The service design inspiration 003: Drones flying us to the future.

Published in

Think Service

9 min readMay 26, 2020

Drone technology has been in the picture for the last 4–5 years but as the technology matures, a variety of applications have been evolving too. From transporting goods to human and from consumer video gear to precision farming, drones are showing us a strong way ahead. With the technology pushing the boundaries & more creative applications emerging, it’s time to reflect on how these innovative services are designed.

Hello, we are two enthusiastic service designers who love to dive into the world of products and services. We are here to share with you our service design explorations and inspirations which we think could be helpful for all of us to develop and innovate.

As drone applications are spreading across the fields, after our research and case study hunts, we have picked five services which are in different sectors and worth sharing to get some innovative juices flowing!

Let’s go and take a look at some of the interesting services hovering around drones :p

Volocopter

Volocopter is an urban air mobility service provider.

What problem are they solving?

With new mobility options coming in the picture like drones, Volocopter is one of the first companies to develop the on demand air taxi solution for cities. They offer emission and traffic free transport. Volocopter also builds the infrastructure for ports for pickup and drops.

Who is it for?

Looking at the technology maturity, we guess it’s for the people who need to go from point A to B in no time, while paying a good amount of money. We believe, with time it will be more accessible for all.

2 things we liked!

Ability of the company to offer a complete solution for air mobility in an urban setting, with the vehicle, ports and digital infrastructure to access the service.
Possibly the most promising option to realise the long awaited flying car vision

We wish…

the innovative approach when it comes to technology and infrastructure was also prominent in the service offering. Because, right now service is replacing street vehicles with airborne instead of introducing some creative approaches using the pioneering benefit.

Service Design Inspiration.

Volocopter has shown us how a company can design a complete solution and hit the market instead of just developing the technology and selling the vehicles. With this approach a company can potentially dominate the market. It does look like a great strategy to develop the service along with the product in today’s time.

Context jam

(where we take a concept from the service and place it in a different context)

ABC is a technology company developing organic food 3D printers. But instead of selling the printer as a product; they are designing various service packages such as Healthy daily meals, party packs, vegan snacks, etc. which will use the printer. This way they create an overall solution from printer setup, meal plans, deliveries, maintenance, etc. potentially acquiring a bigger market share.

Zipline

Zipline delivers critical and lifesaving products precisely where and when they are needed, safely and reliably, every day, across multiple countries.

What problem are they solving?

Zipline is a new age medicine delivery drone service. They set up their droneports which also serve as warehouses for storing the medicines received from the clients. Their drones then make it possible to deliver medicines in the 85km service radius on demand. Allowing to deliver medicine right on time in various not so easily accessible places, saving lives.

Who is it for?

There are two important stakeholders involved, clients who provide the medicines and the people who need it. Apart from that setting up the business in various remote places on the planet, the company is creating jobs for local people, making them also the benefiters.

2 things we liked!

Ability of supplying almost a ton of medicines and medical products a day in remote or isolated regions
The unique drone system which flies, drops the parcel with parachute and returns; getting ready for the next delivery.

We wish…

the service model would be applicable in urban areas, to have a system like this in place for the current global crisis. This is just a wish :)

Service Design Inspiration.

By clear models made in the hybrid of latest technology and a solution to a serious problem; Zipline is able to replicate it’s set up in various countries around the world. This also leads to a lot of employment opportunities to locals.

Context jam

(where we take a concept from the service and place it in a different context)

ABC is a company running smart and affordable water purification plants. These plants have a clear and scalable setup process. By having well defined setups, ABC is able to launch plants across the globe in developing countries, while employing local people and using local resources.

Sunflower Labs

Autonomous drones for home security systems

What problem are they solving?

With the help of some sensors (sunflowers) and drones (bees) which fly as per the schedules or on demand and dock themselves in the charging station (hive), Sunflower Lab is providing a security system completely controlled by the owners of the properties. This is a perfect solution for secluded and isolated homes which need monitoring. By getting first hand information, owners find themselves in a secured position even for their distant properties.

Who is it for?

People with a need to keep their properties safe and secured without relying on daily visits of supervisors.

2 things we liked!

Drones and sensors make it possible for adapting systems for any properties.
Ability for the owner to monitor distant properties from anywhere at any time.

We wish…

there was a clear follow up after the identification of suspicious actions and them being captured on camera, to give the user an indication of what she/he can do with the information from the system.

Service Design Inspiration.

Sunflower lab has a neat service flow to ensure it’s offering. First the Sunflowers i.e. the sensors around the property sense the abnormal behaviour, then the bee i.e. drone is deployed to confirm and monitor the situations, which leads to potential action while the drone docks itself in the hive i.e. a docking station. This simple interlinked flow of technology and service is great.

Context jam

(where we take a concept from the service and place it in a different context)

ABC is a company which works to keep the forest fires and disasters contained. They have sensors put across the forest land, which inform the administration with abnormality in a region, which is then visually checked with the help of a drone or personal visit. This let’s ABC have control and be ready for actions to stop the disasters from happening.

Rantizo

An adaptive drone system provider for precision farming.

What problem are they solving?

Precision farming is based on providing the right agricultural products to the right part of the field at the right time. Rantizo provides a precision farming system which helps farmers to distribute chemicals and nutrients to their crop with the help of drones. This increases the efficiency of distribution, reducing the time as well as wastage of the products.

Who is it for?

For farmers who want to distribute the chemicals across the farm with higher efficiency and low manpower.

2 things we liked!

Not only analyzing but helping farmers in application with the help of drones.
The approach of Rantizo to create a community around precision farming with the intention of raising farming standards in regions.

We wish…

the communication of the service put emphasis on their distinguishing offers, such as community creation and the benefits of precision farming rather than just stressing on the technical aspects of the service.

Service Design Inspiration.

Rantizo modifies DJI drones to their needs to bring an affordable solution for their business area. The service provides software and support from the team to cover the necessary parts to make use of precision farming without doing everything from scratch.

Context jam

(where we take a concept from the service and place it in a different context)

ABC is a company that provides luggages on rent to travellers that need different sizes of storage for particular fights. By leveraging luggages produced by established brands ABC can reduce costs in activating their service, associate themselves with a well known company and ultimately provide a better product for their clients.

Measure

A one stop solution for integrating drone technology in businesses from planning to analysis.

What problem are they solving?

Involving drone systems in an industry is not very easy as it’s not only about drones but also the application. Measure helps any industry to set up a custom drone system solution. From planning of the project, flights, data collection, data analysis to data storage. This helps industries to ingrate drones seamlessly for their benefit.

Who is it for?

From individuals to corporations, who are looking for holistic solutions to optimise the efficiency and effectiveness of their projects based on frequently monitored and analysed aerial data.

2 things we liked!

Ability of Measure to create customised end to end solutions using drones.
Empowering customers by providing easy drone operations and data analysation.

We wish…

Measure could provide an on demand version of their service, to lower the barrier of entry by using drones for specific or one-off works. Providing access to drones’ features even in lower budget projects.

Service Design Inspiration.

Measure has shown us how the potential of a technology like drones could be made available to many with the help of an easy to use platform. By creating a customised digital platform for the usage of an existing technology, measure makes a valuable product.

Context jam

(where we take a concept from the service and place it in a different context)

ABC is a company which creates a digital platform for a particular industrial process such as logistics with the help of autonomous vehicles. This way any corporation can have an autonomous fleet and use it for their exact need of logistics with the help of ABC platform, which lets them plan, deploy, monitor, control and analyse the whole delivery operation.

Our big takeaway

Drone technology is a great example of what a consumer level product version of a more expensive technology can enable. In our opinion being able to create sophisticated solutions to complex problems with the help of a “standard” technology, as opposed to DIY the solution itself, presents a lot of advantages, firstly in quality and availability, but especially in the beginning, lowering the costs of prototyping and testing the service. While creating everything from scratch for your service is great what really matters for the user is how the service influences their lives.

At the same time, as the focus shifts from technology to applications; drones have a lot of potential. Though, the applications vary a lot throughout the spectrum the services created are the point of attraction and conversion. The companies who deliver end to end services as per the unique and detailed needs of customers are definitely the one to thrive. One that empowers the users with just what they need, instead of adding operational or technological aspects of the drones; stand a true potential of developing meaningful services. Ex. “ I do precision farming; saving a lot of resources and ensuring the best yield.” matters more than “I fly drones for farming”.

What project is about

We as service designers have always loved to get inspired from various products & services. We have found that every service can give us at least one learning or insight which we can use in various other contexts. We started to breakdown services in various domains and began to mention the actionable insights which anyone/everyone can use in creative ways. This project for us is the output of that hunt and a growing resource which will keep unwrapping in front of us.