visual ways to describe relation are also very welcome. Will Evans has rightly suggested that (among other things) this can be seen as an effort to develop an ontology of design thinking. That means that philosophers can have a go at this, too.”
The (Overlapping) Elements of Design Thinking
Abduction = Ab
Analysis = Al
Anticipation = An
Behaviors = Bh
Collaborative = Cl
Collapse: Cl
Communication = Cm
Community: Cm? (Cy)
Context = Cx
Contribution: Cn
Convergence = Cv
Courage = Co
Debate = Db
Deconstruction = Dc
Dr = Design Research
Dialogue = Di
Discourse = Ds
Divergence = Dv
Empathy = Em
Envisioning = En
Experimental = Ex
Fabrication = Fb
Failure: Fi
Forecast = Fc
Heuristics = Hr
Human = H
Ideation = Id
Identification = Id?
Imagination: Im
Internalization = Iz
Iteration = It
Language = La
Myth = Mt
Noticing = Nt
Observation = Ob
Overlap = O or Ov
Perception = Pn
Play = Py
Practice: Pc
Prototyping = Pt
Recombining = Rc
Reframing = Rf
Reliability = Rl
Research = Rs
Rigour: Rg
Semiotics = Se
Skepticism = Sk
Sociality = So
Sustainability = Su
Synthesis = St
Systemics = Sy
Taste = Ta
Thrivability = Tv
Topography: Tp
Validity = Vl
Nick has already spotted this one, coining it “pretentious but inspiring”. Christopher Fahey from www.graphpaper.com advises “please don’t try to shoehorn this into the *actual* periodic table’s grid”.
I can see where these guys are coming from and have to admit I do agree with them. Although, I think the idea of describing an intangible as an object has huge potential. This experiment is reminding me of the Rip and Mix method I explored at T-labs – if we could break down methods and ways of thinking into these elements then we would be able to pull elements from each, mashing them together to create something new.
Filed under: people I like | Tags: experience, service, umbrellatoday, weather
The simplest weather report ever – Umbrella Today send you a text message on days when you need an umbrella. For me that is every day, but for some of you this service may be useful.
I love the little details, such as the Umbrelletiquette:
“ When disembarking from public transit, one should keep their umbrella holstered until such a proper time as it may be safely wielded without impeding the general progress of fellow passengers.”
Thanks to Kat for discovery.
Brilliant service idea to fix the freakin’ buses!
Search for bus routes, see live bus times and locations and tell them your gripes and gropes. An outcome of Social Innovation Camp Scotland!
Filed under: made me think, people I like, service design | Tags: experience, gender, joel bailey, role, service design, tamsin smith
Joel Bailey recently wrote Service Design: A feminist manifesto
“Got me thinking about the worst kept secret in service design, that 90% of clients are women. I’ve been pondering this and reckon it’s down to the method – an approach to change that is about collaboration and listening. Not wishing to stereotype, but those are not characteristics of the male board room. Certainly my years in management consultancy were about command and control, with top down change imposed and directed. The greatest appeal of service design as an approach is that it looks to peoples inherent resourcefulness for the answers. It says to people – you have it in you to transform the service you deliver. For me there’s something quite maternalistic in there”
Engine’s Tamsin Smith posted an interesting reply:
“…the attraction of females to service design is something we’ve discussed as an emerging trend. It is certainly not reflected in current practice in which females service designers are definitely the minority.
The softer skills of a service designer such as empathy and capacity-building, for example, are more inherent female traits. The ‘People’ part of service design i.e. designing for people, with people, to make better people roles- again appeals to the feminine side in us”
I find this debate fascinating. I had an insightful conversation with Sophia Parker about her research for Social Animals – and in her talking to many students focused / interested in Service Design – the majority of them were female. Certainly, from a product design background I think the Service Design practice appeals to designers who are happiest talking to people and researching - compared to being in the work shop making.
The students / researchers I know who are focusing on Service Design are female, yet the practitioners I know are male…
I’m curious…what do you think? and are you a Mr or a Mrs?
Redjotter is one today.
This is the first post that explains how this all began! Today is an excuse for me to say thank you for all your support and inspiration. Fingers crossed the year ahead is full of surprises and adventures…
Filed under: people I like, service design | Tags: animation, experience, illustration, livework, service design
Live|work have posted an animation explaining what Service Design is all about.
It works. It’s simple.
Filed under: made me think, service design | Tags: glasgow, knife crime, scotland, service design, social design
I watched The War Against Street Weapons this week:
“Last year, as chair of Channel 4’s Street Weapons Commission, Cherie Booth QC said that the use of guns and knives among young people had become so widespread that she feared for the safety of her own children. Since then, the police and government have taken steps to deal with the problem. But are they doing enough?
To answer that question, Cherie joins police patrols on Britain’s toughest streets, talks to young offenders behind bars, and visits a pioneering scheme combating Glasgow’s violent gang culture.
The Street Weapons Commission Report – published in 2008 – set out a series of practical recommendations about what could be done to tackle the problem of street weapons in the UK. But one year on, the problem hasn’t gone away and Cherie feels passionately that more must be done.”
Sometimes I forget that Cherie Booth is not just the former Prime Minister’s wife, but also a hugely successful barrister in her own right! Read these related press articles to find out more about some of the violent crime cases referred to in Dispatches.
It was this service offered by the Violence Reduction Unit that interested me the most – this card is handed to gang members the service targets either following a visit to their home or a ’self referral’ sessions.
The program is based on this article from the New Yorker and you can learn more here: www.actiononviolence.com
From where I am standing this looks like a fantastic initiative. . Of course, design thinking alone will fail to tackle crime but I believe design has a crucial role to play in this. How would the dynamics of this service change if a service designer were to spend a day with the young people it has rescued from gang life?
Thank you to Caroline Foulkes, Communications Manager at the Violence Reduction Unit for all her help in finding this information.
Filed under: made me think | Tags: communication, experience, patient, service signage
I walked into my local GP surgery to find this:
I don’t understand … so where am I supposed to go? Call for advice from the front door? Why can’t a person come and speak to me?
This is an example of why people don’t like going to the doctors and why people don’t seek help when they are ill.
A conversation has to be happen between:
- the person who made this sign
- the person who decided to place it at the front door
- the doctors who walk past it every morning approvingly
- the reception who witnesses the reactions
- most importantly – the patients
…fling a service designer into that mix and you are onto a solution!
Filed under: Red Jotter Work, service design | Tags: prototyping, service blueprinting
A machine I designed to show the workings of the final system I am working on.
Turning this:
Into this:
