Service Design 2018: Grading and Fine Print (Policies)

Spring 2018, Carnegie Mellon School of Design

Profs. Molly Wright Steenson & Daphne Firos
TA Vanessa Calderon

Assignments and grading

Participation, 15%

You can’t do this class if you’re not here and if you’re not working with the people around you. Please participate actively and passively.

Music service case study, 25%

Team-based case study assignment. Your team will be assigned a music service and create a seven-minute presentation that describes the following:

• A description of service, who owns it, who funds it, its business model, and where it gets the music (its licensing model)
• A map of its stakeholders and audiences
• A high-level blueprint (showing backstage and frontstage, lines of visibility)
• The challenges it faces, how it addresses the value gap, future plans (where apparent)
• … and get us excited about the possibilities and problems here of the service! Why should we care?

Presentation will be strictly timed, so please practice. Every member of your team must present. You will turn in a PDF of the slides you use in the presentation, and separate PDF showing the high-level blueprint (since it may be hard to see in detail on screen).

Service design project, 60%

This is a comprehensive service design project for a music service, start to finish. In order to prototype that service, you’ll need to do the following.

1. Your service has a unique name and a clear value proposition. Your team can state its mission, who the stakeholders are, and what value it provides. You answer how you’re getting the music (licensing or otherwise) and how it addresses problems like the the value gap.
2. Your team documents your progress on the web, week by week, on Medium.
3. You developed the service with primary (user/stakeholder) and secondary research. You’ve done interviews or observations, and then you’ve done service experiments and tests of your prototypes with users.
4. You demonstrate the flows, touchpoints, journeys, front/back stage, and lines of visibility in deliverables including: an evolving service blueprint (with post-its and digitally), with increasing levels of details; a journey map, value flow diagrams — and any other diagrams or deliverables that your team needs to develop to clarify your idea. For the final review, you will show a digital version of your blueprint.
5. You designed and prototyped at least two touchpoints for the service. For the final review, you will show touchpoints in context in your video.
6. Final presentation: every team member speaks:

FINAL PRESENTATION
The final presentation involves a “pitch” and a “story/case study” of your service design project. Each should part should take 5 to 7 minutes each for a total of 10–14 minutes (including your video, which belongs to the pitch). Every team member must speak. please arrive by 1:20 for a snack & to get set up.

The Pitch

This is the presentation of the service you’ve designed. These materials should make it easy for you to incorporate your project your portfolio to submit your project to design awards like the IxDA Awards, Core77, or Service Design Network student awards.

• Spend 1–2 minutes introducing your team members and service. Consider stating its mission, who the stakeholders are, and what value it provides. Don’t be overly redundant with the video (below).
• Show a video (max 3 minutes) that explains your service, demonstrates the experience of using it start to finish and shows the prototypes (2 minimum) that you designed. This video should include a voiceover and be clear enough that it can stand alone as an explanation of your service.
• Spend 1–2 minutes on a conclusion that summarizes your service, its value, the stakeholders, and anything that wasn’t fully covered in the video.

The “story/case study”

“And how we got here…” Now that we understand your service, spend 5–7 minutes telling the story of what you tried, what worked, what didn’t work, what you learned, and what you’d do differently. This is what we’ve been calling your “case study.” Rather than the week-by-week project blog you’ve been keeping, this is an after-the-fact story of your project. It will include your project deliverables (service proposition, blueprints/maps/diagrams, touchpoint prototypes), but it will tell a story. All of you have had twists and turns along the way, and this is an opportunity share what you’ve learned.

Here are some prompts below that you may choose to follow or use for inspiration (You’re not required to, but they may be helpful for your brainstorming or even your structuring of your story).

• First, we…
• We tried…
• We learned…
• We did…
• But then…
• And so we…
• We discovered…
• Although you’d think…
• We realized that…
• ___ was surprisingly easy. We…
• …. but ____ was difficult.
• Our hunches about ____ were correct, and our hunches about ____ were wrong.
• Finally, we…
• If we had to do it over again…

Attendance, tardiness and your presence

The attendance policy for this class is strict. There are no unexcused absences. Be in class unless you are sick or you have some other unavoidable conflict. Be on time. Notify Molly, Daphne, & Vanessa by email before class if at all possible if you cannot attend. Much of what we’ll be doing relies on in-class discussion and group work, and if you’re not here, you’re not participating. After two unexcused absences, your grade will drop a half grade per absence. Continued tardiness will also affect your grade. After two unexcused tardinesses, your grade will drop 2 points per late arrival. We understand that some of you have long distances between classes: clear that with us in advance and we’ll excuse you.

Be courteous

Be present. Listen. Take part. We will have many outside visitors and lectures. You can use laptops in class but stay off social media while during lectures and presentations, whether by me, the TAs, a visitor, a Skype visitor, or your classmates. Do not do work for other classes while you’re in this class. Similarly, stay off your phone: no texting, Snapchat, etc. We will tell you to put your phone or computer away. When your classmates are presenting, close your computers and listen.

Academic integrity

The point of this class is to develop and situate your own ideas in a broader discourse — and in order to do that properly, you need to cite your work. No form of academic dishonesty will be tolerated. I can’t emphasize this enough: you will fail assignments or possibly the class as a whole. When you use words, images, videos — even ideas and thoughts that are not yours and that you do not credit or properly cite, you are guilty of plagiarism. Do not cut and paste from other sources, even into your own notes, without keeping some system that tells you exactly where your work came from. Do not take the work of other designers or other students and pass it off as your own. When you document your project, when you make presentations, when you put things on slides, you must give credit. CMU’s policies are available here for your review. Please ask me if you have questions.

Take care of yourself

And a note to remind you to take care of yourself. Do your best to maintain a healthy lifestyle this semester by eating well, exercising, avoiding drugs and alcohol, getting enough sleep and taking some time to relax. This will help you achieve your goals and cope with stress. All of us benefit from support during times of struggle. You are not alone. There are many helpful resources available on campus and an important part of the college experience is learning how to ask for help. Asking for support sooner rather than later is often helpful. If you find it’s difficult to get out of bed, or make it to class, please come talk to me. (And please do email if you feel are needing to miss class. We’d rather see you here.)

If you or anyone you know experiences any academic stress, difficult life events, or feelings like anxiety or depression, we strongly encourage you to seek support. Counseling and Psychological Services (CaPS) is here to help: call 412–268–2922 and visit their website at http://www.cmu.edu/counseling/. Consider reaching out to a friend, faculty or family member you trust for help getting connected to the support that can help.