Reflection on Service, System, and Infrastructure Design Studio
Studio @ Srishti Institute of Art, Design, and Technology (7th Jan 2019–8th Feb 2019)
Knowing Service Design is an important aspect of Human Centered Design. It revolves around directly improving the employee’s experience, and indirectly, the customer’s experience. (Source)
A one-month Studio at Srishti Institute of Art, Design, and Technology, Bangalore, helped us look into the Service, System and Infrastructure Design of various platforms available in the market that have changed the way Gated Communities function.
Activities in the Studio
Starting off in all the studio, it was an introduction to various terminologies such as Service, System, Infrastructure, Experience Design, and Data Collection by Naveen Bagalkot. We were then asked to present our insights and views on an article on Rating Domestic Helpers through platforms like myGate, Apna Complex, etc
The studio went ahead with discussions on the video that went viral of a Zomato delivery guy who ate the packed food on his way to delivery. We had a healthy discussion on how we as designers could look into this act and analyze the various aspects of the system.
An interesting one-day workshop was carried out by Gopinaath Kannabiran in which we had some hands-on activities on Power hierarchy in a system and designing a sketch of dating apps with some unique features.
Being a software engineer, I loved the next part of the studio — Learning language “R”. Venkat Chilukuri taught us some commonly used functions of R. We also engaged in the visualization of small chunks of data collected through a hands-on activity in the studio.
The next 2 weeks were tightly scheduled with focus on Gated Colonies with respect to platforms like myGate, Apna Complex, Community Adda, etc.
Key Learnings in the Studio
The best part of the studio was that we got a chance to not simply focus on finding the solution but also an option to Probe into the problem area and get a deep understanding of the related system.
Research through Design or Design for Research? A major part of learning of the studio was based on doing Research through various Methods of Design.
Service Design Tools were introduced which helped a lot in mapping the WHEN, HOW, WHO, WHAT’s of the complex systems that we were dealing with. We faced certain problems in the practical usage of these tools, like when, how and in what phase design process should they be applied, but our facilitators were there to help us figure this out.
Peer learnings played an important role in this studio. Every group had a unique approach to look at Gated colonies with the eyes of platforms like myGate. Some groups collected data from RtD process while others looked at enhancing the features of the application. Some even questioned the existing rating system when others tried to explore the various emotions among a particular set of users.
It showed how a system that looks simple from outside actually has multiple complex threads interconnected to each other. Amendments in one directly or indirectly affects the other side.
Understanding the User
We as designers many-a-times fail because we assume things that our user would be facing. The users are different and we might not know them. Therefore, when we design, the first thing we should do is to understand the context of how the user uses the service or the product.
We focused on providing customized services to users who lived in Gated Colonies. We got to know our users when we interacted with them. Mapping the various frequently occurring events in their lives, we got insights into how this was so closely related to the services that these platforms were providing.
Based on our project, a major understanding was also on what was the difference between Customized and Personalized Services. After the probe into Pattern Matching of events in the lives of our users, we came up to a proposal of providing Customised Services to them which they can use as per their convenience and not in a forced manner.
Stakeholders and Touchpoints
Understanding what exactly Stakeholders means and mapping the stakeholders involved in the system was a major and initial step. Another learning that happened at this stage was — Can Stakeholders be Touchpoints and vice-versa?
Providing customized services involved changing the way users interacted with the touchpoints and even sometimes involving foreign stakeholders into the existing system.
Taking it further
Details about the Project — Customized Data Services:
I believe there were certain places where we failed to do justice to what exactly was meant by “Customized Services”. I wish to relook at this system from a new angle still focusing on the pattern matching of events in the lives of people.
Working in a team always helps to get feedback on your views, get different angles to one single thought and definitely critiques to your work. MOHIT MOHAN’s ability to look at every aspect of the problem and Ketaki Paranjape’s visual skills have helped us a lot to achieve what we have as our final outcome. Our facilitators, Naveen Bagalkot, and Venkat Chilukuri were always there to help us design our ways whenever we were struck.
Overall, It was a week full of Wall Works, Sticky Notes, Infographics, and too many new learnings!
