Service Design Tools
Cfd Conversation Series | September 24th 2021
Tools for service design are more than methods
“Services are often characterized by intangibility, therefore service design tools have played a crucial role in the design process and in co production of the stakeholders. Tools are more than just methods. They are also models that represent principles behind how and why we make the services…”
Miso Kim, Ph.D.
The evolution of Service Design Tools
Roberta Tassi introduced us to the service design tools platform, which she has been working on since 2009 when she began the project as part of her graduation thesis. The platform was launched in 2019 as the first agency proposing and offering service design.
The questions they‘ve been asking themselves were; How can we support practitioners and design professionals? How can we assist in designing for the intangible? How can we give back to the community by collecting conversations and resources in service design at the present moment? They’ve seen many services designed in different ways each with specific outcomes in mind so they also started asking questions surrounding impact.
So, why are tools so important in Service Design?
Miso expanded on this question to add that in other design fields, such as product design, the process of making is governed by the crafting of the object, while service design puts more emphasis on tools and methods when compared to other design areas.
Roberta | complexity and tangibility
Service design needs to consider many different users with different backgrounds, and so tangibility is key to communicating in an open design process with stakeholders and users.
Stefano | services are part of the material world
Dr. Stefano Maffei took the word “crafting” to mean material production. He reminded us that the performance of a service is intangible, but the service itself is very real and made by tangible things that are interconnected, so services are in fact a part of the material experience in the world. He emphasizes that what really matters is impact.
Francesca | align languages and competencies
Dr. Francesca Foglieni added that tools are crucial to service design because, in contrast to other design disciplines, the contribution of outside stakeholders is more relevant throughout the design process. It is therefore very important to align languages and competencies of stakeholders through the use of tools.
What challenges are service designers currently facing?
Stefano | accountability, impact and evaluation
An important thing to be aware of in service design is accountability. We need to understand the long-term effects of service design decisions because some of those effects are not visible, yet still have a great impact. Because typical metrics used to evaluate service performance/satisfaction are synchronous, it’s extremely hard to understand in the long term if you are not considering impact in the design process.
He gave three words for what the field needs to adopt more widely: impact, accountability, and evaluation. Service designers need to evaluate their work, it is standard practice in other fields. This is the biggest challenge in his eyes.
Roberta | a new generation of services
Roberta pointed out that we’ve already reached the human center approach in many sectors, so service designers need to contribute to a new generation of experiences. The challenge then becomes how to help service providers see different outcomes at different levels of service, as opposed to focusing solely on user experience.
Francesca | transversal and vertical challenges
The field needs to consider both transversal challenges and vertical challenges. She sees the greatest challenge as finding a balance between pushing the discipline forward from its current perspective and evolving it so that it is always engaging with contemporary issues.
Comment from the chatbox
Understanding its good intentions, in practice it’s already known that service design methods are assumption-boxed around service. This renders it less than ideal for complex contexts where the challenges are unknown at the outset. This is not reflected in most academic programs.
Stefano | wicked context and dark matter
Stefano wanted to specifically address this chat comment by bringing up the concept of complexity. He believes that the field tends to operate in a reductionist environment. Instead through conversations like these, we start to define a new part of the research service design enterprise to be critical service design.
In order to do this, he gives the definition of wicked context; a problematic context in which we can not find a clear strategy because of the complexity. He then brings up the concept of dark matter which lies behind the visible world and is made up of networks. This is to say that the service design field should take in a plurality of perspectives as to bring in a border view of the phenomenon that they are attempting to work with. (read more in our previous CfD conversation “Rethinking Design Thinking in the Pluriverse”)
Miso | service as a moral system
Miso reminded us that service can sometimes be seen as a moral system, for instance in services like those on an airplane where passengers may get kicked off for a certain type of conduct that may come from a different cultural system.
How do you think service design tools will evolve?
Roberta | intersection of disciplines, dynamic behaviors, and system maps
From the Service Design Tools perspective…
- …in mapping out the personas to understand who they are designing for, they are looking at dynamic human behavior; how the behavior develops over time.
- …when they use a tool called (eco)system map for which they are using systems thinking to help analyze and understand value exchange.
- …in looking at the intersection of speculative design, bringing in elements to consider different future scenarios.
Francesca | beyond the trend of filling canvases
Francesca adds that they are trying to go beyond the trend emerging in the last years of filling canvases and templates which are codified tools. She suggests that rather than restricting service design to filling up something that is pre-structured, the service design tools team is looking towards other disciplines and borrowing techniques that are more like guidelines in order to support the vertical and transversal challenges that service design is seeing today.
Stefano | human relationships with the artificial
When looking at the intersection of artificial with the designed service, he asks, is it still service design if we are co producing with a stakeholder that is artificial and has agency? This brings up the discussion of what it means to be designing in a more-than-human/transhuman/posthuman society. We need to decide what type of balance we want in extreme technological development. He adds that with corporate priorities there is an ideological dominance or ideological colonialism. These are all things that need consideration for the field to evolve.
How can we empower others to understand service design, especially in the realm of service design for climate resilience?
Stefano | foster dignity
Social innovation in co-producing design processes and production can help the public to understand service design better. In providing more inclusion, fair labor, and dignity for the user of a service, we create a sustainable growth model for renovated welfare.
Roberta | self-organization for communities or analyzing efficiencies for companies
Taking into account small communities and incorporating what they define as services is a way to empower those communities in the coproduction of service. There is also the possibility of big companies beginning to understand service design better by reflecting redundancies in their systems that make them inefficient.
Would you say that the service design tools have evolved with emerging technologies development?
Roberta | digital technologies
Roberta brings up digital transformation and how digital technologies have been incorporated in services themselves already. This means that service designers need to be able to rethink processes and experiences with digital touchpoints in mind.
Francesca | its a matter of knowledge
Francesca believes that keeping up with emerging technologies is not something that can be solved simply by evolving the tools themselves. Rather, it is a knowledge problem. Because emerging technologies are already touchpoints in new processes, first we need to understand the emerging technologies. There can then be tools that support better design for processes mediated by technology, but it’s not just about evolving existing tools.
What do service designers do when the challenges being faced have nothing to do with service?
Miso | everything is related to service
Miso responds when posing the question that everything is related to service. She adds, service has always been a way that people help each other, and a way that people see the world. Services are a system of human connections.
Chat Comment | Global Climate Strike
Thank you for the talk it was inspiring. I was wondering if you could answer my question too. I know while we are designing a service we should think of all the topics you’ve already talked about. Like methodologies, inclusivity, accessibility, society’s needs so on and so forth… As you may know today is the Global Climate Strike day of the youth around the world. Can you see a way to include this demand to the services you’re designing as Service Designers who are aiming to design services that lasts.
Stefano | by design or by disaster
Stefano finished the event by talking about a conference that was currently happening in Bolzano, Italy called “by design or by disaster.” In terms of ‘by design’, there are two scenarios; either change the focus of action through a participatory process or evaluate strategies for global challenges. From the opposite perspective with ‘by disaster,’ there is risk inherent in large technical societies which depends on the interconnection of complex technologies.
Stefano continues to say that we need to be prepared for intervention by disaster; we are living in a pluriversal regime (planetary was an alternative word brought up in the chat) where we can not avoid global challenges like climate change. So, rather than face these problems from an individual perspective, we need to face these challenges from a pluriversal perspective. We need common action to tackle the adversities that humanity is facing
Written by Nicole Zizzi
Center for Design, Northeastern University
Want to know more? Watch the full conversation!
Moderated by: Miso Kim, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Experience Design, Art + Design, CAMD, Northeastern University
Including panelists: Dr. Stefano Maffei, Full Professor, Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano; Roberta Tassi, Founder at oblo and servicedesigntools, Former Head of Service Design, Digital Transformation Team of Italian Government ; Dr. Francesca Foglieni, Service Designer, Design Researcher, Adjunct Professor, Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano
For more information on this event visit https://camd.northeastern.edu/event/cfd-conversations-05/
The conversation doesn’t end here! | comments from the chat box
in reference to Stefano’s accountability, impact and evaluation
- Understanding its good intentions, in practice it its already known that service design methods are assumption-boxed around service. This renders it less than ideal for complex contexts where the challenges are unknown at the outset. This is not reflected in most academic programs.
- I love that, tools are a way to align and share language among diverse stakeholders… perhaps generalizing these methods for more “complex” systems can be a way to leverage the importance of these and other tools
- I like Stefano’s focus on IMPACT and ACCOUNTABILITY. I would add RESPONSIBILITY on side of designers.
in reference to Stefano’s wicked context and dark matter
- Disconnect is talking up wicked problems but assuming service. meta design and service design…two different things.
- More on dark matter: https://strelkamag.com/en/article/book-passage-dark-matter-and-trojan-horses-a-strategic-design-vocabulary
in reference to miso’s everything is related to service
- I suggest we shift emphasis from “services that get delivered to consumers” towards “situations that are experienced by humans”… situations are complex and wicked in Rittel’s terms.
- Experience Design is not Meta Design either as it assumes experience to be the challenge….:-) These are assumption-boxed methods. https://www.nextd.org/post/10-secrets-of-design-thinking-
- Digital mobile interconnectedness and the predominance of *platforms* as structures for communication and interaction have brought about an increasing *lack of control* on the side of service providers. A situation, even a service-related situation, is made up by so much more than the service delivered. And people are today able to navigate situations in many ways, even bypassing the original service provider. It is quite a conundrum which I think becomes navigable when shifting focus on human experience as unit of inquiry — experience not as a challenge or output of design but as a lens and unit of inquiry.
in reference to stefano’s by design or by disaster
- Is there any (new?) tool that is somehow incorporating these ideas? Is there any sign of a new generation of design tools that addresses the challenges/issues you are talking about? Should designers take charge in designing these (new) tools?
- We have different tools to address sustainable design as in LeNS portal, and every day someone creates a new tool. But the way I see we do not use them because there are few designers that are enabled to understand them.
