Designing for Service: Key Issues and New Directions 9781350103429, 9781474250160, 9781474250153

Table of contents :
FC
Half title
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
1 Introduction Daniela Sangiorgi and Alison Prendiville
1.1 A short introduction to service design
1.2 Evolution of the concepts of ‘design’ and ‘service’
1.3 Service design impact and contribution to service development and implementation
1.4 Interest for and application of design skills and approaches by non-designers
1.5 Development of boundary areas
1.6 The structure of the book
References
PART ONE The lay of the land in designing for service
2 Expanding (service) design spaces Daniela Sangiorgi, Alison Prendiville and Jeyon Jung
2.1 Complementary perspectives on design-led service innovation
2.2 Expanding service design spaces
2.3 Discussion
References
3 Designing vs. designers: How organizational design narratives shift the focus from designers to designing Sabine Junginger and Stuart Bailey
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Narratives in design and design narratives for organizations
3.3 Organizational design narratives as enablers for organizational learning
3.4 Role and function of an organizational design narrative
3.5 Summary and conclusion
References
4 Designing for interdependence, participation and emergence in complex service systems Daniela Sangiorgi, Lia Patricio and Raymond Fisk
4.1 The increasing complexity of the service context
4.2 Evolution of service design – more actors, more interdependencies, and less control
4.3 Emerging service design strategies and principles
4.4 Discussion
References
5 Specialist service design consulting: The end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end? Eva-Maria Kirchberger and Bruce S. Tether
5.1 Introduction
5.2 The end of the beginning?: Engine’s big break: The Dubai Airport project
5.3 The beginning of the end? The ‘big beasts’ of management consulting close in on service design
5.4 What next for the independent, specialist service design consultants?
References
PART TWO Contemporary discourses and influence in designing for service
6 The object of service design Lucy Kimbell and Jeanette Blomberg
6.1 Introduction
6.2 A platform to surface the complexities
6.3 Three perspectives on the object of service design
6.4 Implications for design
6.5 Conclusion
References
7 Breaking free from NSD: Design and service beyond new service development Stefan Holmlid, Katarina Wetter-Edman and Bo Edvardsson
7.1 Introduction
7.2 The limits of new service development
7.3 Opening up to a service logic
7.4 Beyond the limitations
References
8 Designing on the spikes of injustice: Representation and co-design Katie Collins, Mary Rose Cook and Joanna Choukeir
8.1 What is representation?
8.2 Participation in service design
8.3 Entwining strands
8.4 Whose participation is it anyway?
8.5 Conclusions
References
9 Co-design, organizational creativity and quality improvement in the healthcare sector: ‘Designerly’ or ‘design-like’? Glenn Robert and Alastair S. Macdonald
9.1 Introduction
9.2 The healthcare sector
9.3 The service design perspective
9.4 Healthcare quality improvement and design-based approaches
9.5 Bridging the divide: Infrastructuring to release organizational creativity and improve service quality
9.6 Organisational creativity
9.7 Designerly or design-like?
9.8 Conclusions
References
PART THREE Designing for service in public and social spaces
10 Service design and the edge effect Robert Young and Laura Warwick
10.1 Introduction
10.2 The state of the VCS
10.3 The fragmentary ascendency of design
10.4 Exposure to design to support the paradigm
10.5 Continuous engagement with design to support the paradigm
10.6 The design of infrastructure to support the paradigm
10.7 Conclusion
References
11 Service design as a sensemaking activity: Insights from low-income communities in Latin America Carla Cipolla and Javier Reynoso
11.1 Social innovations and indigenous services in low-income communities
11.2 Interpretative framework: Indigenous services, cultural values, and sensemaking
11.3 Interpretative framework application: Examples from Brazil and Mexico
11.4 Brazil
11.5 Mexico
11.6 Conclusions
References
12 The social innovation journey: Emerging challenges in service design for the incubation of innovation Anna Meroni, Marta Corubolo and Matteo Bartolomeo
12.1 Design for services and for social innovation
12.2 Service design when it comes to incubating and scaling social innovation
12.3 Social innovation in the Milanese context
12.4 Discussion
References
13 Service design in policy making Camilla Buchanan, Sabine Junginger and Nina Terrey
13.1 Growing interest in service design from policy makers
13.2 Service design methods in policy making
13.3 Key contributions of service design to policy making
13.4 Examples from Australia, the UK and Germany
13.5 Key groups driving using service design in policy making
13.6 The need for service designers to understand policy making processes
13.7 Challenges for service designers in policy making
13.8 New ethical questions for service design
13.9 Conclusion
References
PART FOUR Designing for service, shifting economies, emerging markets
14 The potential of service design as a route to product service systems Tracy Bhamra, Andrew T. Walters and James Moultrie
14.1 Introduction
14.2 Serviceability: Designing for service and extending life
14.3 Services beyond the product
14.4 Service as a business model
14.5 Rising to the challenge
References
15 Service design and the emergence of a second economy Jeanette Blomberg and Susan Stucky
15.1 Introduction
15.2 The digital workforce
15.3 The autonomous car
15.4 Knowability, visibility and materiality of the second economy
15.5 Designing digitally enabled services
References
16 Making sense of data through service design – opportunities and reflections Alison Prendiville, Ian Gwilt and Val Mitchell
16.1 Introduction
16.2 Notions of data
16.3 Sensemaking: Translation, visualisation and personalisation
16.4 Conclusion
References
17 Beyond collaborative services: Service design for sharing and collaboration as a matter of commons and infrastructuring Anna Seravalli and Mette Agger Eriksen
17.1 Introduction
17.2 How service design relates to sharing and collaboration
17.3 Commons as a framework for articulating sharing and collaboration
17.4 Infrastructuring as a way of understanding co-designing for and in the sharing and collaboration
17.5 Conclusions
References
18 Conclusions Daniela Sangiorgi and Alison Prendiville
Index

Citation preview

Designing for Service

ii

Designing for Service Key Issues and New Directions

EDITED BY DANIELA SANGIORGI AND ALISON PRENDIVILLE

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2017 © Introduction and editorial material, Daniela Sangiorgi and Alison Prendiville, 2017 © Individual chapters, their authors, 2017 Daniela Sangiorgi and Alison Prendiville have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Authors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: PB: ePDF: ePub:

9781474250139 9781474250122 9781474250153 9781474250146

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Cover design by Rawshock design Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN

Contents List of Illustrations  xi Notes on Contributors  xii

1 Introduction  Daniela Sangiorgi and Alison Prendiville  1 1.1 A short introduction to service design  1 1.2 Evolution of the concepts of ‘design’ and ‘service’  4 1.3 Service design impact and contribution to service development and implementation  6 1.4 Interest for and application of design skills and approaches by non-designers  7 1.5 Development of boundary areas  8 1.6 The structure of the book  10 References  10

PART ONE  The lay of the land in designing for service 15 2 Expanding (service) design spaces  Daniela Sangiorgi, Alison Prendiville

and Jeyon Jung  17 2.1 Complementary perspectives on design-led service innovation  19 2.2 Expanding service design spaces  25 2.3 Discussion  30 References  31

3 Designing vs. designers: How organizational design narratives shift the

focus from designers to designing  Sabine Junginger and Stuart Bailey  33 3.1 Introduction  33 3.2 Narratives in design and design narratives for organizations  35 3.3 Organizational design narratives as enablers for organizational learning  36 3.4 Role and function of an organizational design narrative  39 3.5 Summary and conclusion  44 References  46

vi Contents

4 Designing for interdependence, participation and emergence

in complex service systems  Daniela Sangiorgi, Lia Patricio and Raymond Fisk  49 4.1 The increasing complexity of the service context  51 4.2 Evolution of service design – more actors, more interdependencies, and less control  53 4.3 Emerging service design strategies and principles  54 4.4 Discussion  60 References  62

5 Specialist service design consulting: The end of the beginning, or the

beginning of the end?  Eva-Maria Kirchberger and Bruce S. Tether  65 5.1 Introduction  65 5.2 The end of the beginning?: Engine’s big break: The Dubai Airport project  67 5.3 The beginning of the end? The ‘big beasts’ of management consulting close in on service design  70 5.4 What next for the independent, specialist service design consultants?  74 References  76

PART TWO  Contemporary discourses and influence in designing for service 79 6 The object of service design  Lucy Kimbell and Jeanette Blomberg  81 6.1 Introduction  81 6.2 A platform to surface the complexities  83 6.3 Three perspectives on the object of service design  83 6.4 Implications for design  88 6.5 Conclusion  91 References  92

7 Breaking free from NSD: Design and service beyond new

service development  Stefan Holmlid, Katarina Wetter-Edman and Bo Edvardsson  95 7.1 Introduction  95 7.2 The limits of new service development  96 7.3 Opening up to a service logic  98 7.4 Beyond the limitations  102 References  103

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8 Designing on the spikes of injustice: Representation and

co-design  Katie Collins, Mary Rose Cook and Joanna Choukeir  105 8.1 What is representation?  106 8.2 Participation in service design  108 8.3 Entwining strands  109 8.4 Whose participation is it anyway?  111 8.5 Conclusions  113 References  114

9 Co-design, organizational creativity and quality improvement in the

healthcare sector: ‘Designerly’ or ‘design-like’?  Glenn Robert and Alastair S. Macdonald  117 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5

Introduction  117 The healthcare sector  118 The service design perspective  120 Healthcare quality improvement and design-based approaches  121 Bridging the divide: Infrastructuring to release organizational creativity and improve service quality  125 9.6 Organisational creativity  126 9.7 Designerly or design-like?  127 9.8 Conclusions  127 References  128

PART THREE  Designing for service in public and social spaces 131 10 Service design and the edge effect  Robert Young and Laura Warwick  133 10.1 Introduction  133 10.2 The state of the VCS  134 10.3 The fragmentary ascendency of design  136 10.4 Exposure to design to support the paradigm  138 10.5 Continuous engagement with design to support the paradigm  139 10.6 The design of infrastructure to support the paradigm  140 10.7 Conclusion  141 References  143

viii Contents

11 Service design as a sensemaking activity: Insights from low-income

communities in Latin America  Carla Cipolla and Javier Reynoso  147 11.1 Social innovations and indigenous services in low-income communities  147 11.2 Interpretative framework: Indigenous services, cultural values, and sensemaking  149 11.3 Interpretative framework application: Examples from Brazil and Mexico  152 11.4 Brazil  152 11.5 Mexico  155 11.6 Conclusions  158 References  160

12 The social innovation journey: Emerging challenges in service design

for the incubation of social innovation  Anna Meroni, Marta Corubolo and Matteo Bartolomeo  163 12.1 Design for services and for social innovation  164 12.2 Service design when it comes to incubating and scaling social innovation  165 12.3 Social innovation in the Milanese context  169 12.4 Discussion  176 References  179

13 Service design in policy making  Camilla Buchanan, Sabine Junginger

and Nina Terrey  183 13.1 Growing interest in service design from policy makers  184 13.2 Service design methods in policy making  185 13.3 Key contributions of service design to policy making  186 13.4 Examples from Australia, the UK and Germany  188 13.5 Key groups driving using service design in policy making  190 13.6 The need for service designers to understand policy making processes  192 13.7 Challenges for service designers in policy making  193 13.8 New ethical questions for service design  194 13.9 Conclusion  195 References  196

Contents

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PART FOUR  Designing for service, shifting economies, emerging markets 199 14 The potential of service design as a route to product service

systems  Tracy Bhamra, Andrew T. Walters and James Moultrie  201 14.1 Introduction  201 14.2 Serviceability: Designing for service and extending life  205 14.3 Services beyond the product  206 14.4 Service as a business model  207 14.5 Rising to the challenge  208 References  210

15 Service design and the emergence of a second economy 

Jeanette Blomberg and Susan Stucky  213 15.1 Introduction  213 15.2 The digital workforce  214 15.3 The autonomous car  215 15.4 Knowability, visibility and materiality of the second economy  216 15.5 Designing digitally enabled services  221 References  222

16 Making sense of data through service design – opportunities and

reflections  Alison Prendiville, Ian Gwilt and Val Mitchell  225 16.1 Introduction  225 16.2 Notions of data  226 16.3 Sensemaking: Translation, visualisation and personalisation  228 16.4 Conclusion  233 References  235

17 Beyond collaborative services: Service design for sharing and

collaboration as a matter of commons and infrastructuring  Anna Seravalli and Mette Agger Eriksen  237 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4

Introduction  237 How service design relates to sharing and collaboration  238 Commons as a framework for articulating sharing and collaboration  241 Infrastructuring as a way of understanding co-designing for and in the sharing and collaboration  245

x Contents

17.5 Conclusions  247 References  249

18 Conclusions Daniela Sangiorgi and Alison Prendiville  251 Index  257

List of Illustrations Figure 3.1  Excerpt from ‘The Journey of MindLab’, permission granted by Jesper Christiansen (Source: MindLab)  41

Figure 3.2  The Design Guide by the Australian Tax Office, Version April 2002 (Source: ATO)  42 Figure 3.3  E.ON’s organizational design narrative | Source: Author  43 Figure 4.1  The changing context of service (Ostrom et al. 2015), p. 146  52 Figure 6.1  Perspectives on the object of service design  82 Figure 7.1  Comparison of selected process models for new service development (Source: Meiren, Edvardsson et al. 2015, paper presented at the Naples Forum)  96

Figure 7.2  Service as a configuration of resource integration components; actors, resources, values, outcomes and systemic bonds  99

Figure 9.1  Strengths and weaknesses of ‘designerly’ and ‘design-like’ approaches  125 Figure 10.1  Young’s design content model of three levels of design impact (Young 2009)  141 Figure 12.1  The social innovation journey (courtesy of Transition project)  167 Figure 12.2  The ‘Positioning Diagram’ of some of the social innovations that entered the Transition Milano Scaling Centre (courtesy of Transition project)  170

Figure 12.3  The ‘Social Innovation Scanner’ (courtesy of Transition project)  171 Figure 12.4  The ‘Interaction Storyboard’ (courtesy of Transition project)  172 Figure 12.5  The ‘Co-Design Plan’ (courtesy of Transition project)  173 Figure 12.6  The ‘Sustainability Scanner’ (courtesy of Transition project)  174 Figure 12.7  The ‘Prototyping Framework’ (courtesy of Transition project)  176 Figure 14.1  A service design model for manufacturing  204 Figure 17.1  Timeline and infrastructuring. The timeline shows the main events in the development of Fabriken. It also depicts how the different organizational models followed one another and it shows also the collaborations with the different actors.  240

Figure 17.2  Fabriken organizational models. The figure illustrates the three organizational models of Fabriken. They depict the different stakeholders involved and how they were related to each other and to the space. The lines depict what kind of investment they were putting in the space (work, material and financial resources) as well as who was influencing who when it comes to decision making. The thickness of the lines represent the size of the investment / level of influence.  243

Notes on Contributors Stuart Bailey brings over twenty years of practical design experience from industry and consultancy to his teaching practice at The Glasgow School of Art. Since 2008 he has been developing and running service design projects within the design school across both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, and developed service innovation projects with public sector and health organisations across Scotland. He has presented his work at ServDes, Service Design Network, European Academy of Design and Engineering & Product Design Education conferences. Stuart was an advisory board member of the Service Design Research UK Network from 2013 to 2014. His research explores the role of design and relationships between designers and non-designers involved in innovation projects within organizations; the importance and nature of open communication and narrative; and parallels between design and open organisation practices. Matteo Bartolomeo Environmental economist by training, he has about twenty years of experience in social and environmental innovation. He started his career in Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and is a founding partner and President of Avanzi. With Avanzi/Make a Cube3 he coordinates incubation activities in favour of social businesses in various fields. His fields of expertise are sustainable innovation, green economy and stakeholder engagement. He leads projects in applied research and consulting for large business and public administration. He lectures in environmental economics at the Polytechnic of Milan and the University of Sassari. Tracy Bhamra is Professor of Sustainable Design and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Enterprise) at Loughborough University. She has a BSc and MSc in Manufacturing Systems Engineering and completed a PhD in Design for Disassembly and Recycling at Manchester Metropolitan University in 1995. In 2003 she established the Sustainable Design Research Group at Loughborough University that undertakes world-leading research in areas such as Design for Sustainable Behaviour, Methods and Tools for Sustainable Design, Sustainable Product Service System Design and Sustainable Design Education. She is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering & Technology (FIET), the Design Research Society (DRS) and the Royal Society of the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (FRSA). Jeanette Blomberg is Principal Research Staff Member at IBM Research and a member of the IBM Academy of Technology. She is known for her research on



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ethnography in design processes with two recent publications Positioning Ethnography within Participatory Design and Reflections on 25 Years of Ethnography in CSCW. Her book, An Anthropology of Services, explores benefits of taking an anthropological view on services and their design. Prior to assuming her current position, she was a member of the Work Practice and Technology group at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), Director of Experience Modeling research at Sapient Corporation, and Industry-affiliated Professor at the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden. She received her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California, Davis where she also was a visiting professor and lecturer in cultural anthropology and sociolinguistics. Camilla Buchanan works for the UK Government’s Inclusive Economy Unit – a new unit looking at responsible business, social investment and business models for public services. She runs the team’s work on what’s called the ‘social investment market infrastructure’, this is the organizations and connections that mean investments can be made into organizations and projects that result in social impact. She has one foot in the design world and the other in policy making, and design has played a big role in helping to understand the real user needs and dynamics at play in the social investment market. Before this she was part of the UK Design Council’s policy team, where she first started using and teaching design to policy makers. She has also worked at the British Council in London, in the Cultural Policy Unit at the European Commission in Brussels and at the Crafts Council in London, setting up their first ever policy strategy. She is a design fellow of the Winston Churchill Trust and The Public Policy Lab, a policy/design not-for-profit in New York. She is completing a PhD in design at Lancaster University. Joanna Choukeir is the Chief Design Officer at Uscreates, a London-based consultancy improving health and well-being through design. She is a practitioner, researcher, speaker and lecturer with a decade of experience in the UK and Lebanon. She has a PhD in design for social integration from the University of the Arts London (UAL), is an RSA fellow, and an associate lecturer at UAL, Kingston University and Ravensbourne University. Carla Cipolla has been involved since 2004 in projects on design for social innovation and sustainability in Europe, Africa and in Brazil where she is now professor at UFRJ – Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro/Coppe. Carla was awarded her PhD in Design at Politecnico di Milano. Her main research and design activity has been to investigate and develop services based on collaboration, sharing and intensive interpersonal relations between users. She is coordinator of the UFRJ Coppe DESIS Lab, a founding member of DESIS Network (Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability) that gathers forty Labs based on higher education institutions around the world. Some projects she is currently involved in include: TRANSIT (Transformative Social Innovation Theory), a European Commission co-funded (FP7) project, LASIN (Latin American Social Innovation Network) under Erasmus+ Program and IFC (Informal,

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Notes on Contributors

Formal, Collaborative), a programme of activities involving DESIS Labs in Africa and Latin-America, which aims to capitalize on the rich social and human resources that exist within underserved communities and informal settlements. Katie Collins is a Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, Wolfson College, Oxford. Her research is about the insights that social researchers create when they represent others’ lives, the different sorts of creative and ethical processes they go through, and what sort of political and personal impact their writing has. She tends to focus on people whose voices aren’t usually heard, such as those who live and work in very deprived inner city neighbourhoods, people who need to claim benefits, those who are seeking asylum in the UK, and people who have recently been or are currently homeless. Mary Rose Cook is the co-founder and CEO of Uscreates, a design led agency creating better outcomes and experiences in health and wellbeing. She has extensive experience designing, directing and delivering change programmes for clients in the public, private and third sector. Through a PhD, she reviewed how co-design has become a key method to tackle some of the UK’s most difficult social issues. Marta Corubolo Product service designer, she is currently a PhD candidate at the DESIS Lab (Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability) of the Design Department of Politecnico di Milano. Over the last years she joined national and international research projects and focused her activities on design towards sustainability in particular in the field of social innovation, collaborative housing and food system. She is a lecturer at the MSc Product Service System Design and Master Course on Social and Collaborative Housing at Politecnico di Milano. Bo Edvardsson is Professor and Founder, CTF-Service Research Centre and Vice Rector, Karlstad University, Sweden. In 2008, he received the RESER Award ‘Commendation for lifetime achievement to scholarship’ by The European Association for Service Research and in 2004 The AMA Career Contributions to the Services Discipline Award. In 2013 he was appointed Honorary Distinguished Professor of Service Management, EGADE Business School, Mexico. In 2009 he was awarded Honorary Doctorate, Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, Hanken. Bo is the former editor of Journal of Service Management. His research includes new service development and innovation, complaints management and service recovery, servicedominant logic and ecosystems transformation. His journal papers have received several awards and most recently in 2016 best article in Journal of Service Research special issue on Transformative Service Research. Google Scholar citations in October 2016 shows that he has 11,100 citations. ([email protected]) Mette Agger Eriksen has been a researcher and teacher at K3, Malmö University since 2003. She has been one of the drivers of establishing service design as a core



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area of teaching within Interaction Design programs. From December 2016 she has held an Associate Professor position at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts – Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation in Denmark. She has a background as an architect specialized in industrial and communication design, and holds a PhD in Interaction design on Material Matters in CoDesigning. She has also contributed to the understanding of experiments and programs in design research, and has been engaging in and co-organizing many large European cross-disciplinary participatory and action research projects. She especially collaborates long-term with civil servants. Her post-doctoral studies and recent senior research focus on new ways of designoriented cross-sector collaborations and participation as parts of urban labs and sustainable urban development. Raymond P. Fisk (B.S., M.B.A., and Ph.D. from Arizona State University) is Professor and Chair of the Department of Marketing at Texas State University. His research focuses on services marketing and service design. He has published in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Retailing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Service Research, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Service Management, and others. He has published six books, including Serving Customers: Global Services Marketing Perspectives and Services Marketing: An Interactive Approach, 4th edn. Awards include: 2005, the Career Contributions to the Services Discipline Award from the AMA Services Marketing Special Interest Group; 2012, the Grönroos Service Research Award from the CERS Centre for Relationship Marketing and Service Management, Hanken School of Economics, Finland; and 2016, the Inaugural Recipient of the AMA SIG Leadership Award. He is a Distinguished Faculty for the Arizona State University Center for Services Leadership. Ian Gwilt is a Professor of Design and Visual Communication at Sheffield Hallam University. Current areas of research include practice and theory into, visual communication design and healthcare, information visualisation, augmented reality artifacts and the design of hybrid environments and experiences for museum interaction. He is also interested in how we can incorporate visual communication design practices into interdisciplinary research teams. Originally from the UK he has lived and worked in Spain, New Zealand and Australia, where he began to develop his research/practice around augmented reality and the graphical user interface as creative/cultural artifact. Over the last twenty years he has shown interactive installations and digital work at a number of international new media events, galleries and exhibitions as well as writing academic texts on design research/practice and creative digital media. He holds a PhD from the College of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia. Stefan Holmlid is Professor in Design at Linköping University. His research has for more than twenty years been aimed at developing knowledge in the meeting between design practices, innovation practices, and professional practices, in the public realm as well as with industrial corporations. For the last ten years he has been investigating

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the meeting between service and design. His contributions are founded in situated and distributed cognition, mediated action in complex adaptive systems, and contemporary developments in design theory. The contributions span from basic design knowledge to the integration of design in organisations. He heads the PhD subject Design at Linköping University, an interdisciplinary MSc programme in Design, and the Interaction and Service Design research group. He is the chairman of the National Design Research School, and heads the PhD training programme in a European network focusing in Service Design for Innovation, as well as being a member of the National Council on co-created care, health and social service. He co-founded the ServDes conference in 2008, and the international Service Design Network in 2003 Jeyon Jung is a Senior Research Associate in ImaginationLancaster at Lancaster University. Broadly, her research explores the strategic use of design in different contexts. Currently, she has particular interest in the relationship between place, culture, practice and designed products and how design can be applied to enhance and sustain this reciprocal relationship. Related to this, she is also keenly interested in how design can influence the practices of people, organisations, and societies, by operating as a key contributor in providing creative ideas and innovative acts. Previously, she was a brand design manager leading projects addressing corporate identity, design policy, and brand strategy in South Korea. She has completed her PhD in Design, exploring the disciplinary core of design as a field of research and practice, in 2015. Sabine Junginger heads the Competence Center for Research into Design and Management at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland. Her work appeared in Design Issues, The Design Journal and the Journal for Business Strategy. She is co-editor of Designing Business and Management (Bloomsbury 2016); Highways and Byways to Innovation (University of Southern Denmark/Design School Kolding 2014) and The Handbook of Design Management (Bloomsbury 2011). Her book Transforming Public Services by Design: Re-Orienting Policies, Organizations and Services around People appears at Routledge in December 2016. She is a Research Fellow of the Hertie School of Governance (Germany), an academic advisor to the European Forum Alpbach (Austria) and the UK Design Council (DfE). She is a senior design expert for the EU-Brazil Sectorial Dialogues and advises several government level public innovation labs. She was a founding member of ImaginationLancaster at Lancaster University (UK) and holds both and a PhD in Design from Carnegie Mellon University (USA). Lucy Kimbell is director of the Innovation Insights Hub at University of the Arts London and associate fellow at Said Business School, University of Oxford. She has published on design thinking, service design and social design. Her book Service Innovation Handbook (2014) based on teaching strategic design to MBA students combines management, design and sociology literatures. (Twitter @lixindex)



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Eva-Maria Kirchberger is a Service Design Expert and fourth-year PhD Student in Entrepreneurship and Organisational Behaviour at Imperial College Business School in London. In her thesis, she investigates entrepreneurial strategies as a response to intensifying competition in growing or long-lived market categories. More specifically, she explores the creative industries, such as service design and fashion, and the wider lessons we can learn from them. As part of her European Marie Curie Fellowship in Design Management, she has worked at Engine Service Design, a co-pioneer of Service Design, on progressive large projects for clients such as Fiat and Dubai Airport, while having attended a European-level research training at four leading universities across Europe. With her start-up Consultancy Wunderlab, she passes on her learnings and currently advises creative companies on business strategies and vice versa. Recently, in her role as Experience Design Lead at the KPMG Observatory – a joint venture of Imperial Business Analytics and KPMG – she is in charge of designing new service experiences for high profile C-Suite clients. Alastair S. Macdonald is Senior Researcher in the School of Design at The Glasgow School of Art (GSA). Prior to 2006 he was Head of Product Design Engineering at GSA, a programme jointly run with the University of Glasgow. He was awarded a personal professorship by the University of Glasgow in 2000 and a Japan Foundation Research Fellowship in 2004 for age-related product design research in Japan. As lead- or co-investigator he has held several UK research council and National Institute of Health Research grants working within multidisciplinary healthcare teams, addressing staff/patient-centred issues in, e.g. physical stroke rehabilitation, spinal cord injury, end-of-life care for dementia, infection control, and malnutrition. To address these complex healthcare challenges, he and his teams have developed a number of exploratory healthcare interventions using collaborative design, mixed method, narrative and iterative prototyping approaches with substantial stakeholder input. Anna Meroni Architect and PhD in Design, she is Associate Professor of Design in the Department of Design at the Politecnico di Milano. Her research focus is on service and strategic design for sustainability to foster social innovation, participation and local development. She is the head of the international master’s program in Product Service System Design and director of the specialising master in Social and Collaborative Housing. She is the coordinator of the POLIMI-DESIS Lab, the Milan based research laboratory of the DESIS-Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability Network, which she has served as international coordinator from 2014 to 2016. She is on the board of the PhD program in Design, principal investigator of national and international research projects, chair of conferences, author of several publications, and visiting lecturer in international universities Val Mitchell is a Senior Lecturer and programme director for the User Experience Design Masters at Loughborough Design School, Loughborough University. Her research focusses on developing methods and tools for user centred design and user

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experience design particularly in relation to interdisciplinary research and practice. She is particularly interested in the communication of user needs and requirements within multi-disciplinary design teams and the design of creative Participatory Design and Co-design methods for eliciting needs from users. Her recent research has focused on the design of innovative services for energy demand reduction in the home. James Moultrie is a Senior Lecturer in Design Management in the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge. Before joining academia, he worked in industry as project manager, senior engineer and product manager. He was responsible for the development of lenses for the movie industry, for which he was awarded a ‘Scientific and Technical Academy Award’ and an Emmy in 2000. He is also a Chartered Mechanical Engineer (IMechE). He is well known for his research investigating the ‘value of design’, including the ‘Design Scoreboard’ project which developed an original comparison of national design capabilities. He was also a member of a European project which established protocols for measuring the economic value of design. He is also interested in design for manufacture, and regularly works with companies to improve design for assembly. Current work also includes an activity exploring ‘Design for Additive Manufacturing’. Lia Patrício (B.S., M.B.A., PhD from University of Porto) is Associate Professor at the University of Porto, where she is Director of the Master in Service Engineering and Management. Her research focuses on Service Design and Customer Experience, particularly in the context of technology enabled services, value networks and service ecosystems. She coordinated the project with the Portuguese Ministry of Health for the design of the Portuguese Electronic Health Record, and is the Principal Investigator of the Service Design for Innovation, Marie Curie – Innovative Training Network. Lia Patrício is member of the editorial board of the Journal of Service Research, Journal of Service Management, Journal of Service Theory and Practice, and Service Science Journal. She is Global Faculty Member of the Center of Services Leadership, Arizona State University, and Academic Scholar at the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures. Her research has been published in the Journal of Service Research, Journal of Service Management, among others. Alison Prendiville is a Reader at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. Her research interests include anthropology and service design in public and third sector organisations, particularly in the areas of health and social care. She is currently working as Co-Investigator on the AHRC funded Public Collaboration Lab with Central Saint Martins and Camden Council. She has also recently completed a scoping study for the KTN (Knowledge Transfer Network) investigating design’s contribution to the Satellite Applications and Transport Systems Catapults. She is a regular contributor to Ordnance Survey’s Geovation Challenge as a judge, to evaluate the use of OS open data in the creation of socially driven location specific services. She has an MA(RCA) in Design Management and an MSc in Digital Anthropology from UCL.



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Javier Reynoso is Professor of Service Management at EGADE Business School, Monterrey Institute of Technology (ITESM) in Monterrey, Mexico. He has been promoting the importance of doing research on developing countries among the international service research community for the last twenty years. He is co-author of the first text book on Service Management written in Spanish, used in twenty countries. He was listed in the Top 15 MBA Professors in Latin America, by Revista America Economia in 2012 and received in 1999, 2005 and 2013 the Monterrey Tech’s Teaching and Research Faculty Award for his contributions to service research. In May 2013, he was the first Latin American researcher invited to join the Global Faculty Network, by the Center for Services Leadership (CSL), Arizona State University. He received the prestigious Christian Grönroos Service Research Award 2013 in recognition of his career achievements. In 2014, he launched the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Service Research Network initiative to promote and disseminate service research throughout this huge low-income segment of society. Glenn Robert is Professor of Healthcare Quality & Innovation at King’s College London. Glenn’s research draws on the fields of organisational studies and organisational sociology and focuses on local quality and service improvement ‘work’ in health care, as well as new perspectives on large-scale change. He has an overarching interest in organization development and change management that spans all three domains of health care research, policy and practice. Dissemination of findings arising from his recent research has often been via international public policy journals and those focusing specifically on the quality of health care. A particular focus of recent work has been on developing and testing an ‘Experience-based Co-design’ approach to quality improvement. Drawing on design thinking, the approach has been applied and evaluated in numerous healthcare services in the NHS and has subsequently been implemented internationally. Daniela Sangiorgi PhD in Design, is Associate Professor at the Design Department of Politecnico di Milano. She has been one of the first researchers investigating the area of Service Design. She worked for eight years at the research group Imagination at Lancaster University till August 2015. Her research theme is the role of design in the development of services, with a particular focus on the public sector innovation. She is currently exploring links and contributions of Design to the Service Science debate and the Service Logic framework. She is a member of the International Society of Service Innovation Professionals (ISSIP) and a committee member of the Service Design and Innovation conference (ServDes). Anna Seravalli is a senior lecturer and design researcher at The School of Arts and Communication Malmö University. She has a background as product and service designer and holds a PhD in Design and Social Innovation. She has been one of the founders of Malmö Living Lab Fabriken. She closely collaborates with citizens, NGOs, civil servants and small entrepreneurs in the city of Malmö to explore questions of

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participation, collaboration, decision-making and ownership in initiatives aiming at improving environmental and social sustainability in the urban context. She is particularly interested in initiatives related to making, upcycling and alternative production practices and in collaborations between grass-root initiatives and municipal structures. She is the coordinator of Malmö University DESIS Lab. Susan Stucky is an independent consultant and advisor following retirement from IBM Research. She has published in several disciplines: Linguistics, where she earned her PH.D., and in AI and Cognitive Science, where she did postdoctoral research. More recently she has contributed to Services Research (e.g. Business Value in Complex IT Service Engagements: Realization of Value is Determined by Patterns of Interaction). Based on her long engagement with work practice research, she led the development of the concept of work marketplaces (as reflected in Crowdwork and Organizational Work) at IBM. She is also known for pioneering work in research management and management consulting. As Associate Director at the Institute for Research on Learning, she fostered the development of the social foundations of learning. As founder and partner of Strategic Practices Inc., she led initiatives in organizational learning and knowledge management for corporate organizations in the US, Japan and Europe, now in the San Francisco Bay Area. Nina Terrey is Partner and Global Practice Lead of ThinkPlace. ThinkPlace is a global design and innovation company applying design thinking to complex problems that deliver public value. She is a leading innovation co-design expert and practitioner. Her work focuses on how to solve public problems by taking a co-design approach and empowering people to co-create better solutions. She consults and advises governments and other organisations on design to deliver impact. She is an Associate Professor of Institute of Governance and Policy Analysis, at the University of Canberra, Australia. She is published in a number of books and journals on design thinking in public sector contexts and frequently speaks about the value of design thinking, public policy and implementation design to leaders, and designers around the world. She holds a PhD, titled Managing by Design, in-depth case study on applying design in the Australian Taxation Office. Bruce Tether has been Professor of Innovation Management and Strategy at Alliance Manchester Business School (AMBS) within the University of Manchester since October 2011. Prior to this he was Professor of Design and Innovation at Imperial College Business School, at Imperial College London for four years. There was also the Research Director of Design London, a collaboration between Imperial and the Royal College of Art. Before Imperial Bruce was at the University of Manchester for a decade, rising from Research Fellow to Full Professor. He also become a Fellow of the Advanced Institute of Management Research (AIM).  Much of Bruce’s research has concerned innovation in services, and he has a strong interest in design, especially as an approach to innovation. During his time at Imperial he became aware of and



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interested in the emergence of service design, especially as practiced by the leading service design consultancies: Engine; Live|Work and Ideo. Robert (Bob) Young is Professor of Design Practice and Director of Research and Innovation in the School of Design at Northumbria University. He began the first doctoral studies in the School and has assisted twenty-eight candidates to gain their PhDs. The last six of these have all concerned building knowledge for service design and social innovation. He has advised two previous UK Design Council Design of the Times programmes in the North East of England (2007) and Cornwall (2010) on social innovation and service design projects with communities of practice. He recently served on the Scientific Advisory Board for The Netherland’s Creative Industries Science Programme (CRISP) on product service system design. He has partnered two AHRC Networks; Design Social Innovation and Sustainability (DESIS) UK, and; Service Design Research and is Coordinator of the Northumbria DESIS Lab, which undertakes collaborative social innovation learning projects with public and third sector organisations. Andrew T. Walters is Professor of User Centred Design and Director of Research at PDR, Cardiff Metropolitan University. He is interested in user-led design methods as a means to solve complex societal and industrial problems. This is important to him because embedding peoples’ values into the development process enables the creation of new innovations to better meet their needs. He has used these approaches to work on various projects including inclusive design for an aging population, the development of technology enabled products for home use, improving public services and improving the role of design in corporate social responsibility. He holds a PhD in Product Design and has been funded by industrial contracts, UK Research Councils, Innovate UK and Welsh Government. These projects have been with both multinational companies and many smaller enterprises and with leading design-aware academics from Loughborough, Lancaster and Brunel Universities amongst others. Laura Warwick is a lecturer and researcher in Social Innovation and Design at Northumbria University. She recently completed her PhD, which explored the value of design approaches to voluntary organisations delivering public services. This built on her experience as the Associate on the first Knowledge Transfer Partnership embedding Design approaches into a voluntary sector organisation, which won a national award. Laura continues to work in the sector, currently helping to embed service design across the largest mental health network in the UK. Her continuing social design practice informs all of her research and undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. Katarina Wetter-Edman (PhD in design and MFA in industrial design, HDK-School of Design and Crafts, Gothenburg University) is Senior Lecturer in Service Design at Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm, Sweden, and

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researcher at ExperioLab, County Council of Värmland, Sweden. She has ten years practical experience in industrial design and design management. Her research focuses on articulation of the emerging field of design for service including service design practice. More specifically she is interested in the potential contribution of design practice and user involvement through design, and how the specific design competence may be formulated through a pragmatist understanding of inquiry and aesthetic knowledge. She has an increasing interest for the role of service design in the public sector.

1 Introduction Daniela Sangiorgi and Alison Prendiville

T

his publication is the development of an original  collection of short essays that were part of the outputs of a research network called Service Design Research in the UK.1 These essays, together with selected new ones, have been chosen for their timeliness, as increasingly questions are being raised on the role and identity of this field of practice and research as it also looks to extend its boundary to other disciplines. As a premise to this book we suggest that these recurring as well as new questions are due to the intersections of developing phenomena and discourses, which we suggest are: an evolution of the concepts and understanding of both what ‘design’ and ‘service’ are; the call for measuring and evaluating design impact and contribution to service development and implementation; the increasing interest for and application of design skills and approaches by non-designers; and the development of boundary areas that affect the practice of designing for service. These discourses and recent developments are, in our opinion, leading to a much-needed redefinition of the field, which we will discuss in the concluding section of this publication; the essays collected in this book have given us the materials to progress our thinking and document the tensions that are manifested in this practice. Before expanding on the four discourses and anticipating the content structure of the book, we will briefly introduce service design as a field, to establish a common understanding and starting point for our proposition.

1.1 A short introduction to service design This book is rooted in an understanding of service design as a design field that started as an object of theoretical debate in the 1990s and developed as a practice, with the first service design studios opening in London in the early 2000s. We are aware that the term ‘service design’ has been used much earlier by service marketing (Shostack 1982, 1984) and indicated as a phase in New Service

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development processes (Edvardsson et al. 2000; Johnson 2000), or recently it has been proposed as a multidisciplinary practice, where design is one of the many disciplines contributing to service innovation (Ostrom et al. 2010, 2015; Wetter Edman et al. 2014; Patrício et al. 2011). These different understandings are all mentioned and discussed in the book in various chapters, and are often used to suggest a necessary evolution of the field. In this introduction we consider specifically service design as a human-centred, creative and iterative approach to service innovation (Meroni and Sangiorgi 2011), also described as ‘design-based approaches for service innovation’ (Wetter Edman et al. 2014). Since its original development, this design field has been integrating and adapting concepts and tools from various disciplines, both design ones (product design, communication design, interaction design, etc.) and service marketing and management ones (e.g. customer journey, service encounter), using ‘designerly ways of changing and innovating’ (Sangiorgi and Junginger 2015). In the last two decades, service design has gone through similar stages as service marketing, or even service innovation studies. From an initial period of building its legitimacy within the design community, justifying why designers could have services as their design objects, we have then witnessed a development and expansion stage, where the focus has been more on the how designers design services, and what is actually their area of contribution (demarcation stage), to then explore how this can be integrated with other design practices (integration stage). As already discussed elsewhere (Sangiorgi 2009; Holmlid 2007), the original focus of service design practice and research has been the service interfaces and service interactions, representing the areas and moments of interaction between the service supplier and users. Original contributions to this field have suggested a shift from considering services as complex organizations to considering services as complex interfaces (Pacenti 1998), to create a fundamental link with the theories and practice of interaction design which have been consolidating so far. This focus, described as an interaction paradigm (Sangiorgi 2009), is what allowed designers to focus on their key competences of understanding human experiences, and translating this understanding for the design of better customer journeys. This is still the core quality of service design around which the field builds its legitimacy and differentiation. Given the co-produced nature of service provision, another fundamental dimension of service design practice has then been the development of collaborative design approaches, building on the original field of participatory design (Shuler and Namioka 1993; Greenbaum and Kyng 1991). These dual dimensions of understanding and engaging people in the design for better service experiences, are what qualifies the human-centredness of designers’ work and contribution to service innovation: a human centred design approach to services manifests itself in the capacity and methods to investigate and understand people’s experiences, interactions and practices as main sources of inspiration for redesigning or imagining new services […] On another level a human centred approach to services manifests itself in the

Introduction

3

capacity to engage people in the design and transformation processes. (Meroni and Sangiorgi 2011: 203) This initial focus on service experiences has then quickly expanded based on a more articulated understanding of the dimensions of services and what is behind the implementation of better experiences. This has led to considering, as part of the service design sphere, the hidden organizational system and processes behind the interface with users, that enable the aimed-for experience. Designers therefore moved from the periphery of the organization, designing its external manifestations of touchpoints, interaction channels and journeys, to considering the mechanisms supporting the delivery processes (relying on tools such as service blueprint, flow charts, etc.); furthermore, designers had to acknowledge deeper implications of organizational transformation, when questioning deeper structures and values at the basis of the client organization or when facing evident resistance to change (Lin et al. 2011). Here organizations have been conceived more as complex social systems than just as processes: ‘people with their norms, values, beliefs and behavioural patterns; its structures, which includes procedures, hierarchies and tasks; its resources and an organization’s vision, which gives purpose and guidance for how resources might or might not be used’ (Junginger and Sangiorgi 2009). This expansion of its original focus had required an attention towards issues and theories of organizational and transformational change (Sangiorgi 2011). In some cases, this debate has been focusing on strategies to embed and develop design capabilities within organizations to generate a sustainable change (Junginger 2015; Bailey 2012). Together with an expansion of focus, there has been a reflection on the implications of working in different service sectors; the major differences have been highlighted when discussing working within and for the public sector (in particular healthcare), which attracted significant attention given its specific challenges and transformational needs. Emphasis has been given on improving experiences and transforming organizations from within (Bate and Robert 2007; Bason 2010), as well as imagining completely new service models, often based on more collaborative forms of service delivery (Manzini and Jegou 2008; Manzini and Staszowski 2013). In general service design agencies have been working at different levels contributing towards a paradigmatic change in the way governments relate to citizens (Sangiorgi 2015). Similarly, Christian Bason (2012) suggests how: due to their highly user-centred and practical orientation, design-led innovation approaches appear positioned to help public managers uncover new configurations of government action, which can be labelled broadly as co-production. (13–14) Also there has been a parallel development in the specific area of social and behavioural change, associated with public health or sustainability; this is said to overlap with another wide contemporary design concept, which is the one of social design (Armstrong et al. 2014), documenting an ever-expanding realm of activities.

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Notwithstanding its vast applications, service design has been qualified by few key attributes that have been highlighted to define the specificity of designers’ contributions to service innovation. Service design (thinking) has been described as being collaborative, holistic, iterative and visual (Stickdorn and Schneider 2010). Studies have described service design as adopting a constructivist approach to service innovation (Kimbell 2011) and as centred around the practice of understanding, mapping and communicating customer experiences (Stigliani and Fayard 2010). These qualities have attracted the attention of other disciplines, in particular from change management disciplines that have been questioning organizational developments’ ability to create evidence of impact on planned change (Bate and Robert 2007); or service marketing studies looking for strategies to develop customer-centred businesses (Edvardsson 2011). The implication of a higher visibility and in particular the work within more complex projects and service systems has led to a growing requirement for evidence of innovation exploitation and positive impact, but also to the need for multidisciplinary work. These phenomena, together with a change in the way ‘service’ and ‘design’ are conceived, and the expansion of spaces designers are approaching represent in our opinion the landscape that is promoting and pushing toward the redefinition of the field of service design. Below we will expand on these key developments, to then elaborate on this landscape and its implications.

1.2 Evolution of the concepts of ‘design’ and ‘service’ In parallel to the field evolution of service design, there has been a parallel evolution in the understanding and definition of what ‘design’ and ‘service’ are. The review and rethinking of these terms happened within separate processes that have then converged in their implications. The traditional definition of services based on their differences from tangible products, following the IHIP (Intangibility, Heterogeneity, Inseparability, Perishability) model (Zeithamal et al. 1985), has been questioned by the awareness that not all services can be described using those qualities (Lovelock and Gummesson 2004) and because products and services are increasingly hard to separate in contemporary organizations. Further, the notion of services as a set of intangible market offerings have been revisited with a growing interest in the notion of service as a way to conceive value creation (Edvardsson et al. 2005). Shifting from considering value as embedded in goods or exchanged and consumed at the point of service delivery, to considering value as co-created with users in their own context of use and in interaction with a wider array of other resources and services, suggests a change in the business logic of an organization. This shift has been described as a move from a goods-dominant logic to a service-dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch 2004, 2008) or ‘service logic’ (Grönroos 2008). Grönroos (2008) describes service logic as ‘a perspective on how, by adopting a service approach, firms can adjust their business strategies and marketing

Introduction

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to customers’ service consumption-based value creation’ (p. 302). In this sense the focus is not on what the firm produces as an output but how it can better serve customers and support their own value-generating processes (Lusch 2007). Overall the result of this reconceptualization has been a growing interest in the practices and approaches that are able to support companies in this paradigmatic move or that qualify organizations that already operate with that logic. This has been also in line with the increased interest in the modes and value of engaging customers during service development, described as an underdeveloped area in service research (Alam and Perry 2002). Interestingly enough, service logic has found similarities with what design thinking and service design are bringing to the table of service innovation, meaning a more people-centred and dynamic approach to new service development. Also, in parallel to meta-descriptions of service within the service-dominant logic framework, more anthropological and practice-based descriptions have emerged, that have reconnected services to daily social life, proposing the comprehensibility of services within specific socio-material and cultural contexts (Blomberg and Darrah 2015a). This redefinition of what a service means is at the basis of many contributions in this book, first of all in Chapter 6 ‘The object of service design’ by Lucy Kimbell and Jeanette Blomberg, which reflects on the implications of different understandings of how service is described, moving from service encounters to value creating systems to sociomaterial configurations. Different interpretations of service imply a different set of disciplinary competences and skills, as well as cosmologies, temporalities and accountabilities. In parallel, the understanding of ‘design’ has also been challenged in its exclusive association to professional designers and in the definition of its subject matter. Together with expanding its realm to more complex and strategic arenas, such as designing for social change or for policy making, there has been a call for a less design-centric understanding of innovation (Sangiorgi et al. 2015; Kimbell 2012), which acknowledges other agents involved in designing, as well as the specificity of the context in which designers operate. Also given the nature of service worlds with histories and enduring performances, service design has been described more as assembling ‘the sociomaterial arrangements available and those yet to be fashioned’ (Blomberg and Darrah 2015b: 132–3), than actual designing. In Chapter 3 ‘Designing vs designers: How organizational design narratives shift the focus from designers to designing’, Sabine Junginger and Stuart Bailey specifically address this necessary shift of attention from ‘designers’ to ‘designing’, that recognizes the existence of ‘design legacies’, defined as a pre-text, which needs considering when aiming to ‘embed’ design capabilities. This is a call to reduce the ‘mechanistic them-and-us, cause-andeffect approach’ perspective of designers’ work. This ongoing practice of designing is also represented by an understanding of service design, more connected with the field of social and digital innovation and participatory design. Here the relevance of ‘design after design’ or ‘design in use’ results in focusing on the practice of ‘infrastructuring’ (Björgvinsson et al. 2012) meaning enabling the creation of ‘complex, relational, practical and situated arrangements’ (Chapter 17) that inform the alignment between

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humans and non-humans when approaching collaborative projects or solutions. In Chapter 17 ‘Beyond collaborative services: Service design for sharing and collaboration as a matter of commons and infrastructuring’, Anna Serravalli and Mette Agger Eriksen discuss the role of designers in supporting and negotiating various agendas, including those of the designers, when working for the development of organizations like commons. Recognizing and reflecting on the various actors’ agendas, they suggest it helps to consider the extent to which collaborative solutions can actually be established and to which level.

1.3 Service design impact and contribution to service development and implementation The term ‘service design’ existed before designers approached the field of service innovation, and was associated with a specific stage within new service development. The association with a specific stage, which generally ends with a concept and service specifications, has qualified designers’ work and contribution so far (Yu and Sangiorgi 2014). Their ability to engage users and communities in design processes, as well as to creatively engage with field data to imagine and shape possible futures, has been valued as a missing resource in organizations, often dominated by a more managerial culture. As the visibility of and interest in the field has started to grow, this contribution has been questioned and evidence sought to establish the actual impact and contribution of designers to successful new service development. This confirmation has been considered particularly critical in the public sector where design is increasingly used to address complex social challenges and at a time of reduced budgets. From a practice perspective it has also been the natural result of designers and design associations pushing the design agenda to higher and more strategic levels, suggesting the transformational potential of designers’ approaches in the service sector. The question of whether designers’ work remains on the drawing board with no real impact in organizations and service development has pushed designers and design research to engage in exploring issues of service evaluation and potential roles in further stages of service development. In addition, the competitive pressure from large and often global business and design consultancies that are entering the market and trying to develop their own service design skills is also forcing some service design agencies to rethink their identity and position their services at a more strategic level for organizations. This is discussed for example in Chapter 5 ‘Specialist service design consulting: The end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end?’ by Eva-Maria Kirchberger and Bruce S. Tether; using the case study of a project by Engine for Dubai Airport as an example of larger and more complex kinds of commissioning, they discuss the inevitable transformation of their offering including project and change management approaches, and the potential strategies for small service design agencies when having to face the huge competition of larger consultancies.

Introduction

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This book also considers redefining service design’s impact and service implementation as explored in Chapter 7 ‘Breaking free from NSD: Design and service beyond new service development’ by Stefan Holmlid, Katarina Wetter Edman and Bo Edvardsson, and Chapter 2 ‘Expanding (service) design spaces’ by Daniela Sangiorgi, Alison Prendiville and Jeyon Jung. These two chapters break with the traditional view of design’s contribution in service development as an essentially linear process and suggest instead that we redefine it and see it as a more entangled and complex set of outcomes. In Chapter 7 this is done by suggesting how new service development is no longer in line with the recent understanding of service; considering a service as the result of ‘agents that integrate resources to systematically create value’ leads to consider the development of service as processes of reconfiguration of these actors and their resources, which is an ongoing process. Chapter 2 here too revisits the understanding of design’s contribution, by proposing a more practice-based understanding of innovation, informed by anthropology and suggests the need to expand the focus of analysis, considering what happens before, during and after designers’ work; fully embracing a wider set of factors (innovation determinants) that affect how innovation develops may lead to a more articulated evaluation of designers’ work potential and impact. Finally, designers’ work is also questioned by not only looking at measuring their positive impact, but also scrutinizing their accountability towards the actors that are directly or indirectly affected by the service worlds they are engaging with. In Chapter 6 Lucy Kimbell and Jeanette Blomberg suggest how different levels of accountabilities can emerge depending on the focus of design actions: for example, ‘a sociocultural configuration lens recognizes accountabilities that are local, others involved in supporting or shaping a service, as well accountabilities to interests that lie beyond the immediate service’. On another level, but similarly, in Chapter 8 ‘Designing on the spikes of injustice: Representation and co-design’ Katie Collins, Mary Rose Cook and Joanna Choukeir discusses the potential risks of adopting a participatory approach to service design that does not reflect on the power structures designers are operating within, as well as their own agendas. A positivist notion of representativeness is then compared with a more constructionist approach to participation.

1.4 Interest for and application of design skills and approaches by non-designers In parallel to questions pertaining to the practice of professional designers, there has been a growing interest in design thinking in general, and service design in particular, as an alternative and promising approach to innovation. The question of how to embed designers’ skills and approaches in organizations is still a fundamental one that is troubling practitioners who are increasingly asked to provide training and service design tools to their clients; sustainable change in the mind-set of organizations is

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though not the result of a quick design collaboration and requires different modes of designer–client relationships as discussed by Daniela Sangiorgi, Alison Prendiville and Jeyon Jung in their Chapter 2. It also requires, as pointed out by Sabine Junginger and Stuart Bailey in Chapter 3, new design abilities to recognize and work with existing design practices and legacies, which might challenge designers’ contribution in the longer term. The interest to develop internal design capabilities in organizations is accompanied by the demand and need to develop a more integrated and multidisciplinary approach to service design. This is the overall aim of embedding and effectively integrating design skills in organizations, but it is also a call from the multidisciplinary field of service research (Ostrom et al. 2015), where service design is a long-term field of study. Research of service innovation, new service development or service operations have been considering issues of designing for new services, developing tools and insights that designers have adopted and learned from. The interesting aspect of this call for integrating designers’ skills and mind-sets in this multidisciplinary practice of designing for new services is the acknowledgment that design approaches could have a framing and integrating role to new service development, given their humancentred, flexible and creative approaches to innovation, which are more in line with the needs of organizations today. In this sense designers’ work is recognized more as a mind-set and approach to innovation than as a set of tools (Wetter Edman et al. 2014). The emphasis on the need to integrate and complement existing service design skills within organizations raises issues of convergence and integration of different languages and cultures, and also of differentiation, resulting in the the need to identify the differences in order to better collaborate and integrate contributions. This point is raised by Glenn Robert and Alastair MacDonald in their Chapter 9, ‘Co-design, organizational creativity and quality improvement in the healthcare sector: “Designerly” or “design-like”?’, where they point to the key differences between the approaches used by designers and non-designers in the field of healthcare improvement, for example distinguishing between quasi-experimental and measurable design-like practices of quality improvement, and speculative and more anecdotic design-led practices of iterative prototyping.

1.5 Development of boundary areas Finally designers have been inevitably drawn to work in what we call ‘boundary areas’ where service performances are key, but the relationship with the original field of service design is not always straightforward; the experimental work done, for example, in the public sector by service design studios and the support given by dedicated design policies or programmes in specific countries have, for example, inspired and informed further collaborations with the third sector or with national governments, in this case entering the complex realm of policy making. Another very

Introduction

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different space, with a recognized potential of introducing and developing service offers, is the manufacturing sector, in particular SMEs, that service designers are just starting to interact with. These novel spaces for service design introduce new specific requirements and conditions, and present again cultural and communication barriers that require further work of familiarization. Chapter 10 ‘Service design and the edge effect’ by Bob Young and Laura Warwick, for example, gives an overview of the challenges (in particular economic ones) the third sector is facing today, and the difficulties of introducing service design practices in a sustainable way. Chapter 13 ‘Service design in policy making’ by Camilla Buchanan, Sabine Junginger and Nina Terrey provides initial reflections on the first experimentations done with design thinking in national governments, often in the form of governmental labs. Here designers need to reinvent their role, prove their value while familiarizing with policy making processes, language and culture. Chapter 14 ‘The potential of service design as a route to product service systems’ by Tracy Bhamra, Andrew T. Walters and James Moultrie instead explores the role of service design when aiming to support manufacturing organizations when moving towards developing service offerings; they propose three main areas of work, which can gradually support this shift: considering first the ‘serviceability’ of products to enhance their use and maintenance in the long term; the design of services beyond products that can differentiate their offerings and develop their relationship with their clients; to then reconsider the business model by shifting their focus to the provision of integrated solutions. Furthermore, there has recently been an overlapping of interest and work in the field of social innovation that is also related to the practice and research on participatory design. Here the link with service design is associated with the growth of collaborative forms of services and design as solutions to dominant society challenges, and the collaboration with and the set-up of social enterprises when implementing and developing collaborative solutions. Chapter 12 ‘The social innovation journey: Emerging challenges in service design for the incubation of social innovation’ by Anna Meroni, Marta Corubolo and Matteo Bortolomeo specifically considers the kinds of activities and tools designers can use when supporting early stage social enterprises, depending on both the level of context and innovator readiness. Chapter 11 ‘Service design as a sensemaking activity: Insights from low-income communities in Latin America’ by Carla Cipolla and Javier Reynoso instead discusses how social innovation projects developing within low-income communities should be regarded as indigenous projects that can be appreciated only when understanding their underlying cultural values. Finally, service design work is strongly affected by the digitalization of services, which is increasing the level of interactivity and connectivity of service systems and platforms, while amplifying the potentials for service ideas and development. Chapter 4 ‘Designing for interdependence, participation and emergence in complex service systems’ by Daniela Sangiorgi, Lia Patricio and Raymond Fisk discusses the implications of this evolution, considering the growing complexity of service systems when moving from organizational systems, value networks towards the design of

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service ecosystems. Chapter 15 ‘Service design and the emergence of a second economy’ by Jeanette Blomberg and Susan Stucky looks instead at the implications of digitalization, as in the emergence of new divisions of labour among humans and machines facilitated by a ‘hidden’, digital algorithmic workforce to propose considering issues of Knowability, Visibility, and Materiality of what they describe as a Second Economy. Chapter 16 ‘Making sense of data through service design – opportunities and reflections’ by Alison Prendiville, Ian Gwilt and Val Mitchell articulates the design space of large-scale digital data sets described as a ‘sense making activity that through processes of translation, visualization and persuasion’ supports organizations ‘to turn the abstract and intangible nature of Big Data into human-centred services with social and economic value’.

1.6 The structure of the book These four discourses and developments inform the individual chapters in different ways and with different perspectives. We consider these themes as fundamental premises to better understand what the diverse contributions are saying about how the field is developing. We recommend to keep in mind these themes as hidden threads while reading through the publication, waiting for the closing section to weave them together in the articulation of what we propose as ‘designing for service’. The structure of the book identifies key areas of discussion to provide a timely view of service design in its various streams of development: 1) The lay of the land in designing for service; 2) Contemporary discourses and influence in designing for service; 3) Designing for service in public and social spaces; 4) Designing for service, shifting economies, emerging markets.

Note 1

Service Design Research UK was an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project, grant reference AH/K003607/1. More information can be found here: http:// imagination.lancs.ac.uk/activities/SDR_UK_Network (accessed 9 October 2016).

References Alam, I. and Perry, C. (2002), ‘A Customer-oriented New Service Development Process,’ The Journal of Services Marketing 16 (6): 515–34. Armstrong, L., Bailey, J., Julier, G. and Kimbell, L. (2014), Social Design Futures. Brighton: University of Brighton. Bailey, S. (2012), ‘Embedding Service Design: The Long and the Short Of It,’ Proceedings

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from ServDes 2012, the Third Nordic Conference on Service Design and Service Innovation. Espoo Finland. Bason, C. (2010), Leading Public Sector Innovation. Co-creating for a Better Society. Bristol: The Policy Press. Bate, P. and Robert, G. (2007), Bringing User Experience to Healthcare Improvement: The Concepts, Methods and Practices of Experience-based Design. Abingdon: Radcliffe. Bate, P. and Robert, G. (2007), ‘Toward More User-Centric OD: Lessons From the Field of Experience-based Design and a Case Study,’ Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 43 (41): 41–66. Björgvinsson, E., Ehn, P. and Hillgren, P.-A. (2012), ‘Design Things and Design Thinking: Contemporary Participatory Design Challenges,’ Design Issues 28 (3): 101–16. Björgvinsson, E., Ehn, P. and Hillgren, P.-A. (2010), ‘Participatory Design and “Democratizing Innovation”,’ Proceedings of the 11th Biennial Participatory Design Conference, 41–50. New York: ACM. Blomberg, J. and Darrah, C. (2015a),’ An Anthropology of Services. Toward a Practice Approach to Designing Services. San Rafael: Morgan & Claypool Publishers. Blomberg, J. and Darrah, C. (2015b), ’Towards an Anthropology of Services,’ The Design Journal: An International Journal for All Aspects of Design 18 (2): 171–92. Edvardsson, B. T. (2011), ‘Expanding Understanding of Service Exchange and Value Co-creation.’ Journal of the Academy of Marketing Sciences 39: 327–39. Edvardsson, B., Gustafsson, A. and Roos, I. (2005), ‘Service Portraits in Service Research: A Critical Review,’ International Journal of Service Industry Management 16: 107–21. Edvardsson, B., Gustafsson, A., Johnson, M. D. and Sandén, B. (2000), New Service Development and Innovation in the New Economy. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Ehn, P. (2008), ‘Participation in Design Things,’ Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary Conference on Participatory Design, 92–101. Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN, USA. Goldstein, J. (1999), ‘Emergence as a Construct: History and Issues,’ Emergence 1 (1): 49–72. Grönroos, C. (2008), ‘Service Logic Revisited: Who Creates Value? And Who Co-creates?’ European Business Review 20 (4): 298–314. Greenbaum, J. and Kyng, M. (1991), Design at Work: Cooperative Design of Computer Systems. Hillsdale, NJ: LEA Publishers. Holmlid, S. (2007), ‘Interaction Design and Service Design: Expanding a Comparison of Design Disciplines,’ Proceedings Nordes Conference ‘Design Inquiries’. Stockholm. Ingold, T. and Donovan, J. (2012), ‘Introduction: The Perception of the User-Producer,’ in W. Gunn, Design and Anthropology, 19–34. London: Ashgate. Jackson, M. (2003), Systems Thinking. Creative Holism for Managers. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Johnson, S. P. (2000), ‘A Critical Evaluation of the New Service Development Process’. in J. A. Fitzsimmons and M. J. Fitzsimmons, New Service Development: Creating Memorable Experiences, 1–32. California: Sage Publications. Jones, P. (2014), ‘Systemic Design Principles for Complex Social Systems’, In G. Metcalf, Social Systems and Design, 91–128. Japan: Springer Japan. Junginger, S. (2015), ‘Organizational Design Legacies and Service Design, The Design Journal: An International Journal for All Aspects of Design 18 (2): 209–26. Junginger, S. and Sangiorgi, D. (2009), ‘Service Design and Organizational Change: Bridging the Gap between Rigour and Relevance,’ Proceedings of the IASDR Conference on Design Research. Seoul. Kimbell, L. (2011), ‘Designing for Service as One Way of Designing Services,’ International Journal of Design 5 (2): 41–52.

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Kimbell, L. (2011), Rethinking Design Thinking: Part I, Design and Culture 3 (3): 285–306. Kimbell, L. (2012), Rethinking Design Thinking: Part II, Design and Culture: The Journal of the Design Studies Forum 4 (2): 129–48. Lin, M. C., Hughes, B. L., Katica, M. K., Dining-Zuber, C. and Plsek, P. E. (2011), ‘Service Design and Change of Systems: Human-centered Approaches to Implementing and Spreading Service Design,’ International Journal of Design 5 (2): 73–86. Lovelock, C. and Gummesson, E. (2004), ‘Whither Services Marketing? In Search of a New Paradigm and Fresh Perspectives,’ Journal of Service Research 7 (1): 20–41. Lusch, R. F. (2007), ‘Competing through Service: Insights from Service-dominant Logic,’ Journal of Retailing 83 (1): 5–18. Maglio, P., Vargo, S., Caswell, N. and Spohrer, J. (2009), ‘The Service System is the Basic Abstraction of Service Science,’ Information Systems and e-Business Management 7: 395–406. Manzini, E. (2011), ‘Introduction’, in A. Meroni, and D. Sangiorgi, Design for Services, 1–6. Aldershot: Gower. Manzini, E. and Jegou, F. (2008), Collaborative Services. Social Innovation and Design for Sustainability. Milano: Edizioni Polidesign. Manzini, E. and Staszowski, E. (2013), Public and Collaborative. Exploring the Intersaction of Design, Social Innovation and Public Policy, DESIS Network. Meroni, A. and Sangiorgi, D. (2011), Design for Services. Aldershot: Gower. Ostrom, A. L., Bitner, M. J., Brown, S. W., Burkhard, K. A., Goul, M., Smith-Daniels, V., Demirkan, H. and Rabinovich, E. (2010), ‘Moving Forward and Making a Difference: Research Priorities for the Science of Service,’ Journal of Service Research 13 (1): 4–36. Ostrom, A. L., Parasuraman, A., Bowen, D. E., Patrício, L., Voss, C. A. and Lemon, K. (2015), ‘Service Research Priorities in a Rapidly Changing Context,’ Journal of Service Research 18 (2): 127–59. Ozanne, J. L. and Saatcioglu, B. (2008), ‘Participatory Action Research,’ Journal of Consumer Research 35 (3): 423–39. Pacenti, E. (1998), ‘Il progetto dell’interazione nei servizi. Un contributo al tema della progettazione dei servizi,’ PhD thesis in Industrial Design. Milano: Politecnico di Milano. Patrício, L., Fisk, R. P., Cunha, J. F. and Constantine, L. (2011), ‘Multilevel Service Design: From Customer Value Constellation to Service Experience Blueprint, Journal of Service Research 14 (2): 180–200. Sangiorgi, D. (2009), ‘Building up a Framework for Service Design Research,’ Proceedings of the 8th European Academy of Design Conference, 415–20. Sangiorgi, D. (2011), ‘Transformative Services and Transformation Design,’ International Journal of Design 5 (2): 29–40. Sangiorgi, D. (2015), ‘Designing for Public Sector Innovation in the UK: Design Strategies for Paradigm Shifts,’ Foresight 17 (4): 332–48. Sangiorgi, D. and Junginger, S. (2015), ‘Emerging Issues in Service Design,’ The Design Journal 18 (2): 165–70. Sangiorgi, D., Prendiville, A., Jung, J. and Yu, E. (2015), Design for Service Innovation and Development. Final Report. Lancaster: Lancaster University. Shostack, G. L. (1982), ‘How to Design a Service’, European Journal of Marketing 16 (1): 49–63. Shostack, G. L. (1984), ‘Designing Services that Deliver’, Harvard Business Review 62 (1): 133–9.

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Shuler, D. and Namioka, A. (1993), Participatory Design. Principles and Practices. Hillsdale: LEA Publishers. Stacey, R. (2007), ‘The Challenge of Human Interdependence: Consequences for Thinking about the Day to Day Practice of Management in Organizations’, European Business Review 19 (4): 292–302. Stickdorn, M. and Schneider, J. (2010), This is Service Design Thinking. Amsterdam: BIS. Stigliani, I. and Fayard, A. (2010), Designing New Customer Experiences: A Study of Socio-material Practices in Service Design. London: Imperial College Business School. Ulrich, W. (1988), ‘Systems Thinking, Systems Practice and Practical Philosophy: A Program of Research,’ Systems Practice 1: 137–53. Van Aken, J. E. (2007), ‘Design Science and Organization Development Interventions: Aligning Business and Humanistic Values’, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 43 (1): 67–88. Vargo, S. L. and Lusch, R. F. (2008), ‘Service-dominant Logic: Continuing the Evolution,’ Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 36 (1): 1–10. Vargo, S. and Lusch, R. F. (2004), ‘Evolving to a New Dominant Logic,’ Journal of Marketing 68: 1–17. Wetter Edman, K., Sangiorgi, D., Edvardsson, B., Holmlid, S., Grönroos, C. and Mattelmäki, T. (2014), ‘Design for Value Co-Creation: Exploring Synergies Between Design for Service and Service Logic,’ Service Science 6 (2): 106–21. Yu, E. and Sangiorgi, D. (2014), ‘Service Design as an Approach to New Service Development: Reflections and Future Studies,’ Proceedings, 4th ServDes. Conference on Service Design and Service Innovation, 194–204. Lancaster: Lancaster University. Zeithamal, V. A., Parasuraman, A. and Berry, L. L. (1985), ‘Problems and Strategies in Services Marketing, Journal of Marketing 49: 33–46.

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PART ONE

The lay of the land in designing for service I

n this section we provide an overview of how design for service is now conceived at different levels of service and organizational settings, with its adoption in diverse and complex systems from government through to healthcare and airport services. With the acceptance of its methods and tools, increasingly by non-designers, it is now timely to reflect on design at the internal process level of the organization and at the developmental level of highly complex independent systems. The section draws together four chapters to provide a meta-perspective on the practices of design for service, starting with service design practices in client organizations. The section then zooms out to consider its more strategic role in negotiating and developing interdependent service systems between multiple actors, different platforms and across multiple time zones. Finally, it concludes with an updated view of the current service design consultancy landscape and its capability building to deal with complex and more strategic projects and discusses the opportunities and challenges as established management consultancies also move into this space. In the first chapter Sangiorgi, Prendiville and Jung present six service design case studies, funded from a UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) grant – DeSID (Design for Service Innovation and Development). With two case studies from each of the public, private and digital service sectors, three complementary

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perspectives on service innovation are formulated with regard to the client organization, based on a process-orientated approach, an outcomes focus and a contextual exploration, to frame and articulate the case study content and inform an expanded understanding of service design that redefines the contribution of the designer, before, during and after their intervention. In the second piece of the section, Junginger and Bailey focus on how organizational issues are now considered to be at the forefront in shaping future developments in service design practice and research. Acknowledging the role service designers play in engaging with organizational structures through co-designing and co-production methods, the authors turn their attention to an organization’s design pre-text, that is its internal pre-existing design practices. For the authors this highly internal perspective, which is complementary to an organization’s design legacy, develops a better understanding of the organization’s own design methods that have evolved over time. As a means of capturing these rich endogenous design practices, the authors suggest service designers help organizations to engage with and develop their own design narrative and share in the knowledge that it unlocks. Through this deeper organizational system engagement, service designers shift their views from being ‘the’ designers to facilitating new ways of ‘designing’. Looking to the increasing interconnectedness of organizations, Sangiorgi, Patricio and Fisk consider the complexity of the service environment, integrating digital platforms, multi-level partners across diverse geographic and time zones, and the implications of this for service design working at a systemic level. The authors identify a shift from designing for service systems, to value constellations, to finally service eco-systems that are frequently unbounded and with co-created solutions. With each of these levels and the increasing complexity the designers and the multidisciplinary teams are ‘working with less controlled environments and increasingly with emergence’. For the authors designing for complex service systems requires a shift from service design approaches and tools within organizations to a more strategic level, ‘allowing and supporting agency and evolution which are at the basis of the development of the ecosystem itself’. In the final chapter, Kirchberger and Tether provide an update of service design consulting through the developments of one of its early pioneers, Engine. Taking its recent project with Dubai Airport as an indicator of the success of established independent service design firms, the authors speculate on how such projects can transform an agency while also flagging up the challenges of undertaking a global and complex project. For the authors the success of agents such as Engine, together with the growth of digital services, offer a desirable proposition for larger management consultancies to move into UX design and potentially service design. To protect their markets from these consultancies, the authors suggest a range of tactics to strengthen the distinctiveness of the service design offer.

2 Expanding (service) design spaces Daniela Sangiorgi, Alison Prendiville and Jeyon Jung

S

ince its early origins in the 1990s, service design has been working towards introducing creative and human-centred approaches to existing practices of Service Innovation; since then there has been a constant expansion of its areas of applications and consequently, its realms of research. In particular, this chapter discusses the growing interest in and experimentations with service development and service implementation. This interest is also due to recent critiques of professional designers for their ‘lack of attention to economics – ensuring that ideas are cost effective – and lack of attention to organizational issues and cultures, condemns ideas to staying on the drawing board’ (Mulgan 2014). A Design Commission report also states how designers need to ‘uplift and upscale if they are to deliver design-led innovation effectively to public sector clients’ (Design Commission 2013: 19). A UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded networking project1 into service design research in the UK has also suggested the need to conduct research into how service design projects can be better implemented, embedded, measured or scaled up. There is agreement that to survive and develop, service design as a discipline needs to develop ‘legitimacy’, meaning the ‘acceptance of the technical competence of the profession and the spread of knowledge about it’ (Stigliani and Tether 2011), together with a culture of assessment (Maffei et al. 2013). The current debate on whether professional designers do actually succeed in contributing to service development is here revisited, questioning what service development actually implies, and how service innovation practices are conceived. Based on outcomes from a UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project in Design for Service Innovation and Development (DeSID),2 a study looking at the

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Table 2.1  Summary of DeSID case studies Project

Design Agency

Abstract

Care Information Scotland – CIS (NHS24)

Snook

Snook worked with NHS24 Scotland and the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Integration Directorate to develop the CIS service by considering contemporary information needs of carers. The project engaged various communities of carers in Scotland, to envisage new interfaces and modes of accessing information.

Product Support Services (Nuaire)

PDR

PDR helped Nuaire, a manufacturer of energy-efficient domestic and commercial ventilation solutions, to identify which services could be provided alongside their products to increase customer experience (e.g. training facility and course, purchase of design software, etc.)

Health insurance

Anonymous case study

A design agency, working with a global healthcare insurance company, recognized a need to redesign their current services for customers and innovate ways of working with service partners; this was due to the growing complexity within their business context and environment resulting in fundamental changes in their target operating model.

Online Casting Service (Spotlight)

Wilson Fletcher

Wilson Fletcher worked with Spotlight, the UK leader casting resource, to develop an online casting service to address the needs of casting directors, from theatre, film and advertisements. Mapping visually the casting directors’ journeys, they collaboratively agreed on a new service that was iteratively developed and prototyped.

Digital Classical Music Player (Universal Music)

Made by Many

Made by Many supported Universal Music UK – a division of Universal Music Group, the world’s leading music company – to explore digital service opportunities for the classical music brand Decca. The exploration of how people listen to classical music inspired the design, prototyping and implementation of the Digital Classical Music Player.

Connect & Do (Certitude)

Innovation Unit

Innovation Unit worked with Certitude, a third sector body supporting people with mental health issues, to develop the Connected Community service, that connects people with low-level mental health needs to the wider community, via a dedicated team and online tool. This was a transformational project, aiming to generate the capabilities for collaborative work in Certitude while co-designing the solution.



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contributions of service design agencies to the development of six public, private and digital services in the UK (see Table 2.1 for a summary), this chapter aims to expand the understanding and awareness of what designing and innovation means and implies, to better inform designers and clients’ activities and interactions of what their contribution is to change and innovation. The DeSID study focused on literature from new service development, service innovation and anthropology, and translated this into three main areas to examine in the service designers’ work: service innovation processes, service innovation outcomes and service innovation context. As a result of this preliminary study, it is proposed here that the view on service needs to be expanded to take account of design’s contributions to what happens before, during and after the designers’ intervention as they work with a client organization. The chapter will discuss the six case studies, by first adopting the three perspectives on service innovation (processes, outcomes and context), to then articulate the content and implications of an expanded understanding of service design.

2.1 Complementary perspectives on design-led service innovation 2.1.1 A stages-process understanding of service design Originally service design has been mostly identified with operations management literature that described the role of specific design tools and activities in new service development (NSD). Service design has been therefore generally conceived as ‘the first step process of bringing new services “online”’, contributing to ‘specifying the detailed structure, infrastructure and content integration of a service operations strategy’ (Johnson et al. 2000: 5). The discussion around new service development has recently expanded, demonstrating interest in the potential role of design thinking for service innovation. This has been motivated by the increased interest in the modes and value of engaging customers during service development, described as an underdeveloped area in service research (Alan and Perry 2002); a service-centred model is proposed as being customer-centric and market-oriented with the need to go beyond traditional forms of user research to be able to learn from customers’ latent needs and increase organizational learning and innovativeness (Matthing, Sanden and Edvardsson 2004); the recent debate on the move from a Good Dominant Logic to a Service Dominant Logic in organizations also suggests the need to understand the customers’ logic and value creation context (Heinonen et al. 2010) considering the use of research methods that are less familiar in marketing research such as ethnography (Matthinget al. 2004). Organizations with a higher market and customer orientation are described as having a greater learning capability (adapting and generative learning) (Morgan et al. 1998).

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Among these considerations, some authors have recommended service design as an approach that could support organizations to implement a service or customer-centric logic (Wetter-Edman et al. 2014). In line with these observations, designers have been questioning the potential of expanding their role across all NSD, to represent more a mind-set than a set of tools. This is also reflected in recent service research literature where service design is described as ‘a human-centred, creative, iterative approach to the creation of new services (Blomkvist, Holmlid, and Segelstrom 2010) that incorporates multiple contributions from service marketing, operations, and information technology, all integrated through design-based methods and tools (Patrıcio and Fisk 2013)’ (Ostrom et al. 2015: 136). Despite this, the current contribution to NSD by designers, on how their role could expand to inform a human-centred multidisciplinary service innovation, is unclear. The DeSID research study has confirmed how these two perspectives – service design as a stage or as a systematic customer-centric approach to service innovation – are actually both present among the observed cases. In some cases, designers were commissioned for their specific user-centred design skills and their contribution was therefore very specific and distinct from other parallel innovation processes and ended at the service concept stage. In other cases, designers instead seemed to be valued more for the overall approach they could bring to innovation processes, rather than for a specific stage, allowing design agencies to reach into the later development stages of NSD. As an example, in the redesign of the Care Information Scotland by Snook or the new service development for the manufacturing company Nuaire by PDR (see Table 2.1), designers conducted user studies applying methods such as design games, participant observation, interviews or site visits and translated these insights into ideas and tangible deliverables such as customer journey maps, stakeholder maps, persona, service ideas, or service blueprints. The final design deliverables produced during these initial stages were used by clients as evidence and supporting materials to inform internal decision-making processes and feasibility verifications, before the actual development and implementation activities. It was good to have the report to say look this is what’s Snook’s gone out on the road and found out and they’ve got all these visuals and they are recommending all these things. We might not agree perhaps on everything but this is based on people’s feedback and on their visuals and it was easier as well to show people. [ScotGov Interview] Instead the digital service innovation agencies, such as Made by Many and Wilson Fletcher, were chosen for their systematic and agile approach to digital innovation that included also implementation activities of iterative prototyping, development and launch of a tangible digital product. The following quote from Universal Music reflects the rapid iterative process that took place during the new service development of their classical music digital tool:



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So really we met designers from day one, we met strategists from day one and we all sort of started in a room. The very first meeting we had was 15 people round a board table sort of just throwing out any possible idea that we could think of to sort of try and see if there were any recurring themes or trends or things that kind of surfaced as a result of that. And then when we had sort of honed it into one idea, if you like, the proposition, further testing, prototyping, internal sign off … [Universal Music] In the case of Connect & Do project for Certitude instead, Innovation Unit was commissioned for their collaborative approach to service innovation that the client aimed to embed in their practices and service models. Here designers’ contribution therefore was aimed at supporting a learning process, which gradually ended once the clients became more autonomous in the appropriation of the solution and mode of thinking.

2.1.2 An outcome perspective on service design These different contributions to NSD, as discussed above, can also be discussed in terms of the kind and level of innovation they help generate, and of the proposals – what is actually implemented. Service innovation can happen at different levels in the organization, moving from changes in the periphery of the organization to changes within its own structure and culture; adapting Djellal and Gallouj (2010) innovation dimensions, change can be recognized at the service interface and network levels (external relational innovation), at the offering level (product/service innovation), at the operational level (process innovation) and at the organizational level (internal organizational innovation). Vadim Grinevich (2015: 47) discusses how service design projects show ‘a disproportionate emphasis on making more effective front office activities and user touch points, with the back stage processes and infrastructure remaining relatively neglected’. While designers claim their transformative role in organizations,3 for Grinevich, this ‘transformative’ claim is tempered by the need for design firms to support the development of ‘intra-organizational structures to exploit and renew innovation’. In the DeSID research, some cases confirmed this consideration, as designers’ contributions were more peripheral, and concentrated on developing specific interfaces (digital platform) and new offerings based on user studies, but not addressing directly the processes and organizational structures needed for service implementation. In the Care Information Scotland (CIS) project for NHS24 or the service development project for Nuaire, designers were informing and motivating change, but it was then up to the organization to take the design deliverables and make design decisions about which part of the proposed ideas to develop and take further and which not; these decisions were based on for example the level of investment, the technological fit (e.g. fitting

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CIS with the existing Scottish website) or organizational aims and culture (e.g. Nuaire not aiming to become a service organization). In other cases, such as the projects for Certitude or Universal Music, the level of innovation outcome was from the start intended to spread across the organization, as the nature of the brief and project required a process of cultural change through designing. Both Certitude and Universal Music aimed to fundamentally change the nature and mode of their businesses, in one case developing a more collaborative approach to mental health care, and in the other changing the nature of the music industry from delivering what artists create to developing offerings around people’s desires and mode of listening. In both cases, designers were directly driving or enabling change by assisting the creation of the required tools, skills and attitude (training staff along the design process) or by supporting the set-up of the required team (new digital unit in Universal Music). When looking closer at the conditions for these contributions and their outcome, two main aspects seemed to significantly affect service innovation: one was the nature of the relationship and the kind of agreement and exchanges happening between designers and their clients; the other one was the emergent process of learning, translation, negotiation and appropriation activities clients needed to perform in order to use and implement design inputs. In the DeSID research we therefore switched our attention from where designers were making a contribution in the NSD process and with what impact, to the contextual conditions and social interactions that seemed to shape innovation in practice. It appeared important to locate services and their transformation within a wider social context (Gallouj 2002). This perspective on the social aspects of services and service innovation adopted an anthropological lens that helped us to introduce a more human notion of innovation that is less linear and technologically focused – moving from a process and outcome perspective, to a social and contextual one.

2.1.3 A practice perspective on service design When looking at the DeSID research, Grinevich (2015: 47) raised questions over the dominance of the ‘user-centric’ design model and its ability to perform a ‘visionary function’ and explore opportunities for radical innovation, which could hardly be anticipated by users and customers (Verganti 2011). Design anthropology and Blomberg and Darrah’s An Anthropology of Services (2015) offer an alternative theoretical frame to evaluate service design practices that are overlooked by more established discourses on service innovation and new service development. They suggest a move towards an anthropology of service design as ‘services have always been characterized by the human condition and they are always embedded in local contexts’ (p. 173). This anthropological focus on the human and contextual nature of innovation situates it within a social and cultural lens to capture what Ingold (2011: 154) contrasts as ‘inhabitant’ rather than ‘scientific’ knowledge. These two distinct forms of knowledge offer



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different ways of knowing, with one focusing on how we move through the world and the other focusing its attention on establishing ‘the commensurability and connectivity that would render procedures developed and results obtained in one place applicable in another’ (p. 155). The extensive and unscientific reach of new ways of working and language, as described by the concept of inhabitant knowledge, is evident in the Certitude case study but also in others. It was totally new to me because I am from the support worker background, I used to work in residential care home so I just never thought about asking what sort of thing they [the patients] expected to do, how they wanted to be supported .… But then with Community Connecting it’s totally different, it’s more like individual people we are respecting, what they want to do, who they want to meet. So it was totally new and I needed to change the way of thinking, I needed to change, we all needed to change. [Certitude Connect & Do] When we take the definition of innovation as described as 1) doing something new and, 2) developing this new so that it becomes accepted and applied in an organization, market, or in society (National Audit Office 2006), we have to question how this may fit within inhabitant knowledge and innovation and how transferable this is to different contexts. As users become producers of services and appropriate them for their own practices, Ingold (2012: 30) suggests that the aim of design is not to bring closure but to open up a pathway for allowing an ongoing performance that changes over time. Gunn and Clausen (2013: 173) use Ingold’s (2012) user-cum-producer4 concept to move the discourse away from users providing ideas for designers to one in which the end-users become designers themselves. In this instance Ingold asks us to consider the design in the context of user-cum-producer as imagining a future that is open-ended (p. 174). The Care Information Scotland (CIS) project shows the ongoing and less contained nature of design’s contribution to service innovation that fits within a more openended perspective. The tangible outcomes for the project consisted of a large report and a service blueprint, with evidence of what people wanted and needed from CIS; this was then used to further influence a timetable for change in NHS24. In addition the development of the personas and related use cases, developed by Snook in the second phase, were then applied to inform discussions on the feasibility and development of the project within another major Scottish government digital initiative called ‘mygov.scot’. Across the case studies there is evidence of the innovation practices being adopted and appropriated for other projects within the organization. Here the interviewee from CIS explains how the work undertaken by Snook was then taken up under the ‘mygov.scot’ project. In terms of how the site will look on line there’s a bigger project called ‘mygov.scot’ which is happening and we’ve been able to share the Snook stuff and the work that we’ve been doing with them and they (mygov.scot) were really interested in

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what we were up to and they wanted us to be part of the project. So we’ll be taking forward doing Care Information Scotland underneath the ‘mygov.scot’ banner. [ScotGov Interview] This unbounded contribution of design to service innovation, often in spaces that may be unrelated to the original site of the service design project, shows an on going process that raises questions on the need to trace design’s contribution to service innovation and where the evaluation is placed. If the focus is only on the implementation, we may be losing some of the more extensive reach through the way in which organizations assimilate and apply knowledge and how this also leaks into other areas of the organization and community, as illustrated by this quote by Certitude: So it took principles from things like time banking … from the kind of the experience and knowledge we built up about what people said they wanted rather than what they were given. And we now see that Community Connecting has become the new ‘it’ in the borough. All organizations are using the language of Community Connecting and so again it’s a kind of probably again a replication of what’s happened within our organization; a very small, a very tiny bit of funding has now spread its influence so Community Connecting is now the language that commissioners and other providers and big agencies are using. [Community Connect – Certitude] Suchman (2011: 15) questions ‘the premium placed on discrete, discontinuous change events and the generally negative value attributed to processes of incremental change as part of a form of wishful thinking that aims to bring about desired transformation without the associated costs in time and human effort’. Drawing on Barry (2001), she challenges the conventional view of innovation as something that can be measured by the number of ideas that are generated by patents, and opposites inventiveness as ‘an index of the degree to which an object or practice is associated with opening up possibilities … What is inventive is not the novelty of artefacts in themselves, but the novelty of the arrangements with other activities and entities within which artefacts are situated’ (Barry 2001: 211–12 in Suchman 2015: 15). For Suchman new things are formed out of ‘laborious reconfigurations – always partial, provisional, and precarious – to familiar arrangements and modes of action’ (p. 15). Drawing on the Certitude service transformation case study, prior to the collaboration with the Innovation Unit, non-formalized innovation practices were being used by the Community Connecting team to explore new ways of doing business; in particular, looking at ways that relationships are formed with the people they support. Thus the formation of a new service grew from ongoing internal practices that became formalized through the interaction with the design agency. Further, this formalization led to a more transformative process within the organization as it validated approaches, previously applied intuitively through trial and error, that now could be applied to other community projects. This should have potentially built innovation



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capacity within the organization but because of the movement of staff to other organizations, many of the tools and techniques introduced by the designers also left the organization – demonstrating the precarious nature of embedding innovation practices within an organization. These issues highlight the specific and emerging dynamics and exchanges between designers and clients during their collaboration. They also suggests the need to expand our analytical lens to conditions before and after the designer’s intervention as the development of projects appears to be strongly affected by pre and post circumstances and evolutions. This leads us to articulate the need to expand service design spaces.

2.2 Expanding service design spaces By advocating for an expansion of service design spaces we suggest the need to locate designers’ work within a wider innovation space and time frame in order to better understand the conditions affecting their contribution and impact, and also the potentials and opportunities. In a review of the determinants for the diffusion of innovation in healthcare organizations, Greenhalgh et al. (2004) represent the complexity of factors that affect the adoption of an innovation, as resulted from a systematic review of relevant literature; this being the result of the interaction between the nature of the innovation itself, the intended adopters and a specific context (p. 598). As part of this chapter and because of the original focus of DeSID, we did not review all of these elements, but we report here how some of these determinants manifested in our case studies before, during and after the designers’ work.

2.2.1 Before design As recalled by Sabine Junginger and Stuart Bailey in Chapter 3 in this book, organ­ izations are full of ‘design legacies’ and designers need to develop the capability and tools to inquire into these pre-existing design practices. In the cases we observed, the way organizations perceived design and innovation, their previous exposure to designers’ work and their current innovation practices and infrastructures did significantly affect the way they chose and engaged designers and the kind of collaboration that developed. These legacies manifested in the procurement stage where the encounter and the negotiation between designers and client organizations happened. For Care Information Scotland of NHS24, the Scottish government was familiar with Snook from previous projects and valued their ability to engage communities; they knew that they lacked, as an organization, specific skills, and needed an external collaborator to create the necessary evidence to convince the senior managers of the need to invest in transforming the information service. In this instance it was recognized that Snook had design skills to deliver a design brief that was oriented towards

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a specific pre-defined output, which would not require NHS24 to learn or embed those skills within their own organization, as evidenced in the following quote: But they took along visual representations; they had prototypes, they’d all the things that we just didn’t have the skills to kind of do it. [ScotGov Interview] This approach also meant that points of contact were minimized as the project manager of NHS24 coordinated, translated and integrated at best the various inputs. The incompatibility between the designers’ and clients’ processes and mind-sets is also evidenced in the early project phase with Certitude in the description of the encounter with the designers; but the openness of Certitude to learning a new approach and their previous exposure to their methods in a previous project created the right basis for a fruitful collaboration: But there was a very kind of curious kind of cultural exchange around people with people with kind of weird language and lots of stick it notes and stuff with people who are kind of out there working with real people in real services. [Certitude] Also literature on innovation determinants suggests the importance of the system readiness to innovation (Greenhalgh et al. 2004); this is for example defined by the ‘tension for change’ when staff perceive the current situation as not tolerable any more, or if the organization has already evaluated and anticipated the implications of the innovation and has a full internal support and advocacy for change. In the case of Spotlight the system readiness was evident as a process of innovation was being initiated prior to the arrival of a design agency; working closely with their clients, the casting directors, they were aware of the huge amounts of data that they increasingly had to deal with and that could become an opportunity for change: […] so they’re all around us all the time and we talk to them all the time. So that kind of stuff was coming through loud and clear. We put some quantitative data around that, in asking our casting directors to talk to us more, and we did that via on-line surveys mainly, and some interviews and panels as well. [Spotlight] Readiness for innovation is also evaluated in terms of how the proposed innovation fits – innovation compatibility – with the existing culture, norms and values of the receiving organization. Again, Certitude provides an example where the changing external circumstances acted as a catalyst to innovating around their existing service offer and how their way of working already anticipated what they were asking of Innovation Unit: […] I think it’s probably fair to say we’ve developed a reputation as an origination for innovation in the work we are doing. So piloting new ways of working, pioneering



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new ideas constantly transforming our workforce and our service design. Much to the frustration of everyone. But some people like it. [Certitude Connect & Do]

2.2.2 During design During the design collaboration we identified instead as main determinants of the innovation the nature of the designers-client relationships that we found manifested in three kinds of collaborations: separated, collaborative or more integrated design processes (see Table 2.2). ‘Separated processes’ qualified projects where designers were commissioned for their skilled contribution and where interactions between designers and clients were minimized and reduced to project reviews and very well designed and complete deliverables; this reduced the potential of reciprocal learning and designers’ possibility to control project development and implementation in the longer term, as this quote from Nuaire suggests: We then narrowed down the project to a specific area that would make an impact to the business and they (the designers) did more investigation work and presented that back to us as a final pdf and PowerPoint presentation to explain what they thought the recommendations were. [Nuaire Air] This was significantly different for projects like the digital classical music player for Universal Music, where the designer–client relationship was collaborative and designers were chosen for their systematic design process and organizational fit. From the start Universal Music aimed also to learn from Made by Many’s innovation processes and to integrate digital skills; designers though were still leading the design process adopting an agile development approach. This more collaborative approach allowed for a longer collaboration as part of the development and implementation stages, and generated longer-term transformations, associated with the integration of new skills and the adoption of new practices. Finally, the design process with Certitude was more integrated and emergent, meaning that the Innovation Unit agency facilitated an innovation process that allowed for reciprocal adjustments while training the Certitude staff to participate in the process as researchers and designers themselves. The closure of the collaboration was therefore associated not only with the development of the new online tools, but also with the absorption of new ways of doing things by Certitude staff. These differences manifested also in the role of design materials and deliverables that became less formalized and more work-in-progress, when the processes were more collaborative or integrated. In the Snook case the deliverables (e.g. a service blueprint) had to contain all the information required for NHS24 to implement and develop their original contributions, while for the Spotlight project the design outputs were more work-in-progress documents and prototypes that were mediating the

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Table 2.2  Three kinds of designer/client relationships and their characteristics (source: Sangiorgi et al. 2015: 62) Service design as skilled contribution

Service design as a people-centred, creative and systematic process

Service design as a people-centred and collaborative mind set and approach

Designer/client relationship

Separate processes with distinct roles

Collaborative processes led by designers

Integrated and emerging processes

Procurement

Chosen for their skills (e.g. user studies and engagement, co-design, visual or creative skills)

Chosen for their process and organizational fit

Chosen for their approach to change and innovation

Brief

Oriented toward outputs; focused on developing/ improving an offering

Open and exploratory; focused on developing/ improving an offering

Open and exploratory; focused on learning a new way of doing things

Contribution to NSD

Initial stages of NSD (e.g. research and design activities)

All main NSD stages toward implementation

All main NSD stages toward staff independence

Design Outputs

Distinct designed deliverables

Work in progress documents and prototypes

No definite deliverable

Innovation Outcomes

Changes are informed by design contribution

Changes are led by design process

Changes are enabled through learning

conversations and collaborations between designers and the clients. In the following quote the client at Spotlight describes for example the value of the whiteboard visualization that continuously evolved through the input of the casting directors and how this changing representation, although very complex, enabled them to walk the casting directors through a ‘day in a life’. We photographed it every time and then it evolved with another round of feedback from another casting director, photographed it, and it became a monster; it was incredible. It’s a brilliant memory I’ve got … they were able to walk through any



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casting director with any level of technical knowledge, they were able to get something from them for that, which is an amazing skill. [Spotlight] In contrast the nature of design materials in Certitude project was different as there were no definite deliverables, but mostly co-design materials, as the focus of the collaboration was on generating and learning how to conduct more collaborative practices.

2.2.3 After design After designers leave the organization, the proposed innovation needs to be assimilated by the organization and implemented. Studies suggest that this stage is also affected by the nature of the proposed innovation itself (Greenhalgh et al. 2004). Together with a system readiness to innovation, there is also the appropriateness of the proposed innovation to the current situation and stage an organization is at. This is exemplified by the suggested need by NHS24 to evaluate the feasibility and prioritize what to implement of Snook’s proposals given the current technological and cultural limitations the wider organization was in: we’ve kind of said ‘right we’ll wait and we’ll see if that will be for the next phase’. Things like the log in, people ringing again, again we don’t have the server capacity, I think it is, it’s more the IT stuff of log in and all the data protection so we’ve kind of made a decision on that. [NHS24] When designers play instead the required role of challenging and pushing an organization beyond its current state, the sustainability of their contribution lies also with the strength of the narrative of their ideas and how these are then circulated and adopted by key players. In narrative organizational studies, there is the suggestion that an organization is innovative depending on its ability to create and share stories (Gabriel 2000). In the anonymous case, the unexpected radical organizational change caused the project with the design consultancy to end, because – as the project manager of the client organization suggested – the narrative of the proposed innovation was still too weak to win the acceptance of the new senior managers: Because we’d been on an evolutionary journey we were at that point where we had a lot of information and our story was not clean and clear to tell (pause) and so I think I went to those stakeholders too early with some of the information because I was so desperate to re-engage some of those people and what that meant was that they looked at it and they said ‘yeah, I kind of get these bits, but the rest of it’s just a bit over-complicated’. [Anonymous] Before evaluating designers’ contribution to innovation, we therefore need to consider that ‘the move from considering an innovation to successfully routinizing it is generally

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a nonlinear process characterized by multiple shocks, setbacks, and unanticipated events (Van de Ven et al. 1999)’ (Greenhalgh et al. 2004: 610). Together with a flexible organizational structure, and strong leadership and management, the role of supporting the training and development of human resources is considered a key factor in the implementation of innovation. Developing the capacity of organizations has been touched on by some of the cases (Made by Many and Innovation Unit), but it seems still a peripheral area in designers’ contribution that could be further developed.

2.3 Discussion This chapter aimed to take a closer look at service design practices in relation to their contribution to innovation, proposing three initial complementary perspectives to studying innovation: a process-oriented perspective, an outcome-focused one and a contextual exploration. We suggested how combining these three perspectives can shed light into how, when and why designers can have different impacts in their collaborations with client organizations and in different settings. As a consequence of this initial study, we observed how the impact and nature of designers’ contribution would require an expanded understanding and study of service innovation, which would acknowledge the contextual and non-linear evolution of innovation practices and the role designers play within these. By referring to studies on determinants of innovation, we therefore suggested the need to expand our understanding of service design’s contribution, by considering what happens before, during and after designers’ work. This expansion is in line with a recent shift of attention from designers to designing (as discussed by different authors in this publication) as an ongoing change activity to which designers contribute; it is also in line with a less linear and technological understanding of innovation, acknowledging the messy and organic nature of assimilation and implementation processes that happen within and across organizations. The implications for service design practices lie in the challenge of developing higher context sensitivity when collaborating with client organizations, developing the skills set and methods that could potentially help them to better recognize and accompany some of these developments or anticipate some of the setbacks. Finally, we suggest the need for a more ecological, dispersal and cultural evaluation of designers’ contribution to innovation, as a way to better position where designers operate, and to recognize their actual role within these change processes.

Notes 1

SDR UK – Grant reference: AH/L013657/1

2

For a more detailed description of the project please visit DeSID – http://imagination.



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lancs.ac.uk/activities/Design_Service_Innovation_and_Development – accessed 9th October 2016 – and access the final report at http://imagination.lancs.ac.uk/ outcomes/Design_Service_Innovation_and_Development – accessed 9th October 2016. 3

This claim was part of DeSID international survey results, which received forty-nine completed answers by design agencies working worldwide on service design. See DeSID final report for more details.

4

Ingold proposes that through the processes and practices of enactment people become skilled practitioners instead of consumers (Gunne and Donovan 2012: 2).

References Alam, I. and Perry, C. (2002), ‘A Customer-oriented New Service Development Process’, The Journal of Services Marketing 16 (6:) 515. Barry, A. (2001), Political Machines: Governing a Technological Society. London: Athlone. Blomberg, J. and Darrah, C. (2015), ‘Towards an Anthropology of Services’, The Design Journal 18 (2): 171–92. Blomkvist, J., Holmlid, S. and Segelström, F. (2010), ‘Service Design Research: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’, in M. Stickdorn and J. Schneider (eds), This is Service Design Thinking, 308–15. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers. Design Commission (2013), Restarting Britain 2: Design and Public Services. London: Design Commission. Djellal, F. and Gallouj, F. (2010), ‘Services, Innovation and Performance: General Presentation’, Journal of Innovation Economics 5 (1): 5–15. Gabriel, Y (2000), Storytelling in Organizations: Facts, Fictions and Fantasies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gallouj, F. (2002), ‘Productivity, Innovation and Knowledge in Services: New Economic and Socio-economic Approaches,’ in J. Gadrey and F. Gallouj (eds), Productivity, Innovation and Knowledge in Services: New Economic and Socio-economic Approaches, 256–84. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Greenhalgh, T., Robert, G., Bate, P. and Kyriakidou, O. (2004), ‘Diffusion of Innovations in Service Organizations: Systematic Review and Recommendations’, The Milbank Quarterly 82 (4): 581–629. Grinevich, V. (2015), ‘Design and Service Innovation: A Strategic Management Perspective’, in D. Sangiorgi, A. Prendiville, J. Jung and E. Yu, Design for Service Innovation and Development. Final Report, 47–8. Lancaster: Lancaster University. Gunn, W. and Clausen, C. (2013), ‘Conceptions of Innovation and Practice: Designing Indoor Climate’, in W. Gunn, T. Otto and Smith, R. C. (eds), Design Anthropology, Theory and Practice, 159–79. London: Bloomsbury. Heinonen, K., Strandvik, T., Mickelsson, K. J., Edvardsson, B., Sundstrom, E. and Andersson, P. (2010), ‘A Customer-dominant Logic of Service’, Journal of Service Management 21 (4): 531–48. Ingold, T. (2011), Being Alive. Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. London: Routledge. Ingold, T. (2012), ‘Introduction: The Perception of the User-Producer’, in W. Gunn and J. Donovan, Design and Anthropology. London: Ashgate. Johnson, S. P., Menor, L. J., Roth, A. V. and Chase, R. B. (2000), ‘A Critical Evaluation of

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the New Service Development Process’, in J. Fitzsimmons and M. Fitzsimmons (eds), New Service Development: Creating Memorable Experiences, 1–32. California: Sage Publications. Maffei, S., Villari, B. and Foglieni, F. (2013), ‘Embedding Design Capacity in Public Organizations: Evaluation by Design for Public Services’, Swedish Design Research Journal 2 (12): 28–34. Matthing, J., Sanden, B. and Edvardsson, B. (2004), ‘New Service Development: Learning from and with Customers’, International Journal of Service Industry Management 15 (5): 479–98 Morgan, R. E., Katsikeas, C. S. and Appiah-Adu, K. (1998), ‘Market Orientation and Organizational Learning Capabilities’, Journal of Marketing Management 14 (4/5): 353–81 Mulgan, G. (2014), Design in Public and Social Innovation. London: NESTA. National Audit Office (2006), Achieving Innovation in Central Government Organizations. London: The Stationery Office. Ostrom, A. L., Parasuraman, A. Bowen, D. E. Patrício, L. and Voss, C. A. (2015), ‘Service Research Priorities in a Rapidly Changing Context’, Journal of Service Research 18 (2): 127–59. Patrício, L. and Fisk, R. P. (2013), ‘Creating New Services’, R. Russell-Bennett, R. P. Fisk and L. Harris. Brisbane, Serving Customers Globally, 185–207. Tilde University Press. Sangiorgi, D, Prendiville, A., Jung, J. and Yu, E. (2015), Design for Service Innovation and Development. Final Report. Lancaster: Lancaster University. Stigliani, I. and Tether, B. S. (2011), ‘Building a New Field: How an Emerging Category becomes Meaningful and Legitimate – The Case of Service Design’. Paper presented at the EGOS, Gothenburg. Suchman, L. (2011), ‘Anthropological Relocations and the Limits of Design’, Annual Review of Anthropology 40: 1–18. Available online: http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/ pdf/10.1146/annurev.anthro.041608.105640 (accessed 21 July 2014). Verganti, R. (2011), ‘Radical Design and Technology Epiphanies: A New Focus for Research on Design Management’, Journal of Product Innovation Management 25: 436–56. Wetter-Edman, K., Sangiorgi, D., Edvardsson, B., Holmlid, S., Grönroos, C. and Mattelmäki, T. (2014), ‘Design for Value Co-Creation: Exploring Synergies Between Design for Service and Service Logic’, Service Science 6 (2): 106–21.

3 Designing vs designers: How organizational design narratives shift the focus from designers to designing Sabine Junginger and Stuart Bailey

3.1 Introduction Organizations host services. Organizations deliver services. Organizations depend on services to establish and maintain relationships with employees, customers, stakeholders and other people. This organizational entanglement has immediate and direct consequences for the research and the practice of service design. People concerned with designing services always work within an organizational context. Since every organization has its own design history, has developed its own practices for how to go about developing services over time, any new design efforts take place under a historic pre-text.1 This is something easily overlooked as many service designers are just now discovering the organization itself, its current operations and its current stakeholders as a con-text for their work. We can think of the organizational pre-text as the combined history of previous design efforts, historic design decision-making and earlier design approaches that have formed and still inform current design practices and current design thinking within a specific organization. Organizational design con-text, in contrast, describes the current design environment of an organization, not only its current purpose, mandate or vision but also the network of actors involved and effected by design processes and design decisions. While also comparatively new, the challenge to work with organizational design contexts and how to navigate these throughout a design project is beginning to be addressed. Organizational issues are now understood to be among the emerging

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issues that will shape the future development of service design research and practice (Sangiorgi and Junginger 2015). Many service designers have honed their skills and their knowledge to foster organizational engagement. This is evident in research and practice where service designers actively engage and inquire into these contexts, devise ways to work with various stakeholders (cf: Meroni and Sangiorgi 2011), engage with organizational structures and learn about relevant organizational processes (cf: Bitner et al. 2007; Bettencourt 2010; Patrício et al. 2011; Ing 2013; Jones 2014). Methods, including co-design, co-creation and co-production have been appropriated to inquire into and to facilitate this direct engagement with an organ­ization’s design context. Organizational design pre-text, in contrast, has not as yet received the same attention. We argue that understanding an organization’s design pre-text will aid service designers as they seek to embed new services into existing organizational systems and as they need to connect their own thinking and doing more closely with that of the organization they work with. The rationale for doing so becomes obvious when we think of organizations as products of design themselves. When we remind ourselves that organizing in principle means that people come together around a common purpose or idea and then agree on how to go about translating this idea into some kind of form by using available resources, an organization, too, is a product of design. The organizational design pre-text then directly reflects an organization’s history of making: It holds the key to the design principles and design methods an organization employs over time and the principles around which this design is based. In other words, we can gain insights into current design thinking and current values that drive and guide an organization’s development efforts by studying its organizational design pre-text. Though neither one of us has used the term organizational pre-text previously, we recognized while writing this paper that within our respective research, we have both been looking for insights into organizational design con-texts and pre-texts. And we did so because we found it necessary to build a bridge between the ‘new’ design thinking and the ‘new’ design doing of an organization with previous design efforts. In line with Gorb and Dumas (1987), we continuously find designing to be an ongoing, omnipresent activity within organizations. These activities have roots and whenever we seek to introduce new practices, we need to be able to refer to these roots. Sometimes, we refer to these roots to explain how our current design effort is different from those roots. At other times, we refer to these roots to allow people engaged in organizational design activities to connect their past work with the one we are proposing for them to join presently. One of the challenges we run into is that we regularly find staff members who actively design but who are not aware of their own role as designers or their own designing practices. Much of the organizational design pre-text tends to remain invisible, unacknowledged and unarticulated. We have therefore asked ourselves how we may talk about organizational design pre-texts and how this concept fits with the changes we witness in organizations that shift the focus from ‘the’ designer to ‘designing’. This chapter presents our current thinking. Its



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intent is to support service designers who are looking to connect design more deeply with internal organizational issues. In other words, it targets those designers who are interested and willing to engage in larger organizational questions beyond a service or particular product. Just like it is clear that organizations are human products, it is also clear that these products evolve and change over time along with the people who are giving it shape, the technologies and resources they have available and the interests, motivations and purpose they are pursuing. This seems a simple truth. And yet, it is one most people in organizations seem to forget about easily. Things are how they are. Procedures exist and are followed because they exist, and so on. All this indicates that we need a language and a vocabulary to aid organizations to reflect on their own design history: The concepts and principles that provide the basis for their current design practices and design methods. In many ways, we can discern the organizational design pre-text as organizational ‘design culture’. But to ask people to change their culture is asking them a lot. To ask them, however, to reflect on their own organization’s design pre-text offers an alternative path by keeping the focus on actual activities related to the organization; what people connect with this design pre-text and what people expect from it. We have found in our respective work that unearthing an organization’s design pre-text can open new paths for thinking and doing and thereby support service innovations and organizational changes. Both organizational design pre-text and organizational con-text constitute the elements of an organizational design narrative – a design narrative that is unique to a particular organization. We want to use the remainder of the chapter to discuss organizational design narratives and how they shift the focus from those that design to that which we are designing.

3.2 Narratives in design and design narratives for organizations Storytelling building on narratives has long been recognized as a powerful method to convey user experiences (Brown and Duguid 2000: 106–8). Every customer journey presents a narrative on its own; every user pathway depends on a coherent narrative. Narratives have a role in user testing and in user research, for example when we trace the everyday life of people using products and services and develop a narrative from these findings. Stories of and by employees and staff within organizations, too, offer narratives that already are being visualized and shared in ongoing service design projects (Meroni and Sangiorgi 2011) as part of co-designing and co-creation. These narratives shed light on how staff and employees experience organizational processes and systems in their everyday work life (Bitner et al. 2007; Patrício et al. 2011). We may call these kinds of narratives summarily as ‘service [design] narratives’. A service narrative tends to take the form of a description or visualization of a customer

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experience journey; rather than the commentary of a service provision expressed through a service blueprint. A design narrative appropriated for an organization as we envision it here is distinct from the service narrative already in use. An organizational design narrative also serves a different purpose. Whereas the service narrative addresses a local matter (a specific touch point or a specific service journey), the main purpose of an organizational design narrative is to identify design issues, design practices and design principles that dominate organizational life. An organizational design narrative describes and traces the design work within an organization. It identifies design tasks, design methods and design thinking approaches members of the organization are familiar with and which they apply. For a complete organizational design narrative, we need to include the customer side as much as we need to include stakeholder issues but we also need a good understanding of the organization itself. The latter means that we need to focus more on designing than on designers. One of the challenges for design’s success in the future rests in its ability to cope and work with organizational systems. Here, our ability to tell organizations about their customers and about customer journeys remains vital. Without coupling these insights with a better understanding of the organization’s own design engagements, transformations and innovations will remain stuck within products and services unable to support the systemic changes that are necessary. For that we need to facilitate organizational learning.

3.3 Organizational design narratives as enablers for organizational learning Von Krogh, Ichijo and Nonaka (2000) present five enablers of knowledge creation that are implicit in the qualities and characteristics we have identified for design narratives above: 1) instil a knowledge vision; 2) manage conversation; 3) mobilize knowledge activists; 4) create the right context; and 5) globalize local knowledge. Another work, by Brown and Duguid (2000) highlights the importance of narration and knowledge husbandry within The Social Life of Information. When design focuses on improving human experiences and turns to services, it is also concerned with social life of information. In a 2009 lecture on the foundations and directions of service-dominant logic at the Freie Universität Berlin, Stephen L. Vargo (2009) referred to narratives when he talked about the knowledge and skills that are exchanged in delivering a service rather than being embodied within the exchange of a product. According to Vargo, when embodied in a product, knowledge and skills can be distributed and shared, but only to a degree because they remain locked in and are difficult to change or to be added to by others. By contrast however, information within a service is arguably more easily modified, iterated or transformed as the knowledge and skills disseminated within the service transaction are conveyed in the narrative and not locked into a specific artefact.



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Organizational design narratives in our view can form a service within the organization, thereby facilitating knowledge exchange and information sharing. Considering knowledge creation within the context of design, Teixeira (2001) proposed that ‘design knowledge’ can enable ‘organization knowledge’ and in turn can enable the creation of innovative business opportunities (Bertola and Teixeira 2003). Design knowledge in organizational design narratives can be viewed either as knowledge of those who help to discover and visualize the narrative. But it can also directly refer to the design knowledge and the design awareness of the organization’s staff and managers (Bailey 2013). Based on the work of these researchers, we can argue that a design narrative is the medium through which organizational knowledge is, or might be, transmitted and communicated. An important aspect to keep in mind is that an organizational design narrative is not a simple static storytelling device. Neither is it meant to take the form of a one-way process of communication. We imagine it to be more of a dissipative structure (Prigogine and Stengers 1984) that enables knowledge to be created, communicated and renewed in an iterative and sustainable manner. A history does not stop or end. Organizational life goes on. So does the organization’s design narrative. What is different though is that the changes in the narrative move from passive (happened in the past) to responsive (we are acting because of the past) to proactive (we have a design history, we know where we come from and now we want to change direction). Not surprisingly then, where organizational design narratives do not exist, or where they are not valued, there is an adverse effect on the design culture within the organization that can result in projects or developments running aground; lacking the resilience or sustainability afforded by a strong design narrative and culture. In contrast, where there exists a strong design narrative that is carefully developed and maintained and as a result, clearly understood and embraced by the staff, designers and non-designers alike, there is an understanding of the direction the company is taking and this is evidenced through projects that are resilient and sustainable; able to continue regardless of change in resources or key personnel. When a clear narrative exists, everyone involved has a stake in the design intent of a project and feels part ownership of the design culture permeating the organization (Bailey 2012). In fact, they become ‘stewards’ or ‘guardians’ of the organizational design narrative: taking responsibility for the care and development of the organizational culture and the corresponding narrative.

3.3.1 Designers vs designing In a government report entitled ‘Engaging for Success’, MacLeod and Clarke (2009) describe how commitment from managers and employees at all levels is created by a strong strategic narrative that they feel they can take ownership of: a narrative that clearly communicates the purpose of the organization, why it has the broad vision it has, and how an individual contributes to that purpose. When employees have a clear

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visualization of their job in the context of the narrative, they understand where their role fits in. ‘These aims and values are reflected in a strong, transparent and explicit organizational culture and way of working’ (MacLeod and Clarke 2009: 75). Where small groups create narratives and common framework within their own disciplines, allowing them to share knowledge more effectively, they also create ‘silos’ and disciplinary boundaries across which it can often be difficult to communicate (Brown and Duguid 2000: 106–8). A strong design narrative crosses management boundaries and connects disciplines. Service design, by definition is a multidisciplinary activity that must find ways to overcome disciplinary and management boundaries in order to bridge the divisions between separate specialized narratives and frameworks. Service designers can have a key role in helping organizations develop their own narratives. They are skilled in co-creation and co-design, among other things. They can help people throughout the organization to engage with their organization’s design narrative and share in the knowledge that it enables. Service designers are therefore well prepared to ‘speak to’ all groups and across disciplines and management departments. Moreover, they have tools and skills to integrate the different narratives they find across an organization into a whole. To do so, however, implies that they focus less on who they are ‘a designer’ and more on what they are doing ‘designing’ and participating in common organizational design efforts. Previous investigations into the role of designers within organizations and their relationships with non-designers have followed the more traditional product design and classical scientific approaches (Simon 1981; Wilding and Feast 2014) that follow a ‘mechanistic’ them-and-us, cause-and-effect approach. When considering the different design roles and legacies within an organization through the context of ‘narrative’, these formal differentiations dissolve into recognizing that everyone involved is involved in design at some level and that everyone is progressing the project together equally. If everyone is a steward of the design narrative, then there is less likelihood of projects going completely off the rails. It is important therefore to develop and disseminate a design narrative throughout the company in a way that everyone can recognize their own role within the narrative. Here, design has a very important role to play as design not only makes sense of complex issues, it can also visualize those issues such that they can be communicated to people across a range of roles and job titles. However, in this narrative context, design of the project is not separate from the design of the communication, thereby creating designers and non-designer roles, but they are one and the same. It is not a division of labour in the classical sense, but more a sharing of knowledge, skills and values through the medium of design narrative. Design narrative is a democratizing phenomenon that flattens hierarchy and levels roles. CEOs, directors, managers, professional staff, support staff, etc. will all have equal ownership of the design narrative and will take equal responsibility for the stewardship of the narrative.



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3.4 Role and function of an organizational design narrative We have already talked about and explained the two key elements of an organizational design narrative: the pre-text and the con-text. We have also pointed out how narratives are linked with organizational learning and that organizational design narratives shift the focus from designers to designing. We will now summarize the role and function of organizational design narratives as well as their purpose. Subsequently, we will give an example. In summary, an organizational design narrative: MM

Articulates and communicates the design pre-text and the design con-text of an organization visually.

MM

Aligns the design pre-text and the design con-text of an organization with other narratives, like, for example, those centred around customers (customer journey, etc.).

MM

Reconstructs the organization’s journey, the design practices, design principles and design methods over time.

MM

Helps to raise awareness of an organization’s internal understanding of designing.

MM

Fosters organizational resilience because changes in personnel no longer result in all being lost while new personnel can be introduced to (be indoctrinated in) the organization’s design culture.

MM

Can act as carer for organizational values.

MM

Creates a means for common, shared values to be found between professionals and support staff. Removing differences between designer and non-designer – all are working collaboratively to a common goal or design intent. Rather than being divisive, the design narrative encourages shared values and cooperation, rather than building silos or creating professional territory. Makes the abstract tangible and accessible.

MM

Can be easily accessed and are distributed openly. They also invite comment, collaboration and improvement. It should not and cannot remain fixed or static. Instead, it is to be revised continuously as knowledge and practices change over time in response to changing social, political and environmental conditions. You become part of the narrative, become immersed in the story, live it: participate in creating it.

MM

Lives on beyond staffing and project or changes in (political) policy.

MM

Draws together the design capacity within an organization irrespective of whether the design capabilities come from trained designers or not.

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MM

Communicates knowledge and practices within the organization so that they can be shared.

MM

Captures and preserves tacit knowledge as well as shared knowledge.

MM

Becomes an essential element in project stewardship and guardianship of organizational values and visions.

In our view, organizational design narratives are needed to generate and provide a shared understanding among people within an organization about their organization’s design intentions and design goals. Thus being a non-designer or designer does not matter any more, everyone is working towards the same objective. ‘Being in the know’ also means a high level of participation for everyone becomes part of the story and everyone has a voice in rewriting the existing narrative, developing an updated version. It is for this reason that design narratives have great potential to overcome divisions between researcher and practitioner, designer and non-designer. As such, organizational design narratives as we envision and propose here embody the principles of knowledge creation and organizational learning. The purpose of such a narrative is to further embody the values of an organization in a way that can be shared and disseminated throughout the organization.

3.4.1 What does an organizational design narrative look like? Three examples An organizational design narrative can take many different forms but the most common one is probably a visual map of some sorts. An example of such a visual narrative is the ‘Journey of MindLab’ created in 2015 by Jesper Christiansen, while he was head of research at MindLab in Denmark together with his colleagues Anette Væring and Amalie Utzon. MindLab is a cross-ministerial innovation unit maintained by the Danish Ministry of Business and Growth, Ministry of Employment and Ministry of Education. In 2014, Odense Municipality joined the circle of owners in recognition of the need for increasing experimentation on the municipal level. In addition, MindLab collaborates with the Ministry for Economic Affairs and the Interior. From its inception, it was not quite clear what exactly MindLab would contribute to these government institutions, their efforts at administrative innovation and their strategic aims. As the organization (MindLab) set about developing its own approach to public sector innovation, its members ran into different kinds of methods, different kinds of theories and different kinds of principles. After ten years of its existence, Christiansen traced the actions and decisions that led to MindLab’s present organizational purpose and practice. He did so visually and by engaging with people not only in his own organization but also by seeking feedback from those the organization engaged over time. The map (see Figure 3.1) now captures all key decision points, key



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Image not available in this edition

FIGURE 3.1  Excerpt from ‘The Journey of MindLab’, permission granted by Jesper Christiansen | Source: MindLab theoretical and key methodological influences to help him and the MindLab team as well as newcomers understand why they are where they are and why they are doing things the way they are doing them – for now! For MindLab, this map comes at a crucial time of reorientation with a new leader and a new government. Another example is the booklet The Design Guide developed by the Australian Tax Office. Its first version was created by members of the organization in 2002 (see Figure 3.2). Civil servants worked together with external design mentors to learn

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about design. They then used their knowledge to explore their own design work and to reflect on their own design practices. The Design Guide offers a narrative about the pre-text, which in this case includes the role of taxation in government; the place of the tax office in government but also provides a critical assessment of current design approaches and an explanation for the introduction of new practices and principles. The guide has undergone several iterations since then. It was originally conceived as a living document that would be updated and changed as the organization continued to develop its design capabilities, its skills and knowledge. These efforts slowed down over time. Curiously, whenever The Design Guide was neglected, as it was from roughly 2009 through 2011, staff returned to previous organizational practices. E.ON UK,2 one of the UK’s leading energy suppliers provides a third example. The company currently is engaged in developing an ‘organizational design narrative’ around the customer experience journey. In 2010, a new CEO, Tony Cocker, was brought in to ‘reset’ the organization from service systems to a customer experience focus. In effect, revisiting the E.ON pre-text to redesign the con-text from a customer journey perspective. Rather than focus on one management method, such as Agile or Lean, E.ON frame their management

Image not available in this edition

FIGURE 3.2  The Design Guide by the Australian Tax Office, Version April 2002

| Source: ATO



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approach as Operational Excellence, which considers the best of these methods collectively. Operational Excellence is a 6-Sigma Lean process and E.ON UK believe that you can’t have Lean or Agile without running with customer-centred journeys. This is why, in management terms, customer experience and operational excellence are not separated: as represented by the position of Head of Customer Experience & Operational Excellence. Governance structured around customer experience is very important and at E.ON UK this comes from board level. E.ON UK’s focus is ‘making customers’ lives better’ and as such their strategic policy is customer-centric. The customer experience journey framework was developed working closely with the service design consultancy Engine3, based in London, UK, who embedded service designers within E.ON UK in Nottingham and delivered a series of workshops to up-skill non-designer employees from within E.ON to take on service design roles. A clear design narrative was created, built around an understanding of the customer journey and the customers that it described; not only within the service design team, but also throughout the organization from top management to customerfacing staff from the help centre to meter readers. The organization’s strategy is defined by a set of strategic principles defining the five customer experience journeys (Joining, Moving, Paying, Renewing, Leaving) that make up E.ON’s service offering. Each journey crosses departmental boundaries and is managed by a Journey Owner, who is a board level, head of department such as Marketing and Communications,

FIGURE 3.3  E.ON’s organizational design narrative | Source: Author

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or Sales. The Journey Owners become the advocates and sponsors for the journey, and Journey Managers ensure that the design intent is carried through from design to delivery and evaluation, effectively acting as the stewards of the design narrative. E.ON UK Customer Experience designers work together across projects, shadowing each other in order to build in resilience and flexibility and development executives are involved early in the design process to gain an understanding of the design intent and design narrative of the project. Management at all levels are involved, anonymously, in customer feedback sessions to better understand the requirements of customers and these sessions also serve to place the customer in the mind of the board. Through the narrative of the customer experience journey, E.ON UK have built a shared culture of service excellence across the organization. Having a common narrative across the organization enables E.ON UK staff, from the CEO to customer-facing staff, to understand the purpose of the journey and to see where their role fits into that journey. The organizational design narrative helps them to communicate clearly across disciplines and departments, and they are able to take stewardship of the design intention and narrative embodied within the service design proposal.

3.5 Summary and conclusion In the case of E.ON UK, the customer experience journey was the framework around which an organizational design narrative was developed, but the organizational design narrative also required an additional set of strategic principles and governance, as well as other knowledge and information channels represented by the roles of the designers, Journey Owners and Journey Managers. At E.ON, a rather large and complex company, the customer experience journey effectively shared information across departmental boundaries. We can see from this example but also from those of the Australian Tax Office and at MindLab that organizational design narratives contribute to the formation of an Open Organization (Foster 2014). The organizational design narrative provides orientation for individual staff members but also for project groups and departments. It enables people to make sense of their own actions within an overall strategy just as it allows them to participate in the creation of commonly shared organizational knowledge. As a means of collecting and communicating organizational knowledge, we have proposed that an organizational design narrative is important for organizations to connect groups and departments, designers and non-designers across projects, functions and departments. The organizational design narrative functions as a ‘shared framework for interpretation’ that connects groups through creating their own identity (Brown and Duguid 2000: 107) and through shared concepts. A carefully developed and maintained organizational design narrative makes visible and shares these group frameworks, values and principles into an organizational-wide vision and framework for interpretation. This suggests an avenue for further research into organizational design narratives from an organizational perspective.



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We conclude that service designers can play a crucial role in the co-development and visualization of the organizational design narratives. They are prepared and skilled to visually and verbally articulate the organizational pre-text and its con-text into one story that is accessible and understandable by all. Furthermore, we see the ability of service designers to do so as a necessary element in any organizational design project. Since this describes pretty much all service design projects – because one can take the service out of the organization but one cannot take the organization out of the service – the ability to develop and articulate an organization’s own design narrative appears to be a key factor in the success or failure of a project. Where a narrative already exists, service designers can support necessary actions to disseminate the values and organizational culture expressed there. Where a strong and coherent narrative exists, an innovative design culture is evident; an organizational culture that shows resilience and is sustainable over time. We argue that organizations that develop their own design narrative provide a robust framework for their ongoing design activities. When such design narratives are in place, it no longer matters who enters into the design activities because the narrative provides guidance and direction as well as methods and strategies. However, in organizations that fail to develop and maintain their own design narrative, we see projects dying or failing. The development and maintenance of organizational design narratives raises a range of new questions for service design that deserve to be looked at. While service designers can have a crucial role in developing and articulating an organization’s own design narrative, the question remains where and how the narrative will be anchored in the organization. Who will be responsible? The ATO case study shows that when no one feels in charge, the narrative disappears in the background and may end up being forgotten. Fortunately, the ATO case also shows that once a narrative exists, it is easy to unearth it and to build on it again, even after some time. But what do people need to know and what skills do they need to do so adequately? And how should service designers cope with this new aspect of organizational engagement? Are they comfortable removing themselves ever further from designing the service and are they ready to immerse themselves ever more deeply into organizational matters and organizational life? How will they cope with this shift away from being ‘the’ designer to being part of organizational ‘designing’?

Notes 1

The concept of the organizational pre-text is complementary to the concept of organizational design legacies described in Junginger (2015). Design legacies are formed from organizational pre-text.

2

E.ON UK – https://www.eonenergy.com/About-eon/our-company/at-a-glance (accessed 3 October 2016).

3

Engine – http://enginegroup.co.uk (accessed 3 October 2016).

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References Bailey, S. G. (2012), ‘Embedding Service Design: The Long and the Short of it’, in ServDes.2012 Conference Proceedings Co-creating Services. Espoo, Finland: Linköping University Electronic Press. Bailey, S. G. (2013) ‘Exploring where Designers and Non-Designers meet within the Service Organization: Considering the Value Designers bring to the Service Design Process’, Crafting the Future, Proceedings of the 10th European Academy of Design Conference, Gothenburg, Sweden. Available online: http://ebkonferens.se/papers/five/ exploring_where_designers_and_nondesigners_meet.pdf (accessed 9 May 2016). Bertola, P. and Teixeira. J. C. (2003) ‘Design as a Knowledge Agent: How Design as a Knowledge Process is Embedded into Organizations to Foster Innovation’, Design Studies Journal 24 (2): 181–94. Bettencourt, L. A. (2010), Service Innovation: How to go from Customer Needs to Breakthrough Services. New York: McGraw-Hill. Bitner, M. J., Ostrom, A. L. and Morgan, F. N. (2007), ‘Service Blueprinting: A Practical Technique for Service Innovation’, California Management Review 50 (3): 66–94. Brown, J. S. and Duguid, P. (2000) The Social Life of Information. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Gorb, P. and Dumas, A. (1987). ‘Silent Design.’ Design Studies 8 (3): 150–6. Ing, D. (2013) ‘Design Flaws and Service System Breakdowns: Learning from Systems Thinking,’ Relating Systems Thinking and Design 2013 Working Paper. Available online: http://systemic-design.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Ing.pdf (accessed 9 May 2016). Junginger, S. (2015), ‘Organizational Design Legacies and Service Design’, The Design Journal 18 (2): 209–26. Jones, P. H. (2014), ‘Strategic Principles for Complex Social Systems,’ Social Systems and Design, Translational Systems Sciences 1, G. S. Metcalfe, ed. Japan: Springer. MacLeod, D. and Clarke, N. (2009), ‘Engaging for Success: Enhancing Performance through Employee Engagement’. Available online: http://engageforsuccess.org/ wp-content/uploads/2015/08/file52215.pdf (accessed 9 May 2016). Meroni, A. and Sangiorgi, D. (2011), Design for Services. Aldershot: Gower. Patrício, L., Fisk, R., Cunha, J. F. and Constantine, L. (2011), ‘Multilevel Service Design: From Customer Value Constellation to Service Experience Blueprinting,’ Journal of Service Research 14 (2): 180–200. Prigogine, I., and Stengers, I. (1984), Order out of Chaos. New York: Bantam. Sangiorgi, D. and Junginger, S. (2015), ‘Editorial introduction’, Special Issue: Emerging Issues in Service Design, The Design Journal 18 (2): 165–70. Simon, H. A. (1996 [1981]) The Sciences of the Artificial, 3rd edn. Boston: MIT Press. Teixeira, J.C. (2001), ‘Applying Design Knowledge to Create Innovative Business Opportunities.’ 2 July, 1–22. Available online: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/ download?doi=10.1.1.195.2933&rep=rep1&type=pdf (accessed 9 May 2016). Vargo, S.L. (2009), Lecture available online: https://lms.fu-berlin.de/bbcswebdav/orgs/ WiWiss_OM_Ecommerce/E-Lectures%20-%20Vortraege/Vargo-2009-06-05/index.htm (accessed 9 May 2016). Von Krogh, G., Ichijo, K. and Nonaka, I. (2000), Enabling Knowledge Creation. New York: Oxford University Press. Wilding, W. and Feast, L. (2014), ‘The Productive Nature of Design’, ACUADS Conference 2014. The future of the discipline.



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4 Designing for interdependence, participationand emergence in complex service systems Daniela Sangiorgi, Lia Patricio and Raymond Fisk

D

esigning service systems is recognized as a contemporary issue and significant challenge for organizations both in the private and public sectors. Understanding and designing complex service systems and value networks have been identified as a priority in Service Research (Ostrom et al. 2015). In service design this issue has emerged at different levels: when considering the challenge of creating integrated solutions and smooth interactions across multiple channels and multi-actor service systems (Patrício et al. 2011; Tax et al. 2013); or when engaging and enhancing collaboration among different participants during an innovation process (Wetter-Edman et al. 2014). This chapter analyses the key role of service systems in service design and the challenges raised by their increasing complexity, using key system theory concepts to point out a set of design principles and directions for future evolution. Service systems are central to service research, both in service design and management. From the early concept of a ‘servuction’ system (Langeard et al. 1981), service systems have been defined and visualized as the orchestration of backstage and frontstage physical evidence and processes, employees, customers and other customers, all interacting to co-create value for both customers and service providers. Recently, the development of service science and service dominant logic has given more emphasis to the service systems, which have become a fundamental concept. The service system has been proposed as a key abstraction to better understand and improve service, and as a unit of analysis to enhance multidisciplinary collaboration (Maglio et al. 2009). In this context, a service system is described as an abstract and high-level entity that is used to examine how

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value is co-created among different actors (users and providers included): ‘a dynamic value-cocreation configuration of resources, including people, organizations, shared information (language, laws, measures, methods), and technology, all connected internally and externally to other service systems by value propositions’ (Maglio et al. 2009: 399). The application of the service system concept covers a wide spectrum of kinds and levels of systems, ranging from individuals or families, to organizations, institutions, or nations. The increasing complexity of the service environment has broadened the view of service systems to multi-actor networks. From this perspective, complex service systems are defined as arrangements of multiple entities and stakeholders that interact to co-create value (Kieliszewski et al. 2012), moving beyond the organizational boundaries to bigger entities such as value constellations (Normann 2001) or service networks (Tax et al. 2013). More recently, service research has also adopted a broader view to see service ecosystems defined as ‘relatively self-contained self-adjusting systems of resource integrating actors connected by shared institutions and logics and mutual value creation through service exchange’ (Akaka et al. 2012: 15). Given this pivotal role played by service systems at these different levels in Service Research, there has been an increasing interest in systems theory to improve the understanding of service systems, their boundaries and interactions.

Table 4.1  System approaches adopting four different sociological paradigms adapted from Jackson, 2003. Functionalist

Interpretative

Emancipatory

Postmodern

Aim

Improving goal seeking and viability

Exploring purposes

Ensuring fairness

Promoting diversity

Measures of success

Efficiency, adaptation and survival

Effectiveness and stakeholder commitment

Empowerment and emancipation of oppressed individuals

Exception and emotion

Perceived understanding of systems

Complete understanding of the system and its parts

Collaborative interpretation of systems

Coercive or discriminating entity

Too complex to be understood

What participants can do

Control of operations

Plan systemic improvements based on an idealized design

Open and democratic debates

Challenge and break down



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With this chapter we build upon the service systems concepts from Service Research to inform a discussion on the implications for service design of working on a systemic level. In particular, this chapter uses the specific language from service research to describe the evolution of the service context today. It then applies concepts deriving from systems theory to unveil how different and contrasting ways of conceiving systems can significantly affect the way we design complex service systems. As illustrated by Michael Jackson’s work (2003), complexity depends not only on the number and interconnectedness of parts within a wider system, but also on the relationship and diversity of those concerned with the problem at hand, the participants, that can hold unitary, diverse or irreconcilable aims, values and beliefs. Jackson suggests how systems approaches can be classified depending on their primary orientation which can be aiming at ‘improving goal seeking and viability, exploring purposes, ensuring fairness or promoting diversity’ (Jackson 2003: 24). These different orientations, as summarized in Table 4.1, can be associated to very diverse sociological paradigms – functionalist, interpretative, emancipatory and postmodernism – that can tacitly inform different kinds of design practices. We will use this framework – as illustrated in Table 4.1 – and key system concepts as a reference point to discuss service design practice and strategies as they emerge in relation to the growing complexity of the service context.

4.1 The increasing complexity of the service context The service context has become increasingly complex as services are co-created in networked constellations involving multiple actors, as can be seen in Figure 4.1. In the nineteenth century, the bicycle enabled people to travel longer distances, which was an important factor leading to the increase of marriage distance in English parishes (Perry 1969). Similarly today, in a study with the service research community (Ostrom et al. 2015), technology has been identified as a game changer of service contexts, by multiplying the ways people, machines and service providers can interact, therefore increasing the complexity of service systems and leading to the emergence of complex value networks. The evolution of smart technologies, including mobile, location-based, and wearable devices, such as Samsung’s Gear and the Apple Watch, aim to create a revolutionary, ubiquitous interaction context. As a consequence of smart technologies, many-tomany interactions emerge between customers and their devices, between devices and service providers, between customers and other customers. The other key consequence of new technologies is big data. The Internet of Things (IoT) is leading to the collection of huge and continuous streams of data with the potential to affect consumers, businesses and societies in unforeseen ways. In the always on, interconnected world, customers, employees and service providers form value networks and service ecosystems, meaning that what was

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FIGURE 4.1  The changing context of service (Ostrom et al. 2015), p. 146

originally dyadic interactions between providers and users now evolves to complex forms of many-to-many interactions. A service is therefore not only the one-to-one, direct application of service provider competences for the benefit of the customer (Lusch and Vargo 2014), but service also becomes a facilitator and enabler of value co-creation among multiple actors. This is the case, for example, of electronic health records, which are not conceived to create value in isolation, but to enable patients, physicians and other healthcare practitioners to store, integrate and exchange health information, depending on different needs and contexts, generating multiple opportunities for value co-creation (Pinho et al. 2014). In this networked context, service organizations are moving from a dyadic management of their relationship with customers, to defining their role and contribution within a many-to-many context. As a consequence, the boundaries between service providers and customers become more blurred and dynamic. Multiple forms of service provision become possible, where the customer may play a more autonomous and active role in service provision, combining multiple offerings from multiple service providers and social networks. For example, travellers now have more autonomy, using the web, mobile technologies, social networks and a myriad of



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service providers such as booking.com or tripadvisor.com, to create their unique travel experiences. In this new environment, service providers need to go beyond designing for dyadic relationships with customers, to designing and managing their role in the value networks and service ecosystems. This central focus on service systems and the growing complexity toward value networks and service ecosystems have a strong influence on service design, highlighting the need for the orchestration of people, processes and technologies, incorporating multiple contributions from service marketing, operations and information technology, all integrated through design-based methods and tools (Ostrom et al. 2015).

4.2 Evolution of service design – more actors, more interdependencies and less control The complexity addressed by service design has increased due to the evolution of the service system environment, but also because service design, as a consequence, has gradually addressed increasing levels of complexity in service systems. If service design has initially applied its human-centred approach to touchpoints, customer journeys and service systems at the organizational level, it now has to broaden its scope to value constellations and service ecosystems. Early approaches to service design focused on enhancing the service experience by improving service provision at the service encounter or touchpoint level. Initial approaches to service blueprinting aimed to systematically define the service process that was previously performed on an ad hoc basis. These approaches addressed faceto-face service encounters in such a way as to ensure that the service was delivered as promised and customer expectations were met in a more controlled service environment (Shostack 1982, 1984). These initial approaches focused on the design of service encounters or touchpoints to reduce variability and in the more controlled environment of the physical store. Bringing a design thinking approach, service design has emerged as a humancentred, creative, iterative approach to the creation of new services (Blomkvist et al. 2010), in a process of exploration, creation, reflection and implementation (Evenson and Dubberly 2010; Mager 2009; Meroni and Sangiorgi 2011). This represented a significant departure from more operational approaches to leverage design thinking to envision new future service possibilities. At the same time, service design has evolved to better address service systems, by also integrating frontstage and backstage components of service delivery and the physical evidence (Bitner et al. 2008; Lovelock and Wirtz 2011). This required the incorporation of multiple contributions from service marketing, operations and information technology (Patrício and Fisk 2013). Whereas operations management has focused on how to design frontstage and backstage operations (Johnson et al. 2000; Menor et

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al. 2002; Tax and Stuart 1997), marketing approaches have focused on managing the customer experience (Berry et al. 2006; Haeckel et al. 2003). With technology infusion and the emergence of multiple service channels, service design has broadened its perspective to the design of multi-channel service systems, to enable smooth customer experiences across channels (Patrício et al. 2008), incorporating contributions from technology fields, such as interaction design and software engineering. These approaches design the service system for the customer experience, using models such as the service system architecture and navigation, but still focus on the service system and the organizational level, orchestrating the people, processes, technologies, frontstage and backstage processes. As we anticipated in the previous section though, now service is increasingly provided by systems of service systems in many-to-many contexts of value constellations (Normann 2001) and service delivery networks (Tax et al. 2013). To address these new challenges, service design has evolved to a multilevel approach, designing the service concept (the value proposition that comprises the benefits offered to customers) within the customer value constellation, taking into account the service offered by the network of partners and other service providers (Patrício et al. 2011), and then drilling down to the design of the organization’s service system and service encounters/touchpoints. The evolution towards service in value constellations has increased the complexity of service design in a less controlled environment. Also there is an increasing interest in designing outside traditional organizational boundaries, considering issues related to public service redesign or the need to address social challenges. This is in line with the aims of transformative service research (Anderson et al. 2013) or transformation/social design (Sangiorgi 2011). Such design work faces difficulty defining system boundaries, ethical concerns of power and control in the service system, and difficulty in designing for behavioural change. More recently, as competition has increasingly moved to the ecosystem level, service design needs to broaden its scope from designing services for the customer experience, to designing service platforms for the ecosystem (Sangiorgi 2011). In the ecosystem context, a keystone player emerges that offers a service platform. This service platform offers direct services to customers, but it also enables a community of contributors to build on top of the service platform to create new services that expand the ecosystem. This context poses new challenges to service design, taking it into an increasingly open, uncontrolled and emergent environment. In this context, new frameworks need to be developed to help keystone players design their service platforms for end customers, contributors, and the ecosystem as a whole (Patrício et al. 2015).

4.3 Emerging service design strategies and principles This evolution from service systems to value constellations and service ecosystems has presented new challenges to the practice of service design that requires new



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design strategies and principles. With this chapter we suggest how these emerging strategies and principles can be developed and articulated in relation to key system concepts and the different meanings they take in different sociological perspectives (Table 4.1). In particular we have chosen the concepts of interdependence, participation and emergence to reflect on the implications of the evolution of the service context for the contemporary practice of designing for service.

4.3.1 Design and interdependence One of the key qualities of systems, which increases their level of complexity, is the interdependence among its parts: ‘A system is a complex whole the functioning of which depends on its parts and the interactions between those parts’ (Jackson 2010: 3). Understanding, representing and designing the interdependencies between actors, between system components, and system levels is fundamental for service design. This has motivated a growing interest in the development of visual tools or models able to document and represent this complexity following a practice used in applied systems thinking, where models are used as surrogates of real-world situations. Service design uses several methods and tools, such as stakeholder maps, customer journeys, service blueprinting, service system architecture and navigation, the customer value constellation, and the service ecology map. The way systems are then represented in service design depends on how the system is conceived, the aim of the design activity, the stage of the service design process but also on the level at which the service is designed, when moving for example from service systems to value constellations and to service ecosystems. Blueprinting is a well-known tool that fits in very well with designing at the organizational level. It is generally used at later stages of the design process to represent interdependence of operational processes, orchestrating frontstage and backstage processes and interactions, with a focus on the customer experience. As such, once the service concept and the overall navigation across channels of the service system have been identified, service blueprinting supports the design and improvement of service encounters or touchpoints. It also makes the bridge with implementation, namely with operations management and information systems. Often blueprinting is associated with a clearly defined and bounded understanding of systems within the boundaries of an organization (see functionalist paradigm in Table 4.1), and it is defined around improving the efficiencies of processes and operations and their interconnections. When we move at a value network level though, the boundaries of what the system is need to be defined and negotiated around a so-called ‘value proposition’. In this space, the definition of the system can be conceived as an interpretative and collaborative process, as it depends on the various partners agreeing on how value is co-created within and among the partnership. Entering the partnership means agreeing to contribute to this defined value co-creation process, which has at the

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centre the customer. For this reason, tools at this space emphasize exchange and flows among various partners (see the service system map [Morelli and Tollestrup 2007]) or ‘the set of service offerings and respective interrelationships that enable customers to co-create their value constellation experience’ (see Customer Value Constellation tool [Patríco et al. 2001]). On the other hand, when we move at a service ecosystem level, the system boundaries are not set at the start, but there is an understanding that these can develop depending on who accesses and uses a service platform. More aligned with this level of design is the service ecology tool, which is a map of how resources, actors and activities are interrelated in a specific context and that is often used to inform the initial stages of design. In contrast with service blueprinting, service ecology uses a biological understanding of systems. Like in a biological ecology, service ecology is marked by strong interrelationships and dependencies among its different parts and change is systemic, meaning that change in one part will lead to change in the whole system. When designers aim to map an existing service ecology, they aim to understand what are the current resources, how they are already used and which solution could enhance already positive connections or generate new ones that could improve the well-being of the overall ecological system. The service ecology also goes beyond the representation of the organizational service system to map the different resources from the value network. Understanding systems as ecology means accepting the inability to fully understand these interrelationships and the fact that organisms have also the phenomena of autopoiesis, meaning of self-production and organization to resist to external change and maintain its identity and status quo. Developing the service ecology tool into a design tool to imagine and support the creation of a service platform, acknowledging this evolutionary perspective, is a critical theme in service design.

4.3.2 Design and participation Another issue in system design is the definition and agreement of what is defined as a system, of what are its boundaries. Drawing service system boundaries is always associated with the question of who decides what are the boundaries and which perspective to adopt. The issue of participation then is fundamental to defining systems in service design. In systems theory, the concept of social system variety is used to inform boundary framing, stating that ‘requisite variety among stakeholders for a shared problematic situation must account for social system variety’ that ‘considers all distinctions that could make a difference in outcomes and action in the world (values, positions and stands, affiliations, perspectives, level of power, vulnerability, etc.)’ (Christakis and Bausch 2006 in Jones 2014). Where the boundary is seen to be will depend on the world view of the person observing the system. For example, whether the boundary of a business organization



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should expand to include its natural environment, its local community, unemployed people, etc. are all very much issues open to debate. Values and ethics play a part in such decisions. There is the further matter of who should participate in defining purposes, taking decisions and drawing boundaries. And because resources and interests will be at stake, as well as different philosophies, power and politics will have a significant impact on purposeful systems. (Jackson 2003: 10–11) In the evolution from a system design perspective toward a value network and then ecosystem perspectives, the kinds and number of participants have evolved beyond the boundaries of an organization. Technology evolution has enabled a more autonomous customer experience, as customers now have multiple channels to interact with service providers and with other customers through social networks. A key challenge is therefore to design flexible service systems that enable customers to co-create their unique experiences across this multitude of interaction channels. Services marketing has long considered customers as partial employees, which opens up possibilities for service design to maximize their contribution through design and training (service co-production) (Bitner et al. 2007). Services, therefore, should be designed so customers can co-create their unique experiences, in a flexible and smooth way. Service design has also been exploring the opportunities of engaging users in the (re)design of services considering their experience as a fundamental resource to improve service provision. The focus has been on modes and tools to engage users in service design, as a collective intelligence that can help to understand and map complex situations and contexts. Questions regarding co-design are mainly driven by the objective to create better and more effective solutions, create more inclusive processes and enhance stakeholders’ engagement. Co-design, in this sense, can be aligned with the interpretative paradigm (see Table 4.1) that emphasizes how systems are shaped and directed by the different purposes and world views people have and the interpretations they develop of their reality. Working to make these values, beliefs and meanings tangible and creating a space for conversations will lead to shared and agreed solutions, even if temporary ones, as necessary in value networks. In this process service design adopts a pluralistic and inclusive approach to system design, based on the belief that systems cannot be completely understood or designed, but that they can be interpreted via a collaborative process. On another level of participation, service design has been described as a source of empowerment and emancipation. Here participation is seen as an end in itself: participation is part of an awakening self-reflective process that questions existing power and societal structures and aims at change as an often conflicting bottom-up movement (Ozanne and Saatcioglu 2008). When co-design assumes a trans­formational role within communities and organizations, designers adopt a facilitator role. In this context, the aim of service design is to support people to reflect on their own practices, situations and opportunities and to initiate and sustain change (Sangiorgi 2001). Also in the participatory design tradition, to democratize innovation

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is the main driving aim of design practices (Björgvinsson, Ehn and Hillgren 2010). When designing at an ecosystem level, this understanding of participation as giving opportunity and power to people, organizations or institutions to shape the system’s offerings and potentialities, based on a given service platform, has significant implications for designing. In this case, the set of resources, rules and modalities with which the various actors can access the platform and contribute to its development are the key design objects. In some cases, these platforms can have an emancipation potential, distributing abilities to change existing systems, which can be associated with an emancipatory paradigm, where systems are interpreted as potential systems of domination or of discrimination and the core aim is to therefore ensure fairness (Jackson 2003). In system theory, the concepts and methodology of critical systems heuristics (Ulrich 1998) have promoted the importance of making ‘boundary judgements’ transparent in system design through dialogues among planners and citizens concerned with the design outcome. We suggest that, at an ecosystem level, transparency needs to be ensured through the set of rules, modes and tools with which people are allowed to engage in forming the future of the system.

4.3.3 Design and emergence Strongly associated with the growth of complexity when moving from service systems, to value constellations, and to service ecosystems, is the system concept of emergence. Emergence is the ‘arising of novel and coherent structures, patterns, and properties during the process of self-organization in complex systems’ (Goldstein 1999: 49). Complexity theory is exploring how the structure and properties seen in emergence partly result from the serendipity-like amplification of random events in complex systems. ‘The chance or “noisy” event can be utilized by the organization to explore or test different system configurations and, therefore, may represent an evolutionary response of the social system to changes in the environment’ (Goldstein 1999: 68). Recent developments in complexity theory have questioned the tendency to reify organizations, as systems or wholes, following a ‘magic-mythic’ way of thinking that creates the illusion of control. Organizations are instead to be understood as ‘processes of human relating and it is in the simultaneously cooperative-consensual and conflictual-competitive relating between people that they perpetually construct their future together in the present’ (Stacey 2007: 209). This shifts the attention to the ordinary, everyday experiences of organizations, questioning also the illusion of the impact of grand designs and directed systemic change. With the complexity of the service environment, and the increasingly complex levels that service design addresses, designers and multidisciplinary design teams work with less controlled environments and increasingly with emergence. When working at the service system level, following the implications of the concept of



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emergence, designers need to transform their understanding of what they are designing and aiming to change, from an abstract object or system they can fully control, to a process of dynamic change they need to engage with. Engaging with these ‘processes of human relating’ where power relations are formed, implies moving from the ideal of a designer hero to a new ideal of a co-creator champion. Similarly, service design had to acknowledge the indeterminate nature of services, accepting ‘the fundamental inability of design to completely plan and regulate services’ (Meroni and Sangiorgi 2011: 10). When moving to a value network level, emergence is also related to the idea of open systems coming from biology, which describes the inevitable adjustments happening in systems given the external changes occurring in their environments. When designers work at the value network level, they play with the potentials of opening up set boundaries of individual organizations, to achieve more and better solutions, which imply significant adjustments and negotiations. At the level of ecosystems, the awareness of the emergence property of social systems, has led to interpreting the role of designers as one of designing ‘action platforms’ that can make a multiplicity of interactions possible (Manzini 2011: Intro, 3). The indeterminacy of what designers can design has also been emphasized by the increasing relevance of digital technology and the distributed forms of production and creativity of contemporary society. Recently in design studies, this has led to the expansion of the understanding of design, beyond what the design team do. Rather than focusing on involving users in the design process, focus shifts toward seeing every use situation as a potential design situation […] So there is design during a project, but there is also design in use. There is design (in use) after design (in the design project). (Björgvinsson et al. 2012: 106) Similar to the idea of designing an ‘action platform’ is the one of infrastructuring, where the effort of designers converges to creating arenas and opportunities for creative dialogues also in the case of very diverse and heterogeneous potential contributors: The really demanding challenge is to design where no such consensus seems to be within view, where no social community exists. Such political communities are characterized by heterogeneity and difference with no shared object of design. They are in need of platforms or infrastructures, ‘agonistic’ public spaces – not necessarily to solve conflict, but to constructively deal with disagreements. (Björgvinsson et al. 2012: 116) More in line with a postmodern view of systems, here the aim is to guarantee diversity, which might not bring to agreements, while systems are perceived as too complex to be fully understood or designed. As already cited by Sangiorgi and Prendiville (in Chapter 1), accepting the indeterminacy and emergence of this process

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suggests that the aim of design is not to bring closure but rather to open up a pathway for potential new avenues and performances to unfold (Ingold and Donovan 2012: 30).

4.4 Discussion With this chapter we focused on the implications of designing within higher levels of complexity, that amplify the potential for design directions and opportunities, but also require the acceptance of the limited control on outcomes and developments. We have discussed how the service context has evolved because of the recent developments of technology and the increasing presence of multipartners business models and collaborative solutions. This has resulted in a gradual shift from working at an organizational level toward acting within value networks and recently the growing relevance of service ecosystems. We suggest how this evolution is also associated with the change in understanding of what systems are, when moving toward networks and ecosystems, from perceptions of systems as bounded and controllable to an understanding of systems as more open and co-created solutions. As summarized in Table 4.2, the system concepts of interdependence, participation and emergence can help designers and researchers to better formulate the implications of this growing complexity. Even if we are still talking about ‘systems’, the considerations around key systems concepts such as interdependence, participation and emergence have different meanings when moving from discussing organizational service systems to value networks to service ecosystems. Interdependence manifests in different ways: where at the organizational level it is perceived as interdependence among processes and actors, at the value networks, the focus shifts on interchanges among various stakeholders that require agreement and coordination; while at the service ecosystem level, interdependence can be conceived more as an evolving dynamic, where developing initiatives by system participants affect what the service ecosystem is and can offer in the future. In the case of participation, at the organizational level participants engage within collaborative design processes aiming for convergence and an ideal design; when in networks among different partners, participation needs to lead toward an agreement around a developing value propositions; while at the ecosystem level participation is emergent and enabled by the evolving platform participants contribute to shape. Finally, emergence affects the focus of designing; at an organizational level, design needs to engage with the processes of organizational change; at the value network, design aims to support more open strategies and collaborations across diverse partners, aiming for convergence; while at the ecosystem level, design works towards allowing and supporting agency and co-evolution which are at the basis of the development of the ecosystem itself. We suggest that designing for complex service systems requires developing different approaches and tools, as we are moving from better-known service design



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processes within organizations to more strategic design practices that converge diverse set of actors around potential solutions, to co-creation approaches and infrastructures that enable emergence forms of participation and interdependence. We find that this evolution can be considered in line with the articulation of service design objects as described by Lucy Kimbell and Jeanette Blomberg in Chapter 6, which has considerable implications in the way designing for service is then conceived and approached.

Table 4.2  Service design levels and related system concepts Levels of design

Organizational service systems

Value constellations

Service ecosystems

Designing the service system at the organizational level

Designing service concept within the value constellation of offerings

Designing a service platform for co-evolution within the service ecosystem

Interdependence

Interdependence between organizational processes, channels, people, technologies

Interdependence between network actors, involving both customer networks and provider networks

Interdependence among multiple ecosystem actors and institutions

Participation

Collaborative design across departments

Collaborative design across customer networks and provider networks Participation around developing value propositions

Participation around developing platforms as enablers of multiple actors’ resource integration and value co-creation and ecosystem co-evolution

Emergence

Designing for organizational change and behavioural transformation

Designing for network openness and cooperation, and for many-to-many value co-creating interactions

Designing for agency and emergent co-evolution in the ecosystem

System concepts

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Lusch, R. F. and Vargo, S. L. (2014), Service-Dominant Logic: Premises, Perspectives, Possibilities. New York: Cambridge University Press. Mager, B. (2009), ‘Service Design as an Emerging Field’, in S. Miettinen and M. Koivisto (eds), Designing Services with Innovative Methods, 28–43. Keururu: Otava Book Printing. Maglio, P., Vargo, S., Caswell, N. and Spohrer, J. (2009), ‘The Service System is the Basic Abstraction of Service Science’, Information Systems and e-Business Management 7: 395–406. Manzini, E. (2011), ‘Introduction’, in A. Meroni and D. Sangiorgi, Design for Services, 1–6. Aldershot: Gower. Meroni, A. and Sangiorgi, D. (2011). Design for Services. Aldershot: Gower. Menor, L. J., Tatikonda, M. V. and Sampson, S. E. (2002), ‘New Service Development: Areas for Exploitation and Exploration’, Journal of Operations Management 20 (2): 135–57. Morelli, N. and Tollestrup, C (2007), ‘New Representation Techniques for Designing in a Systemic Perspective’. Paper presented at Nordic Design Research Conference. Stockholm, Sweden. Normann, R. (2001), Reframing Business: When the Map Changes the Landscape. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Ostrom, A. L., Parasuraman, L. A., Bowen, D. E., L. Patrício and Voss, C. A. (2015), ‘Service Research Priorities in a Rapidly Changing Context’, Journal of Service Research 18 (2): 127–59. Ozanne, J. L. and Saatcioglu, B. (2008), ‘Participatory Action Research’, Journal of Consumer Research 35 (3): 423–39. Patrício, L. and Fisk, R. P. (2013), ‘Creating New Services’, in R. Russell-Bennett, R. P. Fisk and L. Harris (eds), Serving Customers Globally, 185–207. Brisbane: Tilde University Press. Patrício, L., Fisk, R. P. and Cunha J. F. e. (2008), ‘Designing Multi-interface Service Experiences: The Service Experience Blueprint,’ Journal of Service Research 10 (4): 318–34. Patrício, L., Fisk, R. P., Cunha J. F. and Constantine, L. (2011), ‘Multilevel Service Design: From Customer Value Constellation to Service Experience Blueprint’, Journal of Service Research 14 (2): 180–200. Patrício, L., Fisk, R. P., Spohrer, J. and Beirão, G. (2015), ‘Designing Service Platforms for Service Ecosystems: An application to health care’, in Proceedings of Naples Forum of Service, Naples, Italy, June 9–12. Perry, P. J. (1969), ‘Working Class Isolation and Mobility in Rural Dorset, 1837–1936: A Study of Marriage Distances’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 46: 121–41. Pinho, N., Beirão, G., Patrício, L. and Fisk, R. P. (2014), ‘Understanding Value Co-creation in Complex Services with Many Actors’, Journal of Service Management 25 (4): 470–93. Sangiorgi, D. (2011), ‘Transformative Services and Transformation Design’, International Journal of Design 5 (2): 29–40. Shostack, G. L. (1982), ‘How to Design a Service,’ European Journal of Marketing 16 (1): 49–63. Shostack, G. L. (1984), ‘Designing Services that Deliver,’ Harvard Business Review 62 (1): 133–9. Stacey, R. (2007), ‘The Challenge of Human Interdependence: Consequences for Thinking about the day to day Practice of Management in Organizations,’ European Business Review 19 (4): 292–302.

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Tax, S. S., McCutcheon, D. and Wilkinson, I. F. (2013), ‘The Service Delivery Network (SDN): A Customer-Centric Perspective of the Customer Journey’, Journal of Service Research 16 (4): 454–70. Tax, S. S. and Stuart, I. (1997), ‘Designing and Implementing New Services: The Challenges of Integrating Service Systems’, Journal of Retailing 73 (1): 105–34. Ulrich, W. (1988), ‘Systems Thinking, Systems Practice and Practical Philosophy: A Program of Research’, Systems Practice 1: 137–53. Wetter-Edman, K., Sangiorgi, D., Edvardsson, B., Holmlid, S., Grönroos, C. and Mattelmäki, T. (2014), ‘Design for Value Co-Creation: Exploring Synergies Between Design for Service and Service Logic’, Service Science 6 (2): 106–21.

5 Specialist service design consulting: The end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end? Eva-Maria Kirchberger and Bruce S. Tether

5.1 Introduction As a field of consulting, service design was pioneered in the UK in the early 2000s by three businesses: Engine Service Design (hereafter Engine), Live|Work and IDEO (Tether and Stigliani 2012). The first two of these businesses were start-ups, established by first-time entrepreneurs; the third was and is a renowned international design firm, then most famous for designing products, and later interactions, which has since become known primarily for advocating ‘design thinking’ (Brown 2008, 2009). In establishing a new field, these pioneers faced the considerable challenge of establishing and legitimating ‘service design’ (Aldrich and Fiol 1995; Navis and Glynn 2010), particularly as a consulting offer, and principally among potential clients who might pay for their services, expecting real benefits in return. Any new field requires on the one side the provision of something new and distinct, which itself implies non-conformity; but on the other side, unless one or more of the pioneers is well established and particularly powerful (as in the case of IBM with ‘service science’) a substantial degree of conformity among the providers is required in order to generate a sense of congruity around the meaning and efficacy of the new field. In other words, what is ‘service design’? Why should I care? And why should I commission consultants to help me design services? By cooperating and sharing information, including about techniques, both among themselves and with a wider community early on, including through the ‘Service Design Network’,1 ‘Service Design (consulting)’ developed more

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or less congruity of meaning, which laid the foundations for legitimacy and enabled the emergence of a ‘market’ for these activities in which there are multiple buyers and sellers. The key point is that ‘Service Design (consulting)’ became sufficiently well-defined for clients not only to be interested in commissioning these consultants, but the availability of multiple, similar providers enhanced confidence among buyers. As ‘Service Design (consulting)’ developed, it now becomes increasingly important for the providers to differentiate themselves, at least to some degree: ‘what makes us different (from them)?’ This is because homogeneity favours buyers, differentiation and preferences among buyers favours sellers. Put simply, if you are buying a commodity you are likely to be indifferent as to from whom you actually buy, and will likely buy from whoever is willing to sell at the lowest price. By highlighting differences, sellers avoid competing on price alone. Thus greater indifference (or the appearance of indifference) between suppliers favours buyers, while greater (revealed) buyer preference for one or another provider favours the latter. Because service design involves a set of techniques, many if not most of which have been made public (e.g. Kimbell 2014; Meroni and Sangiorgi 2011; Polaine et al. 2013; Stickdorn and Schneider 2010), individual consultancies cannot rely on intellectual property protection to differentiate their offers. Nor, unlike ‘architect’, is the label protected – anyone can establish themselves as a service design consultant whether or not they know anything about designing services. And as the label has become more established, or legitimate, many more businesses have used it to define what they do, in whole or part. To survive and prosper, the incumbents have to focus on (claiming to be) doing service design differently, or more effectively, perhaps in one or specific application fields: very often this means leveraging their specific experience. This pattern of convergence then divergence in the development of a new field or industry is discussed by Deephouse (1999) as a matter of ‘strategic balance’. In this chapter we bring the story of specialist service design consulting up to date, focusing particularly on one of the three pioneers: Engine, which has a workforce of around thirty, and which remains an independent business, with five directors, two of whom were the original founders. We discuss how Engine’s status has developed such that it is now engaged in a complex, high profile, international project, and how this project is itself stretching and adding to the firm’s capabilities, especially in project management and client relationship management. We illustrate some of the key activities and practices that Engine has engaged in to undertake this project, practices which, at least in general terms, will be familiar to those acquainted with ‘Service Design (consulting)’. We discuss how engaging in, successfully completing, and gathering acclaim for this project could be transformative of Engine’s situation, leading to its ability to ‘play at a higher level’ than previously. While primarily beneficial to themselves, Engine’s success should also rub off to some extent on the wide sector. In this sense, by participating in, and demonstrating effectiveness in major projects, the present may mark the end of the beginning for independent, specialist service design consultants.



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On the other hand, it is evident that the major management consultancies are taking a greater interest in design, especially in user experience (UX) and digital design, which arguably neighbour service design. This interest is being backed by investments, building internal capabilities and buying into the industry through the acquisition of established consultancies. We discuss the barriers to entry facing these major consultancies, and consider them to be low. Ironically, while independent service design consultants may be on the brink of playing on bigger stages, the present may also represent a risk for independent, specialist service design consulting as significant players in their own field. We conclude the chapter by discussing some of the strategic options facing Engine and other established independent service design consultants. The chapter is informed by two perspectives – contrasting the inside out and the outside in. One (from the first author) arises from direct, hands-on experience ‘designing services’ as an Engine employee.2 The other (from the second author) is that of an outsider who has followed the development of service design as a consulting offer (in the UK) for several years, and who has a wider interest in the development and competitiveness of professional service firms (von Nordenflycht 2010), especially creativity-based firms such as design consultants, advertising agencies and architecture practices. We stress that the views expressed in this chapter are our own and have not been informed by a detailed financial analysis of the service design consulting ‘industry’ or ‘market’ as a whole, or by an analysis of the financial position of any individual firm, partly because such data is not publicly available.

5.2 The end of the beginning? Engine’s big break: The Dubai Airport project In 2013 Engine was approached by Dubai Airport, as part of its ambitious plans to become the world’s leading airport in terms of customer experience by 2020. The plans are radical because conventionally airport design has focused on two things: capacity and income maximization; customer experience has at best been a servant to these objectives. Dubai Airport aims to change this, putting customer experience centre stage. Moreover, these plans are being developed in the context of Dubai Airport planning to double its capacity to a massive 133 million passengers per year (almost double the 73.4 million people who passed through London Heathrow in 2014) and making Dubai itself a highly desirable destination for travellers worldwide, with the airport its primary entry-point. Dubai Airport sought out Engine as a market leading specialist in service design consultancy, further legitimated by having prior experience developing airport-related customer experiences, including for Virgin Atlantic at London Heathrow and working with the airports of Portugal to develop a passenger service brand and strategy. In seeking a specialist service design agency, Dubai Airport deliberately sought different

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expertise from that of management consultants, and especially change management consultancies. Implicitly at least, service design’s strong intuitive understanding of emotions (Stacey and Tether 2015) helped to set Engine apart from conventional management consultants, at least in the perception of the client. Engine and its client are now engaged in a three-year collaboration, the aim of which is to apply service design to innovate the airport’s services. The project includes rearranging the physical space of the airport, creating novel passenger journeys, changing the behaviours of front-line staff, and ensuring that the support technology is not only ‘state-of-the art’ but more importantly is aligned to enhancing customers’ experiences. The project also involves breaking down the airport’s departmental silos in order to make them outward looking and collaborative, and focused first and foremost on enhancing the customer experience. In undertaking the project, Engine has naturally drawn on its service design capabilities and experience. As a first step, it worked with the airport’s senior management team to convene an inspirational event centred around workshops on the ‘future of the airport’, the aim of which was to develop a joint future vision and to identify specific service concepts. The CEO was present and fully participated in order to affirm the significance of the project. Then, informed by trend forecasters and energized by exciting speakers (including from Apple and the world of Formula 1), the partners developed several inspiring and visionary options for the airport’s future. Importantly, these were not wholly generic, but drew on and related to Dubai Airport’s own unique heritage. By utilizing their creative design tools skills and experience to increase the emotional impact, Engine later synthesized these visions into a single proposition. To signal commitment, the airport’s CEO spoke passionately at this huge event, launching a new brand and concurrently new era. This became the basis of the new identity, the substance of which was launched and embedded into the airport community through the hosting of this large inclusive kick-off meeting for senior managers. The aim was to inspire, align and build consensus among leadership concerning the vision of the airport’s future. Engine also developed a plan for implementation, which included the prioritization of concepts feeding into the action plan, which itself incorporated early impacts, or ‘wins’, intended to demonstrate the value of a customer-centred approach to service design. These early impacts are partially enabled by undertaking pilot projects, labelled as ‘hero projects’. From experience, Engine knows that quick, effective and tangible results are a highly effective way for service designers to build buy-in, overcome scepticism, and gain legitimacy within the client organization. One ‘hero project’ for example focuses on hospitality, and involves (re)designing the behaviour of front-line staff at the airport facility. This is achieved by working directly with front line staff in charge, and drawing on in-depth passenger research, Engine is building an adaptable prototype which is led by a behavioural framework for staff. In keeping with the traditions of service design, creative and visual techniques are central, and have been used to make the propositions as tangible as possible. This has involved using actors to role-play passengers, using illustrators to sketch ideas



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developed at workshops, the representation of services through illustrated scripts and storyboards, which are especially helpful in encouraging inspiration and building buy-in among the cross-departmental leadership teams. Other techniques deployed include the use of ‘service blueprints’, a phase of in-depth stakeholder research, and the ‘shadowing’ of a diverse set of passengers and staff in order to generate insight. At least in general terms these techniques should be familiar to anyone who understands service design and who has followed development of the field and its set of practices. Essentially, Engine deployed the techniques that it has honed over the last fifteen years through undertaking a wide variety of service design projects. For example, it understands that service design is much more of a collaborative, facilitated activity than more traditional types of design (such as graphic or product design) and therefore ensures that its consultants work in close collaboration with its client’s personnel, including, in this case, Dubai Airport’s temporary head of customer experience who is director at Engine. Often underestimated, of course there is a difference between knowing what techniques are available and knowing how to use them effectively, just as anyone can buy a set of golf clubs but few can play to a professional standard. Nonetheless, for a relatively small, specialized, London-based consultancy with around thirty employees, the Dubai Airport project presented challenges beyond their comfort zone of (re)designing services. Major airports are large, complex structures, both from a technological and an organizational point of view, and while Engine has significant past experience of designing customer experiences in airports, this project was considerably larger and more complex. Furthermore, it is being undertaken in Dubai, which has significant cultural differences from London. In order to meet these challenges Engine has had to develop new competences, including some of the classical approaches of project management, such as the prioritization of ideas, road-mapping and project planning. These have helped the agency break down the project into a series of major steps, each of which inform crucial outputs. It has also been very aware of the need to manage expectations at various levels, and the need to develop a supportive but culturally appropriate governance structure that enables the implementation of the new designs and practices and that ensures several work-streams can be conducted simultaneously. This has included establishing an ‘experience board’, distinct from but complimentary to the existing business board. This ‘experience board’ is responsible for overseeing the multidisciplinary ‘labs’, which bring together various heads of department and are intended to build connections and break down the operational silos within the airport. Engine not only advised on the organization of this board, but helped define the objectives of the ‘labs’, including their ways of working. In turn, the ‘labs’ have become important intermediaries between the airport’s various departments and Engine, acting as the change agent. In keeping with the norm of service design, progress is undertaken through collaborative workshops, which focus first and foremost on customer experience and which serve as the basis for developing further the programme plan. As before with the ‘hero projects’, also incorporated and important here is demonstrating ‘quick wins’,

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intended to show the value of Engine’s work and keep their own and Dubai Airport’s staff motivated throughout the three-year project. Successfully completing high-profile, iconic projects can be transformative for a creative project-based business, particularly one that is relatively small. For example, working on the Sydney Opera House made Arup’s name in structural engineering, while designing the Pompidou Centre in Paris made Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano’s reputations in the world of architecture. There are interesting parallels for Engine with the Dubai Airport project: it is high-profile and potentially both iconic and transformative. It is also being undertaken at a physical and cultural distance, which presents its own challenges. Undertaking the project is requiring Engine to develop new capabilities (especially in complex project management) that it can reuse in future projects. As such, for Engine, the Dubai Airport project may be the beginning of something new – the ability to engage in larger, more complex, higher value service design projects; it may mark the end of the beginning phase of its activities as an independent, specialized service design consultancy.

5.3 The beginning of the end? The ‘big beasts’ of management consulting close in on service design Success attracts attention. And in the commercial world a profitable opportunity space can be hard to protect. The growth of digital services in particular has not escaped the interest of the major management consultancies. Deloitte, for example, recently established Deloitte Digital to focus on ‘all things digital’, and states: We are a full service consulting agency that brings together a blend of all things digital. Drawing from a breadth of backgrounds from our creative and technology capabilities, strategy, analytics, and industry knowledge, we provide a dash of everything that is needed to help transform our clients’ businesses. With our end-toend capabilities there is no project too small, clients can trust us with their biggest challenges, knowing we’ve got what it takes to bring a new business vision to life.3 Accenture, meanwhile, has set up an ‘interactive practice’ and McKinsey has formed a ‘digital service design lab’. Admittedly these business units are focused on ‘digital services’, rather than physical world services, but four things are particularly notable. MM

First, the large consultancies are increasingly recognizing that ‘design’ can and should form an important part of their offer, which they can integrate with their established competences in business strategy and (information) technology consulting. McKinsey, for example has stated that: ‘It’s no secret that design is increasingly a source of competitive advantage and business value.’4



Specialist service design consulting

MM

Second, the large consultancies have the muscle to build scale quickly. For example, in little over a year Deloitte Digital has built a team of over 400 people in the UK alone, housing them in a separate buildings to encourage the development of a distinctive, creative culture.

MM

Third, the majors are building their capabilities in design partially through acquisitions. McKinsey, for example, acquired Lunar, a product design firm, and subsequently started a ‘digital service design lab’, while Deloitte has made a number of acquisitions, including of Flow Interactive, a UX (user experience) specialist. Perhaps most significantly so far, in 2013 Accenture acquired Fjord, a pioneer of applying design to digital services, which now positions itself as a service design and innovation agency.

MM

Fourth, the majors have the ability to change the terms of trade, moving away from the traditional ‘day rates’ approach to consultancy, to offer pay-for-performance billing, agreeing to be paid when pre-defined results are achieved. This is important for three reasons. First, it signals a high degree of confidence by these consultants in their likelihood of success; second, it reduces the risk that clients face in commissioning projects from these consultants; third, this ‘no-win-no-fee’ approach is difficult for smaller businesses to imitate.

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Service design specialists may well point to differences between digital, UX design and ‘service design’ with a strong orientation to the physical world, and consider they are in ‘different lines of business’. This may be so, to a degree. But this type of thinking, in which managers distinguish between rivals, whom they see and watch closely, and non-rivals, whom they do not watch closely, is often highly myopic (Porac et al. 1995; Porac and Rosa 1996): non-rivals can quickly become rivals. Given the ease with which ‘the majors’ have made incursions into digital, UX design space, it seems prudent to ask what is there to prevent them moving into service design more generally. A variety of barriers to the entry of new providers might exist. These include an inability to compile the required resources due to a lack of financial capital or a lack of credibility with key suppliers, intellectual property protection preventing the newcomers producing the same products or using the same processes or techniques as incumbents, and/or a lack of credibility among buyers. Unfortunately for the incumbents, none of these apply substantially to service design consulting. First, ‘the majors’ have deep financial pockets, as they have already demonstrated. Second, in relation to suppliers, a key ‘supplier’ here is talented people. It is possible that designers would prefer to work for design consultants than management consultants, all else equal, but ‘all else’ is not equal. And in this context it is interesting to know what sort of people Engine seeks when recruiting service designers, who are at the heart of its business. Some insight into this is provided by an advertisement for ‘service designers’ on Engine’s website.5 This states:

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We like people who enjoy exploring a challenge, working out solutions, polishing them and packing it all up. You can see from what we do that we’re creative, process is important to us and we enjoy understanding what makes people tick. Developing ways of thinking, finding an angle and making things seem as simple as possible, are all skills we value. Remarkable here is how little emphasis there is on design and creative skills. The webpage goes on to define a service designer at Engine as a ‘post discipline designer responsible for supporting the delivery of multiple aspects of projects, the beating heart of the Engine design team with a spectrum of skills to support a range of contrasting tasks’. The notion of a ‘post-disciplinary’ designer here is very interesting because it places emphasis on a generic set of skills rather than service design specific skills, but it also implies that a wide range of people could become service designers. And indeed, aside from the emphasis on visualization and visual communication skills, it is remarkable how little emphasis in terms of attributes and competences it seeks that Engine appears to place on design skills (see box below). Instead, what might be regarded as generic ‘consulting skills’ – such as the ability to deal with a wide variety of tasks; to be ‘comfortable with collaboration’; and to be an enthusiastic and effective team player – are much more prominent. This suggests that ‘Service Design (consultants)’ tend to have an unspecific, flexible skills set that is largely learnt through practice.

Engine’s requirements for a service designer: Attributes, competences and key tasks Required attributes MM Both a creative and analytical thinker who can use both sides of your brain MM Proactive and enthusiastic to take on any project task MM A willing and quick learner and able to throw yourselfs into a variety of tasks MM Quietly confident and able to clearly articulate a point of view MM Comfortable with following process but able to deal with ambiguity MM Interested in a variety of things and the challenges they bring MM A people person who feels comfortable with collaboration Required competences MM Be able to juggle projects, priorities and resources to get things delivered to the necessary level MM Can run elements of the project delivery autonomously to the required level of quality MM Shows excellent aptitude for creative contribution and delivery across all project types



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MM MM MM MM MM MM

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Able to produce clear and compelling visual communication with proficiency in InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop and PowerPoint Good analysis skills to extract important findings from research Work rigorously with a focus on the detail and able to produce the desired quality Can deliver tasks autonomously to the necessary level expected of the Client Director Actively contributes to projects in terms of content as well as process and delivery Able to show good clarity of thought and a structured approach to delivering design projects

Key tasks and accountability MM The production of visually rich and clear documents, presentations and workshop materials MM Supporting senior team members to plan and facilitate workshops MM Strong at concept generation supported by research MM Strong visualizers and communicators of concepts (sketch, digital visualization, verbal and written) MM Confident in supporting the planning and conducting of qualitative and secondary research MM Development and visualization of key conceptual frameworks and information graphics

Third, there is no intellectual property protection in place to prevent the newcomers from utilizing the set of techniques developed by service designers, and indeed the openness of the service design community in sharing techniques has made these highly accessible (e.g. Kimbell 2014; Polaine et. al. 2013). True, knowing what techniques are available does not mean you know how to use them, or to use them well, but they are not highly complex and inaccessible. Indeed, due to the collaborative, facilitative approach to service design, the techniques tend to be easily understood. Also notable here is the effort that at least some newcomers are learning the techniques. Fjord, now part of Accenture, has for example established a ‘service design academy’ which is: ‘a dedicated global team that teaches Fjordians and our clients about service design thinking and methods through ground-breaking talks, workshops, a digital repository of wisdom and tools for expansive knowledge sharing’.6 To an extent credibility among buyers may provide a barrier to entry for the newcomers, but here again incumbents should not take too much comfort. First ‘the majors’ are perceived as highly credible consulting businesses in general; second they often have strong existing client relations in closely related areas, such as UX-centred digital design, which can serve as bridging points into service design; third they are able to offer their services on a ‘payment by results’ basis, which dramatically reduces the buyer’s risk in commissioning an inexperienced provider.

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Of course it is possible to argue that the threat of an invasion by ‘the majors’ is exaggerated. Even on their home turf of management consultancy they do not completely dominate the market, and there are many ‘boutique consultancies’ focused on market niches. Similarly, while advertising is dominated by corporate giants such as WPP, Interpublic, Publicis and Omnicom, it also has a number of significant independents which survive and prosper. Furthermore, entry into service design consulting by the majors may be beneficial to the whole sector, at least for a while, as it will further lend credibility and legitimize these activities, which will expand the market. And the market remains very small relative to its potential, given the size of the service economy, both nationally and internationally. There are, quite simply, a huge number of opportunities in which to apply ‘Service Design (consulting)’. Against this, there are concerns, including that ‘the majors’ will not do service design well, leading in the longer run to a decline in confidence and legitimacy in the market. This is what happened to ‘total quality management’ (TQM) after generalist management consultants entered the market that had been carefully built by specialists (Brown and Strang 2006). More certain is that the majors will target the most profitable and interesting opportunities in the market, leaving ‘lesser’ opportunities to others. This is important, because the opportunity to engage in interesting projects is a key factor in attracting people to work in a consultancy and shaping the identity of the firm and of the field.

5.4 What next for the independent, specialist service design consultants? So these are interesting times for Engine and its senior managers. On the one side, having won prestigious clients like Dubai Airport they may have the foundations on which to take the business to the next level, in terms of engaging in larger, more challenging and high profile projects. On the other hand, the easy entry of the major management consultants into the neighbouring territory of UX/digital design should be worrying. So what are the options for leading specialist service design consultancies such as Engine and Live|Work (which has about forty people in five international studios)? One obvious option would be to sell the business to one of the majors, either now or in the near future. This aside, what are their options? There are of course numerous options depending on the objectives of the business and its owners, so here we presume that these businesses will want to remain in leadership positions within the field of service design consulting. In relation to this, we discuss five facets of the business that should be considered. These are: scale, scope, structure, distinctiveness and openness. Scale – scale, or size, matters in unusual ways among creative professional service firms, where there are few conventional ‘economies of scale’. Indeed, the vast majority of firms in these markets are tiny, so it is possible to exist without scale. On



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the other hand, larger business, and especially those that are distinctive, are more influential, partly because they are perceived to be more competent, having adequate resources to undertake larger, more complex projects. We suggest that to remain at the forefront of their field, the leading service design agencies need to expand their businesses, to have at least 100 employees in the near future. Scope – until now, service design consultancies have been remarkably broad in their approach. This has benefits but also costs. The benefits include that the agencies are flexible and can address a wide range of clients and client needs, and moreover that they can broker ideas between contexts (Hagadon 2002). But restricting scope may also enhance credibility. Engine, for example, is most likely to be able to leverage its success at Dubai Airport in other airport or very similar settings. Specialization can also add distinctiveness. An example in architecture of following this strategy is Populus, which (very largely) focuses on stadiums and arenas, and has developed a very strong reputation in these specialisms. Perhaps a sensible approach is to balance the advantages and disadvantages of limiting scope by focusing on a small set of ‘application areas’. Structure – structure is partially related to scale and scope, in that as the business grows it is likely necessary to decentralize control, perhaps through developing a set of semi-autonomous ‘studios’, which may relate to different application areas or to geographical markets. The ability to build additional, semi-autonomous studios is a capability which is known to be an effective way in which to expand the business, particularly into new practice areas (Anand et al. 2007). Distinctiveness – distinctiveness that is desirable to clients is a key to competitiveness in any industry, because if buyers are indifferent as to whom they source from they will seek out the lowest cost providers, diminishing profits. A provider that is distinctive in desirable characteristics on the other hand can charge higher prices, which implies higher profits and/or the ability to pay higher salaries. In business and professional services, distinctiveness may be real or perceived; that is there may be real differences between what firms can do, and there may be perceived differences. For example, firms may differ in their experience of designing customer experiences at airports, but to what extent does this experience matter? Generally, firms need to place emphasis on their perceived strengths and downplay their perceived weaknesses. So for example, in the context of designing physical services, service design agencies should place emphasis on the difference between physical services and UX design, whereas UX design agencies will downplay these differences. Distinctiveness also relates to rivals, and firms tend to compare themselves with their closest rivals. This can be a mistake, as a change in the perceived set of rivals can substantially change the firm’s actual and perceived strengths and weaknesses. In this context the ‘threat’ of the arrival of major management consultancies in service design consulting needs to be taken seriously, at least in terms of mitigating service design consultancies’ relative weaknesses. It is not necessary to strengthen weaknesses (for example in project management) to the same level as that of the new rivals; instead, it is necessary to improve them sufficiently such that they are not perceived to be

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weaknesses. In other words, service design agencies are advised to reinforce what makes them desirably distinctive, while mitigating any perceived weaknesses. Openness – until now, the service design community, including the leading consultancies, have been remarkably open about their approaches and techniques. In many ways this is laudable, and we and other academics have enjoyed gaining insights into service design from this openness. But it may be time to reconsider this approach, and to become more proprietary and secretive about the techniques and their utilization. Openness aids legitimacy, but it also makes it easier for rivals to imitate your offer. We look forward to seeing what actually happens to the service design consulting field/market over the next few years: these are certainly interesting times!

Notes 1

www.service-design-network.org (accessed 10 October 2016)

2

Eva-Maria Kirchberger is also a member of DESMA, a European Commission funded network and PhD programme on design management. She is undertaking her PhD on these matters at Imperial College.

3

https://uk.deloittedigital.com/aboutus/london-the-buckley (accessed 9 October 2016).

4

http://www.mckinsey.com/about_us/new_at_mckinsey/landing_lunar#sthash. bnQgZvrQ.dpuf

5 See https://engine.uberdigital.com/contact/#job6 (accessed 1 November 2015). 6

https://www.fjordnet.com/about-us/what-we-do/the-service-design-academy/ (accessed 9 October 2016).

References Aldrich, H. E. and Fiol, C. M. (1995), ‘Fools Rush In – The Institutional Context of Industry Creation’, Academy of Management Review 19 (4): 645–70. Anand, N., Gardner, H. K. and Morris, T. (2007), ‘Knowledge-based Innovation: Emergence and Embedding of New Practice Areas in Management Consulting Firms’. Academy of Management Journal 50 (2): 406–28. Brown, T. (2008), ‘Design Thinking’, Harvard Business Review 86 (6): 84. Brown, T. (2009), Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation. New York: Harper Collins. Brown, R.J. and Strang, D. (2006), ‘When Fashion is Fleeting: Transitory Collective Beliefs and the Dynamics of TQM Consulting’, Academic of Management Journal 49 (2): 215–33. Deephouse, D. (1999), ‘To be Different, or to be the Same? It’s a Question (and Theory) of Strategic Balance’, Strategic Management Journal 20 (2): 147–66. Hagadon, A. B. (2002), ‘Brokering Knowledge: Linking Learning and Innovation’, Research in Organizational Behavior 24: 41–85. Kimbell, L. (2014), The Service Innovation Handbook: Action Oriented Creative Thinking Toolkit for Service Organizations. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers.



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Meroni, A. and Sangiorgi, D. (2011), Design for Services. Aldershot: Gower. Navis, C. and Glynn, M. A. (2010), ‘How New Market Categories Emerge: Temporal Dynamics of Legitimacy, Identity, and Entrepreneurship in Satellite Radio, 1990–2000,’ Administrative Science Quarterly 55: 439–71. Polaine, A., Løvlie, L. and Reason, B. (2013), Service Design: From Insight to Implementation. Brooklyn, NY: Rosenfeld Media. Porac, J. F., Thomas, H., Wilson, F., Paton, D. and Kanfer, A. (1995), ‘Rivalry and the Industry Model of Scottish Knitwear Producers’, Administrative Science Quarterly: 203–27. Porac, J. and Rosa, J. A. (1996), ‘Rivalry, Industry Models, and the Cognitive Embeddedness of the Comparable Firm,’ Advances in Strategic Management 13: 363–88. Stacey, P. K. and Tether, B. S. (2015), ‘Designing Emotion-centred Product Service Systems: The Case of a Cancer Care Facility‘, Design Studies 40: 85–18. Stickdorn, M. and Schneider, J. (2010), This is Service Design Thinking: Basics – Tools – Cases, Amsterdam: BIS Publishers. Tether, B. S. and Stigliani, I. (2012), Towards a Theory of Industry Emergence: Entrepreneurial Actions to Imagine (not Discover), Create and Nurture (not Evaluate), and Legitimate (not Exploit) a New Market. Working paper, University of Manchester (dated 20/4/2012) Von Nordenflycht, A. (2010), ‘What is a Professional Service Firm? Toward a Theory and Taxonomy of Knowledge-intensive Firms’, Academy of Management Review 35 (1): 155–74.

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PART TWO

Contemporary discourses and influence in designing for service T

his section draws on interdisciplinary discourses that have always been implicit in the practice of service design but because of its relative newness, as a practice and as an emerging academic field, there is only now a sufficient body of evidence to engage with different frames for conceptualizing its interconnectedness with other disciplines (Blomberg and Kimbell) and to better understand its fit within existing discourses of new service development and service logic (Holmlid, Wetter-Edman and Edvardsson). This multi-lens perspective also allows a more critical interrogation of current participatory practices in the representation of the participants in the service design process (Collins, Cook and Choukeir) and also opens up the discussion of the challenges of particular cultural barriers to the adoption, implementation and evaluation of co-design methods in the specific environment that is healthcare (Robert and Macdonald). Combining three disciplinary perspectives, Kimbell and Blomberg start this section by presenting Airbnb to describe the object of service design through the service encounter, the co-creation of value and socio-material configuration while also

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positioning these within the disciplinary frames of creative design and technology, business management and the social sciences and in particular anthropology. For the authors these disciplinary lenses enable us to better understand what makes up a service, the different expertise needed to configure a service and the range of accountabilities that arise within this. In the second chapter, Holmlid, Wetter-Edman and Edvardsson expose the limitations of situating service design within the confines of new service development and explore how this not only leads to a misplaced understanding of the role of service design but also constrains its potential. To overcome this myopia, the authors instead propose that service design, through service logic, can overcome these limitations, and suggest how design needs to be seen as opening the ‘reconfiguring power between agents, as well empowering people through design processes and development of resources’. Presenting a historical overview of the origins of participatory design in order to critique current day practices in service design, Collins, Cook and Choukier question the representation of people through positivistic versus a co-constructed interpretative lens. Although participatory design offers insights about the people who are being designed, the authors are concerned about the risks of an overly pragmatic, operationalized interpretation of participation in service design, thus raising questions around objectivity. If you take participatory design back to its origins, as this chapter does, its purpose is to confront injustice and realign power relationships and inequalities. Now because of time and budgetary constraints, stakeholders may be chosen by default with those that are more committed, available to inform activities and attend meetings, representing others who may have different and more challenging agendas. To overcome these distortions the authors recommend that designers see participatory design as a critical practice that requires time and space in order to reflect on the representations and to gain the trust of local authorities to allow a greater level of autonomy for users. Finally, Robert and Macdonald explore the process of co-designing from two different perspectives to open up the discussion on the internal cultural barriers for the adoption of these methods and the implementation and evaluation of interventions within the specific context of healthcare. The first approach is design-like and delivered by non-designers but framed by participatory action research (PAR) within organizational development with the second offering a ‘designerly’ approach undertaken by designers, which is situated within service design discourses, methods and tools. From these two views, the authors present two case studies, one designing and evaluating quality improvement (QI) using experience-based co-design (EBCD) to support carers of chemotherapy patients in outpatient clinics and the other applying a designer-led visual intervention for physical rehabilitation following a stroke. Both case studies are critiqued for their own strengths and weaknesses with the suggestion that the creation of a ‘commons’, a democratizing space, drawing together different ‘infrastructurings’ used in the two case studies, may challenge and shift the positivist approach that is so embedded in healthcare cultures, to represent the more social and qualitative outcomes that can be equally valuable to healthcare service innovations.

6 The object of service design Lucy Kimbell and Jeanette Blomberg

6.1 Introduction At a party a woman introduces herself as a designer. The person she is talking to then asks her what she designs. Today’s designer may well answer in abstractions, talking about the application of design thinking to organizational strategies, policies or social problems. She may avoid giving a direct answer, or at least one that is comprehensible to the person who asked the question. She might describe how she produces all sorts of things using a range of methods, tools and techniques from PowerPoint presentations to value stream mapping to participatory workshops. Yes, yes, we can imagine the party companion asking impatiently, but what do you actually design? Design, as often construed in conversations at parties, water coolers or airports, is tied up with the production and use of material and digital objects, yet these days it is no longer defined by them. Buchanan’s (1992, 2001) division of the objects of design into signs, interactions, places and systems continues to be influential. But over the past two decades the emergence of practitioner and research fields associated with the design of interactions, services, experiences and systems has opened up anew the question of the object of design. It is this cosmological question we seek to contribute to. Shaping this emergence, we note a very wide range of activities in developed, industrialized economies that fit within the economic category of ‘services’ from transport to education to digital software to healthcare. In addition, there is a renewed interest in the production of objects through small-scale manufacturing, craft and the maker movement. There are new kinds of technologically mediated objects with built-in micro-controllers programmed to behave in particular ways such as prototypes made with Arduino1. Adding to the expansion of design objects is a long-standing interest in systems within IT practice and management information literatures, including recognizing the dynamic interactions between people, organizations and technologies. Finally, developments in other academic fields

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have resulted in new perspectives on the object. For example, the material turn in sociology led to attention being paid to the ways that objects come into having agency (Barad 2003). In philosophy, proponents of ‘speculative realism’ have challenged the field’s human-centric orientation, arguing that objects have hidden depths (Kimbell 2013). Against this background the aim of this chapter is to enhance understanding of the object of service design and consider the implications of deploying different ways of thinking about this topic. To do this, we turn to several literatures that have been grappling with similar questions faced by the designer and her companion at the party. As long-standing researchers and practitioners in fields shaping this discussion, in anthropology and participatory design (Blomberg) and in digital services and design studies (Kimbell), we note that the field known as service design is emergent and heterogeneous. In this chapter we will borrow concepts from systems design, science and technology studies and participatory design as well as services marketing and management disciplines. The chapter aims to guide researchers and students of design through contemporary discussions and open up new ways of thinking by identifying three approaches to understanding the object of service design: the service encounter, the value co-creating system and the socio-material configuration. Figure 6.1 shows how design and technology, the social sciences especially anthropology, and business and management inform these three objects of service design. By so doing we aim to help practitioners and researchers see how different ways of conceptualizing the object of service design changes what is involved in designing a service.

Creative design and technology

Service encounter

Sociocultural configuration

Business and management

Social sciences especially anthropology Value co-creating system

FIGURE 6.1  Perspectives on the object of service design



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6.2 A platform to surface the complexities To enable this discussion, we will make use of one particularly successful contemporary service business, Airbnb. In the space of only a few years this service-based start-up has grown from being the idea of a couple of college graduates trying to make some spare cash into a global business valued at $24 billion (Fortune 2015) having serviced over 60 million guests by early 2016 (Airbnb 2016). We might have chosen Airbnb because two of its co-founders are designers (although in their accounts of the start-up of this business, they do not call what they were doing ‘service design’). Choosing Airbnb allows us to surface some of the complexities and nuances of the contemporary environment in which as designers and researchers, and as service users and providers, people reading this book are implicated. As a digital business that connects people who want to rent out a spare room or property on a short-term basis to people who need a place to stay who are able to pay for it, Airbnb has transformed the hotel and hospitality industry. It also touches on many other aspects of contemporary life and in so doing provides a multifaceted case through which to discuss the object of service design, including: 1 Technological mediation. Airbnb is a web-based platform using digital data and

algorithms to match ‘guests’ (people looking for a room or property to rent) and ‘hosts’ (people with one to rent out). 2 Global/local. First launched in the US, Airbnb now operates in 191 countries,

allowing people to look for a place to stay in over 34,000 cities (Airbnb 2016). 3 Platform businesses. Unlike the traditional model in the hospitality industry,

Airbnb does not offer a service to travellers. It offers a platform enabling providers and users to connect with each other. 4 Collaborative consumption. Airbnb is an exemplar of an economic model

that connects people with a scarce resource that might otherwise not find a market (e.g. a spare room in London) with people who will pay for it. 5 Authentic experience. Airbnb emphasizes how it enables people to have

temporary access to someone else’s world, not just a place to stay. For example, Airbnb helps hosts open up aspects of their lives to guests in the form of favourite coffee shops or other local knowledge.

6.3 Three perspectives on the object of service design Reviewing and synthesizing the literature, we see three lenses to describe the object of service design. They draw on different research traditions and do different things for students and practitioners of service design. The three conceptualizations of the

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object of service design are made up of different constituents (or actors) and order them in different ways. They are: 1 The service encounter. A focus on the experiences people have as

they engage in interactions with touchpoints provided by others, often organizations but possibly by other individuals. 2 The value co-creating system. A focus on the dynamic exchanges of resources

and processes that achieve outcomes for the actors involved, typically organizations but possibly individuals. 3 The socio-material configuration. An assemblage of constituents which

emerges through the dynamic unfolding of practice, providing interfaces through which actors engage with resources.

6.3.1 The service encounter The first perspective on the object of service design combines research in services marketing as well as practice and research in design fields. The service encounter emphasizes the experiences of users and customers, and other people involved directly or indirectly in constituting that experience such as staff or volunteers. In particular, the work of Shostack is widely recognized as providing for the first time an underpinning to the design of services. In presenting her arguments for ‘breaking free of product marketing’ (1977) and subsequent work, Shostack introduced a focus on the service encounter understood as what happens in the interactions between providers and customers. She highlighted the tangible constituents of an otherwise intangible service, which she called service evidence, now often termed touchpoints. This enables direct links with traditions within design including (digital) user experience design and visual communication design (e.g. Buxton 2007; Garrett 2011). Later researchers such as Bitner (1990) also highlighted the artefactual and experiential nature of service encounters including the environment or ‘serviscapes’ (Bitner 1992) in which they happened. Czepiel et al. (1985) emphasized the essentially social nature of service encounters and the need to acknowledge both user and provider contributions. Methods such as service blueprinting helped service design teams map out the constituent elements within a desired service encounter (Bitner et al. 2008). Growing recognition of the role, skills and knowledge and behaviours of both customers and service staff in enabling and supporting the service encounter hinted at the wider system resources on which services rely (e.g. Bitner 1997; Czepiel 1990). Exploring Airbnb through the lens of the service encounter emphasizes formal design qualities of the digital and material artefacts that are part of shaping or constituting the experience. The homepage for AIrbnb viewed in the UK in May 2016 showed a photograph of someone sleeping in the kind of space that is bookable via the platform. A bunch of flowers by the bed, tartan blanket, clean-looking white sheets and female figure lying in the bed invite in the viewer’s gaze and emphasize



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the sensory aspects of experience. Even tiny details can form part of the experience offered to guests. For example, Airbnb hosts are prompted to think about the tangible elements of the service experience they are about to render to guests. This builds directly on the early prototype of Airbnb by two of its co-founders, Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky, when they first set up a temporary ‘air bed and breakfast’ to service visitors to a conference in San Francisco in 2007. Gebbia describes how they tried to design a whole journey for their guests. As we were thinking of the experience of what we wanted to do for our guests … We’re standing in the living room and looking at these airbeds on the floor and going okay, that doesn’t look too exciting. What else can we do that makes this an experience … to make it more than sleeping on the floor in our living room? … You come to the airport so why don’t we come up with a guide to get from the airport to our apartment and once they get to the apartment we’ll come up with a way for them to learn about the neighbourhood … Then we kept thinking through the experience … they’re going to walk outside the door … and probably trip over somebody … out on the sidewalk … they’re always asking for change so why don’t we make it easy for them, we’ll give them spare change to give out … So it’s thinking through the entire journey of our three guests before they arrive. (First Round Capital 2013) As illustrated by this account of the first Airbnb prototype, the service encounter perspective focuses on people’s interactions with digital and material touchpoints that shape the experiences of service users. The analysis zooms in close to the people and foregrounds their interactions with other people or in relation to artefacts, places and technological systems. But it pays little attention to what shapes the social practices in which such experiences are embedded or to their politics.

6.3.2 The value co-creating system The second perspective on the object of service design is rooted in research in services marketing which focuses on the exchange relations between actors in a service system. The orientation of this approach is towards actors achieving outcomes through the dynamic bundling of resources and competences in particular arrangements known as service ecosystems or value constellations (Normann and Ramírez 1993; Ramírez 1999; Normann 2001; Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004; Vargo and Lusch 2004, 2008; Kimbell 2011, 2014). The focus here is on the parties within a service being able to negotiate and account for the achievement of outcomes. Outcomes-based contracting is an example of the legal devices and processes that make firms within a value constellation accountable to one another (Ng et al. 2009; 2011). In this perspective there is less focus on users and their experiences and more on the boundaries between entities exchanging resources within the system. Where

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there is interest in customer experiences, these are viewed in relation to the system, operations and exchanges within which they are performed and assessed (e.g. Fitzsimmons and Fitzsimmons 2000; Grönroos 2011). Using this perspective to discuss Airbnb highlights the way the platform integrates resources, enabling other actors to exchange competences to achieve outcomes and the backstage processes that shape the operational delivery of a service. For those with a property to rent out it emphasizes the competences and resources required to be a host within Airbnb, including being able to set up a listing, manage reservation and information requests from people looking for a place to stay (possibly in languages you don’t speak or write) and respond within the times Airbnb suggests, and be able to accept payment online. For those wanting to find a place to stay, the resources required to be a guest within the Airbnb value constellation include being able to search and order listings on the website, make reservation and information requests (again, possibly in languages you don’t speak or write), respond within the times Airbnb suggests, and be able to make payment online. As a platform connecting guests and hosts, Airbnb requires both parties within the transaction to have access to resources enabling the planning, constitution and evaluation of the service. Airbnb’s role is to be a generative platform that matches resources and monitors and rates performance in near real-time. An aspect of the Airbnb platform design is how it accounts for the successful achievement of outcomes. For example, as is common with other web-based exchange and social media platforms, Airbnb requires users to perform assessments of one another and makes these accounts partially visible on the website. Shortly after a visit is completed, Airbnb emails both parties to ask for a review of the visit. The review includes star ratings (quantitative) and comments (qualitative), some of which is made public and some of which is retained by Airbnb. The shareable parts of the reviews are made public on the website when both parties have submitted their evaluations. In their dashboard, hosts are able to see how guests rated the overall experience, categorized in terms of cleanliness, accuracy, value, communication, arrival and location. Hosts also assess guests including for communication, arrival and leaving the place clean on departure. Through the lens of the value co-creation system, an analysis of Airbnb highlights the processes that enable actors to exchange resources and to achieve and assess outcomes brought into view by the platform.

6.3.3 The socio-material configuration The third perspective on the object of service design draws on anthropological research as well as literatures in systems and participatory design. This approach opens up for inquiry consideration of the constituents of a service and explores how they are assembled dynamically through practice, emphasizing the sociality and messiness of the worlds in which services exist. For example, Blomberg and Darrah (2015) develop a grounded approach to show how services are experienced



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and co-production is achieved through the situated, local participation of a range of actors. Whereas the service encounter perspective privileges human actors as having agency, the socio-material approach argues that constituents become agential through their inter-relating (Barad 1998, 2003; Suchman 2002; Suchman et al. 2002; Blomberg 2009). This lens proposes that together the constituents ‘co-articulate’ a service as it unfolds in practice, connecting material and digital touchpoints and people’s experiences to participation in social practices, organizational routines and narratives about value and valuing.

Table 6.1  Perspectives on the object of service design Service encounter

Value co-creating system

Socio-material configuration

Contributing fields

• product design • communication design • interaction design • services marketing

• strategy • services marketing • service operations • economics • open innovation

• sociology • anthropology • computer supported co-operative work • participatory design

Emblematic concepts

• touchpoints • interactions • customer experience • service evidence • experience design

• outcomes • competences • value constellation • multi-actor platform • exchange of resources • process design

• • • • • •

Key actors

• users • customers • service staff

• resource integrators • platforms

• human actors • non-human actors

Value results from …

• interactions with touchpoints

• co-creation within value constellation

• co-articulation of practices and institutions

Example methods and tools

• user scenarios • customer journey maps • stakeholder maps • experience models • blueprints

• • • • •

• participatory design techniques • design games • ethnographic approaches

value streams process maps service models blueprints stakeholder maps • business models

participation practice interfacing infrastructuring systems design local

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Like the service encounter perspective, this lens emphasizes how interfaces such as digital apps or performances of service scripts actualize a service for users and providers (Secomandi and Snelders 2011; Lury 2014). The sociocultural view of interfaces argues that ‘exchange relations between providers and clients require the mobilization of infrastructure resources but ultimately are realized through the interface’ (Secomandi and Snelders 2011: 30). In this lens, the interface is a key site for the service. But in contrast to the service encounter perspective discussed earlier, this lens also brings into view the constituents, processes and activities associated with infrastructuring a service and enabling participation in co-articulating it (Ehn 2008; Ehn et al. 2015). Further, this lens emphasizes service as a local accomplishment achieved in practice rather than experiences, competences and outcomes de-coupled from the social practices and institutions through which they are articulated. Returning to the case of Airbnb enables us to see what this perspective on the object of service design brings into view. A day before their guests arrive, hosts in the UK receive an email from Airbnb reminding them to get the property ready, suggesting activities to do and qualities to achieve in order to deliver a preferred guest experience. The email sent out to Airbnb hosts in the UK includes a checklist, which suggests that the host provide fresh sheets and pillowcases and tidy the house. Airbnb suggests that hosts ‘fill the fridge with a few breakfast goods (OJ, bagels, fruit)’. This terminology and these breakfast items are typically North American although of course they are available in many other places including much of the UK. The socio-material approach highlights how Airbnb scripts particular ways to be a host and to be a guest within this set of cultural references – even in a global business promoting the idea of travellers having authentic, local experiences (Frankin-Wallace 2013). This example poses questions about what is involved in being a host or being a guest and how these states are accomplished in practice. Through the breakfast instructions and other kinds of scripts, the Airbnb platform shapes guesting and hosting practices.

6.4 Implications for design The three lenses on the object of service design are summarized in Table 6.1. We now turn to exploring how these different ways of conceptualizing the object of service design impact on the work of designing. Using the lenses introduced in this chapter helps designers think through what it is they are designing and what are the consequences of their designs and designing.

6.4.1 Cosmologies Each of the three objects of design privileges different ways of thinking about how a service is constituted. Using the first lens, service encounters are seen as ‘moments of truth’ where the experiences of participants are the focus as they encounter



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organizational touchpoints organized into a service offering. Here designers pay close attention to the arrangement of and interactions with artefacts making up a service encounter. Using the second lens of value creating systems zooms out from the experiences of participants and looks at how particular processes and arrangements enable outcomes that they deem as producing value. Put another way what matters for designers using this lens is the result of the experience, rather than the experience itself. This requires paying attention to how outcomes are defined, monitored, assessed and made sense of during the service process or afterwards. The third lens highlighting socio-material configurations zooms in and out at the same time. It places an emphasis on the situated, local enactment of service in practice but also attends to the specific cultural, economic and political practices and institutions that co-articulate service. This requires a designer to shift between these two positions – combining the operational focus on how a service is realized as well as the strategic and sociocultural context shaping the experiences. Designers must decide which of these different lenses they want to deploy, why and when. Will they stay close to the service encounter and the experiences the mixture of people and objects affords? Or will they also zoom out and engage stakeholders in thinking about the conditions that inform and shape particular kinds of encounters? They must also decide where they choose to position themselves. Are they in the cosmology with a stake in the service and its outcomes, or outside of it?

6.4.2 Accountabilities Given the range of concerns that are implicated in realizing a service, designers must work out to whom or what a design is accountable and the nature of these accountabilities, while at the same time locating themselves in relation to the design activities. The service encounter lens engages a reduced set of accountabilities, emphasizing users and others directly benefitting from, enabling or providing a service experience. The value constellation lens shifts attention from individuals to organizations (depending on the nature of the service) and the competences required and outcomes that may be formally agreed or not and the operational processes through which value is co-created. Organizational routines, rules and legal regulations may shape what counts as outcomes and how it is possible to assess to what extent they have been achieved. The sociocultural configuration lens recognizes accountabilities that are local, others involved in supporting or shaping a service, as well accountabilities to interests that lie beyond the immediate service. This might include invisible workers or reliance on particular kinds of infrastructuring that enables particular ways of doing things.

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6.4.3 Temporalities Because services involve performances, their designing continues every time a service is enacted and a transformation occurs – what some design scholars call design ‘at use time’. Furthermore, how the designed elements interact with an always dynamic and changing world cannot be predicted. This leads Akama and Prendiville (2013: 31) to suggest that service designers should ‘re-situate services as an organic, co-created process and see co-designing as a journey and process of transformation in how we design our world, and ourselves, with others’. This raises questions regarding how to design for change and for the time when the designer is no longer an active participant in either enacting the service or being accountable for its outcomes. With the service encounter lens, the focus is on the duration of the experience. But the value co-creating system lens and socio-material configuration lens pose temporality as a problematic to be investigated (cf. Tonkinwise 2005). The implication for designers is to develop approaches and skills in making temporalities enacted in projects explicit and negotiable, rather than hidden or assumed.

6.4.4 Politics Politics play out differently across the three lenses. With the service encounter lens, designers can bracket out as externalities things that are not directly concerned with the delivery of people’s experiences. For example, this lens focuses on a positive, ‘desirable’ user experience which enables someone to achieve their goals such as book an Airbnb accommodation or find an informal taxi via Uber. With the value constellation lens, being attentive to politics highlights the exchange of resources between actors involved and whether such exchanges are equitable or reasonable. With the sociomaterial lens, politics emerges as posing questions about what makes something ‘desirable’ and for who, and the consequences of particular designs and ways of doing design. For example, it highlights the way that platform businesses result in people – who might otherwise do similar tasks with access to the legal and economic benefits that come with employment – being pushed into being self-sufficient entrepreneurs within a neo-liberal economic model. In their discussion of service encounters Penin and Tonkinwise (n.d.) point to the emotional labour done by service workers and suggest ways for designers of services to gain a sense of the work done in providing service. The question for designers is how to reveal the politics within a particular service, and recognize that with some lenses, political questions can easily be marginalized.

6.4.5 Expertise These lenses have different implications for the kinds of expertise required to design services. The service encounter lens is congruent with the usual focus of



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design practice where designers remain close to people and their interactions with artefacts and other people which are seen to shape experiences of a service. It requires expertise in sketching, modelling and prototyping touchpoints familiar from user interface design, informed by research into people’s ways of doing things, capabilities and needs and the organizational capabilities and processes required. The value co-creating system requires expertise more usually associated with managers such as organizational strategy, business modelling, operational process design and data analysis. It establishes what kinds of resources are available to combine into offerings (possibly as platform businesses), and how to gather and assess data to see if outcomes have been achieved. The socio-material configuration lens requires expertise in sociological and anthropological analysis that inquires into, rather than taking as given, the conditions which shape particular ways of doing things, knowing and being. The second two perspectives may seem to complicate and unreasonably expand the contemporary designer’s role beyond areas in which he/she is comfortable or feels empowered. So designers will need to decide which lens they want to deploy and which expertise is required to design a service.

6.5 Conclusion This chapter started with a casual inquiry at a party which – based on our own experiences – highlights many of the complexities and uncertainties of contemporary design practice, in particular service design. We offered three ways of grappling with the object of service design, none of which is definitive or exclusive. The first, the service encounter, originates in services marketing and user experience design. Its analytical gaze zooms in close to the experiences of the users of a service and also those involved in delivering it such as employees but also others in their worlds. With its emphasis on the material and digital touchpoints and scripts within which experiences come into existence, the service encounter is familiar to designers. The second, the value co-creating system, is also shaped by management fields especially strategy, marketing and operations. This approach emphasizes the exchanges through which actors in a service value constellation co-create value together by combining bundles of resources into offerings. The object of design here is less easy to grasp, as it involves multiple actors in multiple locations whose mutual interactions dynamically constitute a service. The third approach, the socio-material configuration, adds further complexity by attending to the ways that actors are mutually constituted and through their co-articulation with social practices and institutions come to have agency and capabilities. Here the emphasis is on acknowledging the messy realities shaping service encounters and how outcomes are achieved. Through a discussion of Airbnb, we brought these different perspectives to life to highlight what comes into view when applying these different analytical lenses. Although the resulting triad is of course a simplification, it offers a provisional answer

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to the question of what is the object of service design. With each lens on the object of service design comes particular ways of thinking about what a service is made up of. Each has a different range of accountabilities within its cosmology. Time is constructed in different ways through each lens and the politics of what matters and to whom is also distinct. Finally, the three lenses require different kinds of expertise in doing the work of service design. In short, each lens on the object of service design constitutes a different kind of service design. Our analysis suggests it’s no longer enough to say ‘I design services’. Instead, a designer should articulate what kind of object she is designing, a conceptualization which then shapes how she goes about her work. Our arguments might be a bit long-winded to use at parties, but we hope they have helped readers understand why a simple answer is so difficult to provide.

Note 1

Arduino is an open source toolkit and software and hardware platform that people can use to integrate computation into objects, for example by programming microcontrollers that control sensors or actuators.

References Airbnb (2016), Available online: https://www.airbnb.co.uk/about/about-us (accessed 15 May 2016). Akama, Y. and Prendville, A. (2013), ‘Embodying, Enacting and Entangling Design: A Phenomenological View to Co-designing Services’, Swedish Design Research Journal 1 (13): 29–40. Barad, K. (1998), ‘Getting Real: Technoscientific Practices and the Materialization of Reality’, Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 10 (2): 88–128. Barad, K. (2003), ‘Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter’, Signs 28 (3): 801–31. Bitner, M. J. (1992), ‘Servicescapes: The Impact of Physical Surroundings on Customers and Employees’, Journal of Marketing 56 (2): 57–71. Bitner, M. J., Boons, B. and Tereault, M. S. (1990), ‘The Service Encounter: Diagnosing Favourable and Unfavourable Incidents’, Journal of Marketing 54 (1): 71–84. Bitner, M. J., Faranda, W. T., Hubbert, A. R. and Zeithaml, V. A. (1997), ‘Customer Contributions and Roles in Service Delivery’, International Journal of Service Industry Management 8 (3): 193–205. Bitner, M.J., Ostrom, A. and Morgan, F. (2008), ‘Service Blueprinting: A Practical Technique for Service Innovation’, California Management Review 50 (3): 66–94 Blomberg, J. (2009), ‘On Participation and Service Innovation’, in T. Binder, J. Löwgren, and L. Malmborg, (eds), (Re-)Searching a Digital Bauhaus, 121–44. Springer. Blomberg, J. and Darrah, C. (2015), ‘Toward an Anthropology of Services’, The Design Journal 18 (2): 171–92. Blomberg, J. and Darrah, C. (2015), An Anthropology of Services: Toward a Practice Approach to Designing Services. San Rafael: Morgan and Claypool.



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7 Breaking free from NSD: Design and service beyond new service development Stefan Holmlid, Katarina Wetter-Edman and Bo Edvardsson

7.1 Introduction In a panel conversation at the QUIS conference in Karlstad in 2014, Steve Vargo suggested that design, under a service dominant logic, is to service what invention is to product development. That is, design is contributing in early stages of service development and innovation with concepts and ideas, but not in later stages of service development and realization processes. This is just one example of recent debates on whether there is a lack of implementation of outcomes of service design. Two notions seem to set design in a service context at a disadvantage in relation to implementation, imposing barriers to the deployment of service design, as a practice for service organization’s transformations. The first notion sets normative models in the area of new service development (NSD) as the ‘best practice’ from which service design should be defined. The second notion defines service in material terms, defining the type of outcomes sought from design work. To dismantle the barriers, and to be regarded as more than a practice of invention, service design needs to go beyond the frames of new service development. This implies using service logic as a foundation, where co-creation of value occurs by actors together using known and accessible resources; the actors configure the integration of resources. Service design can thus embrace advanced views of service as configurations of resource integration.

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In this chapter we will first identify some of the limitations of NSD in relation to design, followed by suggesting a contemporary perspective based on service logic, where resource integration and systemic efforts of configuring resource integration are central, illustrated by two short examples. We will then end up by discussing some of the implications for designing when starting out with a resource integration perspective that goes beyond the limits of NSD.

7.2 The limits of new service development Over the years NSD, has been regarded as a sibling to new product development (NPD). Both refer to a process view of developing a service or a product, often described with a set of predefined phases, and a linear view of progressing through these phases. Although typically being based on analyses of historically successful service development processes and defined from a management perspective, the NSD models have been heralded as normative process models to be used for future development projects (see for example Biesman et al. 2015, for an overview). The various models propose procedures and methods for the systematic development of new services (see Figure 7.1). One main idea behind these models is that by undertaking a detailed documentation of project flows, project structures and project responsibilities, the project development is supported with planning, management and monitoring (see

FIGURE 7.1  Comparison of selected process models for new service development (Source: Meiren, Edvardsson et al. 2015, paper presented at the Naples Forum)



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for example Scheuing and Johnston 1989; Ramaswamy 1996; Alam 2002; Ginn and Varner 2003; Sakao and Shimomura 2007). The process models depicted in Figure 7.1 are all sequential in nature and describe a range of high-level activities, from the development and design to the launch of a new service on a market. Often in models of this kind there is an assumption that what is defined as an outcome of one phase frames what can be achieved in the next phase, and that process control leads to control over outcomes. In relation to design, these models have at least four limitations: 1 Sequential descriptions that do not reflect the character of service: Several

of these models assume that service is the sum of the service concept, the service process, and the service system (Edvardsson 1997). It is moreover assumed that the service concept and the service system can be designed and developed in a NSD process, whereas the service process can only be described. 2 Non-contextual processes, although service is highly contextual: Meiren

et al. (2015) notices that these normative models suggest that the same sequential process can be applied to a wide range of NSD projects, ‘implicitly claiming that one single process fits to all kinds of services’ (ibid.: 7). That is, there is no explicit attention paid to the genre or context of service that the NSD process is applied to, to the degrees of newness of the envisioned service, to the complexity of the development and implementation, nor to the consonance or dissonance of intentions among the actors involved. 3 Technical use of design: As can be seen in the overview in Figure 7.1 ‘design’

sometimes has been included, and most often in the concept development phase of the NSD process, despite what is seen in recent examples of service design practice being used in the earlier phases of idea generation and analysis. Meiren et al. (2015) confirms in their empirical study that ‘design’ in NSD often refers to the more technical design rather than the conceptual. If one is merely looking for the term, design is mentioned in some of the models but its understanding and meaning vary and the use of design is not grounded in design theory. In most NSD models, design is a step or phase in the later part of a larger development process, as part of defining the service and concluding the NSD process. In this late phase of NSD service design, then, is assumed to provide detailed answers to the ‘how’, ‘what’, and ‘who’ of the service. ‘Design’ in NSD seems to be producing the details of a defined service, close to what ‘engineering design’ or ‘styling’ does in NPD, immediately before implementing the service. 4 Conservative conceptualization of service and design: Using ‘best-practice’-

based case studies as a fundament for how future development processes should work imposes unnecessary conservative structures. For example, historically design has not been an articulated part of service development

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and innovation, and service has not been an area of interest for designers. This means that the ‘best practice’ NSD process descriptions lack advanced understanding of design as well as service design. In summary, when using the models, the limitations are based on a set of assumptions that create barriers for good design in service development. One such barrier is that the models assume that the earlier in the process, the larger the influence can be on what is developed and how development is being done. Within interaction design, there have been parallels to this, and also ideas on how to come to terms with it (see for example Markensten 2005; Lantz and Holmlid 2010). A second barrier is that the models assume an internal goods-logic, meaning that it is expected that design defines service in material terms, assuming that outcomes of design within the NSD process can be specified and controlled throughout that same process, and that this control is important. But defining ‘design’ as a phase in development processes obstructs the view of design as a way of working, and inhibits the use and potential of design in service development. However, design has, in the last forty years, been redefining its understanding of its core as well as its boundaries. Design is viewed as a way of working, where facilitation skills are as important as the ability to perform prototyping, where uncovering assumptions through material practices are as important as maintaining empathy in teams. This way of working is based on knowledge, attitude and skills, which are applied in many different contexts, in many different parts of development processes. There is a need to create another understanding of the relation between design, service development and implementation. Taking a perspective that is based on more advanced conceptions of service, as well as of design, would be one way forward. In practice, we see how this is already happening. In the following section we will interpret the development and implementation of service when described through a service logic perspective, to then discuss how it opens up for designing for service through reconfigurations, and what possible consequences there are of this beyond the limits of NSD:

7.3 Opening up to a service logic If service is described as actors that integrate resources to systemically create values and outcomes, from a system perspective these are configurations of resource integration. Such an articulation corresponds to service logic (Grönroos 2008; Grönroos and Voima 2013) as well as service-dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch 2008). The development of a service can then be described as reconfigurations. In such a view, actors, resources, values, outcomes and acts of resource integration are systemically intertwined. Service logic could be used to frame service development in such a manner. Activities of actors with physical or digital resources are then central to a service.



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FIGURE 7.2  Service as a configuration of resource integration components; actors, resources, values, outcomes and systemic bonds These are arranged in configurations of resource integration activities forming a service system (Figure 7.2). When highlighting that the actors are knowledgeable and resourceful, using a situated cognition perspective (Lave and Wenger 1991), a service system can, as a complement, be described as a configuration of coordinated or collaborating practices. In these views, the resources and the values do not exist until the actors have integrated resources; resources and value are ‘becoming’. This suggests that the final design for a service can be described as an act by the participating actors in resource integration; that is, the final design is done in co-creation over time while the service is happening. A new service will then be a new reconfiguration of actors, resources, the systemic bonds, etc. and thus it implies the change of practices. Preparing for implementation of such a reconfiguration may consist of developing new technology support, reorganization, changing physical structures, creating new agreements with other organizations, changing how customers participate in the service, making information material, setting up training programmes, etc. Only focusing on creating the best customer experience is not enough, nor to define a new customer journey. Below we explore how design can work with resource integration, through actors exploring existing configurations, or through reconfiguring constellations of resource integration, through the use of two small examples.

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7.3.1 Exploring existing configurations of resource integration Given that actors are driving resource integration in service systems, one startingpoint would be the actors themselves, what they do and how they understand each other and their specific situations. An example of this can be seen in everyday operations in healthcare processes. This is the context for the service design-based ‘Patient Journey Project’ initiated at the County Council of Värmland, run by the embedded design centre Experio Lab and supported by the design agency Veryday. The purpose was to shed light on the carecoordination process including the extended aim to initiate a transformation towards an organization having the patients’ focus at heart. Within healthcare processes, resource integration takes place continuously within and across organizational borders but there is seldom time to reflect upon this and even less time to engage in potential changes; that is, there is little time to engage in reconfigurations of resource integration. Actors, such as healthcare personnel, interact with artefacts and digital systems with the purpose to achieve a specific desired outcome from an organizational perspective. However, if this is actually what is wanted and desired from the patients’ perspective is less known. Having the patients’ focus implies seeing the patient as a co-creator in the care processes, not as a passive receiver. New approaches for understanding the patients within the healthcare sector is necessary to create solutions reducing costs while achieving efficiency, engagement and better overall value delivery. The Patient Journey Project took place over eight weeks in autumn 2013 and involved twenty-nine stakeholders that directly and indirectly influence the patient journey in separate areas. An essential part of building each journey involved re-enactment and documentation from the viewpoint of the patient. In the re-enactments, one person acted as the patient, the others filmed, observed and took notes. The person acting as the patient was given some physical attributes such as for example foggy-glasses and earplugs to alter their perceptions, and a case-file based on a proper patient case. What happened in this explorative process was that the employees were given time and opportunity to experience and reflect upon where skills and professions met while being in a patient’s position. The experience consisted of long waiting times, as well as the repetitive questions about personal data at each new encounter. In other words, the experience was built on how resource integration was carried through in practice. The participants were experiencing this from an individual actor’s position by taking on the perspective of the patient, as well as from an organizational perspective when reflecting on the experience together with peers. Thus the employees scrutinized what worked and what didn’t work – in effect, situations that were perceived as value creating vs situations that were not. As a straightforward example of how actors involved in a service can uncover how resource integration works in a service, it also gives an indication that the designers’ role in the process was to stage a learning process. Other developers than the service



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designers may well identify how resource reconfigurations could or should be done based on this. In the preparation work on how to identify these situations, designers will be one of many practices whose knowledge should be integrated into development processes. When making the actual reconfigurations, however, the role of designers is not as evident since the change needs to be made by actors, and a wide array of practices, within the organizations.

7.3.2 Reconfiguring constellations of resource integration Another way forward is to look for and work with constellations in the resource integration system. These constellations may be dynamic, but are often exhibited or described as patterns. With constellations, aspects such as collaboration and coordination between and within constellations become matters to work with. The project ‘Make it work’, a project run in Sunderland City, serves as a good example of this. The project was commissioned by One Northeast, to tackle challenges for unemployed people to find employment (Han 2010). It was discovered in the project that there existed a plethora of initiatives and support for unemployed, but that coordination and collaboration between the different organizations and processes was very low, resulting in confusion from the perspective of an unemployed person. By engaging more than 200 different people, the participants identified what the different organizations were doing, what competence and capacities they were holding, and how they together could work as a joint service system for the benefit of unemployed. That is, they were engaged in articulating and identifying how constellations could be reconfigured to reach desired values and outcomes. Service design in this case directed a process where knowledge and experiences from across the service system was activated. A joint service system, or a framework if you will, was then generated within which each organization played a specific part, and the development projects to achieve the reconfiguration were very diverse.

7.3.3 Implications for designing and service Regardless whether we take the perspective of the actors or the constellations, the relation between a design concept and an implementation of a new service is a question of how designers take responsibility by participating and contributing as a practice in change processes. To accomplish this, service designers engage with other relevant practices, not by focusing on delivering a specification, as it would be expected from traditional sequential NSD processes, but by integrating with a set of different practices along a development process. A consequence of this is that the question whether service design outcomes have been implemented or not cannot be based on whether or not a reconfiguration of actors and constellations of resource integration has resemblance to an earlier suggested design concept. We instead suggest that successful implementation should be judged by analysing the role and

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integration with which service designing has been part of the many processes leading to the actual reconfiguration. From a service logic and resource integration perspective, design is continuously ongoing, at least in service organizations. The final design is an act by the participating actors in resource integration; that is, the final design is done in co-creation over time while the service is happening. To achieve this, the service ‘owners’ also need to own the reconfiguration process in order to ensure that the reconfiguration will be goal driven (e.g. Malmberg and Holmlid 2014, 2015; Sangiorgi 2011; Sangiorgi et al. 2015). In such a reconfiguration process they will work with knowledge integration and skills from several different practices and professions. Design is one of those professions, and some of the skills and knowledge that are often attributed as ‘designerly’ are also being part of other professions and practices (Söderlund 2008; Markensten 2005). These remarks highlight a set of issues regarding design and service. Design needs to be made part of the strategic and daily management of the service organization itself (Junginger 2009, 2014; Holmlid 2008; Malmberg and Holmlid 2015). Design is an embedded practice in the daily service context as well as in the context of service development projects: the degree to which it is made explicit in the practices of the actors differs between contexts and organizations. This supports earlier findings (Holmlid et al. 2015; Wetter-Edman et al. 2014) that design should not be viewed as an activity or a practice only in the development projects, but also as an activity in change and reconfiguration processes leading to service implementation, as well as an ongoing activity in service. It seems likely that, in the longer run, while service design matures, we will see, and probably already are seeing, an evolution where there will develop more specialized design practices, just as in other design contexts. Some designers will be in the insight business, others in the service concept development business, yet others will be working with understanding daily design work in the service company.

7.4 Beyond the limitations In light of this, would it be fair to say that Steve Vargo is correct when he says that service design is invention, and that service design is not contributing to implementation of services? As long as designers and service design relate to NSD from within, this is true. Some designers would still claim that they are doing service innovation through design. However, insight work and ideation are not innovation in itself, but contributes as part of the invention work that is needed to achieve innovation in the end. Breaking free from NSD, through service logic, instead turns design into a premise for new service development, and therefore should be viewed as a central practice in any service organization. When starting to view service as configurations of resource integration, designing for service can easily go beyond the limits of what new service development expects.



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Instead of focusing on the tangible or experiential parts of the service, mostly as part of what Grönroos and Voima (2013) calls the ‘joint value creation sphere’, and taking what service designers typically deliver – customer journeys, touchpoint descriptions, service evidence definitions, etc. – at face value, what service design could focus on is what precedes and what is reflected in using these deliverables, and make the knowledge of the development work behind these deliverables valuable to service organizations. Through the lens of service logic we can articulate some of the consequences of working with reconfigurations of resource integration. This perspective opens up for design to work with reconfiguring power between actors, as well as with empowerment through design processes and development of resources. It opens up for design to work with reconfiguring initiative between actors, as well as timing of how resources are made available and who makes them available. It opens up for design to work with the knowledge of actors and how different practices integrate to achieve outcomes and results, as well as activating the knowledge and experience of different actors in design processes and making them count. It opens up for expanding towards not only customer or user experience, but also value and quality in use, as well as outcomes. It opens up for being an actor in learning processes, rather than making deliverables of a material nature. In summary, this requires service design to focus more on empowerment of actors and amplification of valuable resource integration, and to view the formal organizations in a service system, not as solution providers, but as solution facilitators, where the outcomes and values in and of the resource integration configurations are the solutions that actors are looking for. When acting in such a manner, design may gain a less marginalized position in service development and service innovation

References Alam, I. (2002) ‘An Exploratory Investigation of User Involvement in New Service Development’, Journal of Academy of Marketing Science 30 (3): 250–61. Edvardsson, B. (1997), ‘Quality in New Service Development: Key Concepts and a Frame of Reference’, International Journal of Production Economics 52 (1–2): 31–46. Ginn, D. and Varner, E. (2003), Design for Six Sigma Memory Jogger, GOAL/QPC. Grönroos, C. (2008), ‘Service Logic Revisited: Who Creates Value? And Who Co-creates?’, European Business Review 20 (4): 298–314. Grönroos, C. and Voima, P. (2013), ‘Critical Service Logic: Making Sense of Value Creation and Co-creation’, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 41 (2): 133–50. Han, Q. (2010), Practices and Principles in Service Design: Stakeholder, Knowledge and Community of Service, PhD thesis submitted at Dundee University. Available online: https://books.google.se/books?id=3D1PAwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=sv#v=on epage&q&f=false (accessed 7 October 2016). Holmlid, S. (2008), ‘Towards an Understanding of the Challenges for Design Management and Service Design’. In Design Management Conference, Paris.

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Holmlid, S., Mattelmäki, T., Visser, F. S. and Vaajakallio, K. (2015), ‘Co-creative Practices in Service Innovation’, in The Handbook of Service Innovation, 545–74. London: Springer. Junginger, S. (2009), ‘Design in the Organization: Parts and Wholes’, Design Research Journal 2 (9): 23–9. Junginger, S. (2014), ‘Design Legacies: Why Service Designers are not able to Embed Design in the Organization’. In Conference Proceedings, 4th ServDes. Conference on Service Design and Innovation, 164–72. Lantz, A. and Holmlid, S. (2010), ‘Interaction Design in Procurement: The View of Procurers and Interaction Designers’, CoDesign International Journal of CoCreation in Design and the Arts 6 (1): 43–57. Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991), Situated Learning. Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press. Malmberg, L. and Holmlid, S. (2013), ‘Embedding Design Capacity in Research Driven Innovation Teams’, in Proceedings from Design-Driven Business Innovation, Tsinghua International Design Management Symposium (DMI and IEEE), 1–3 December Shenzhen. Malmberg, L. and Holmlid, S. (2014), ‘Effects of Approach and Anchoring when Developing Design Capacity in Public Sectors’, in E. Bohemia, A. Rieple, J. Liedtka and R. Cooper (eds), Design Management in an Era of Disruption: Proceedings of the 19th DMI: Academic Design Management Conference. Malmberg, L. and Holmlid, S. (2015), ‘How Design Game Results Can Be Further Developed For Public and Policy Organizations’, in 4th Participatory Innovation Conference PIN-C 2015, 76–82. Markensten, E. (2005), Mind the Gap: A procurement Approach to Integrating User-Centred Design in Contract Development. Stockholm: Licentiate thesis, Royal Institute of Technology. Meiren, T., Edvardsson, B., Jaakkola, E., Khan, I., Reynoso, J., Schäfer, A., Sebastiani, R., Weitlaner, D. and Witell L. (2015), ‘Derivation of a Service Typology and its Implications for New Service Development’. Available online: http://www.naplesforumonservice.it/ (accessed 7 October 2016). Meroni A. and Sangiorgi D. (2011), Design for Services. Aldershot: Gower. Ramaswamy, R. (1996), Design and Management of Service Processes. Reading: Addison-Wesley. Sakao, T. and Shimomura, Y. (2007), ‘Service Engineering: A Novel Engineering Discipline for Producers to Increase Value Combining Service and Product’, Journal of Cleaner Production 15 (6): 590–604. Sangiorgi, D. (2011), ‘Transformative Services and Transformation Design’, International Journal of Design 5 (2): 29–40. Sangiorgi, D., Prendiville, A., Jung, J. and Yu, E. (2015), Design for Service Innovation & Development. Final report from DeSID project. Available online: http://imagination. lancs.ac.uk/sites/default/files/outcome_downloads/desid_report_2015_web.pdf (accessed 29 October 2016). Scheuing, E. and Johnson, E. (1989), ‘A Proposed Model for New Service Development’, Journal of Service Marketing 3 (2): 25–34. Söderlund, J. (2008), ‘Competence Dynamics and Learning Processes in Projectbased Firms: Shifting, Adapting and Leveraging,’ International Journal of Innovation Management Volume 12 (1): 41–67. Vargo, S. L. and Lusch, R. F. (2008), ‘Service-dominant Logic: Continuing the Evolution,’ Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 36 (1): 1–10 Wetter-Edman, K., Sangiorgi, D., Edvardsson, B., Holmlid, S., Grönroos, C. and Mattelmäki, T. (2014), ‘Design for Value Co-Creation: Exploring Synergies Between Design for Service and Service Logic,’ Service Science 6 (2): 106–21.

8 Designing on the spikes of injustice: Representation and co-design Katie Collins, Mary Rose Cook and Joanna Choukeir

Do not trust elitist versions of history and science, which respond to dominant interests, but be receptive to counter-narratives and try to recapture them. (FALS-BORDA 1995: 1)

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s co-authors with different disciplinary backgrounds, we found that our disparate worlds collide in 1969 when Sherry Arnstein, who worked for the US department of health, education and welfare, published the article ‘A Ladder of Citizen Participation’. This article conceptualized the ways in which the public can be involved with decisionmaking in the form of a ‘ladder’ with different levels of participation as ‘rungs’. This concept has proved very influential upon much of the thinking and action on the subject of public/citizen participation within the UK government. The 1990s, era of New Labour and ‘Cool Britannia’, were witness to the rising popularity of participation as a method of enhancing service delivery and increasing public involvement in decision making (Barnes 1997), with much effort and creativity put into developing methods for participation like resident forums, stakeholder workshops and visioning exercises (Stoker 2006). Collaborative ways of working like these have become known in some circles as co-design, which ‘shifts the balance from designer as judge, arbiter and auteur to designer as guide, facilitator and producer’ (Billings 2011: 18). In this chapter, we seek to problematize this participatory practice of co-design in

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the contemporary public sector by exploring the ways in which it offers designers knowledge about the people for whom they are designing; in other words, its role as a method of user representation. Thinking of co-design this way allows us to explore the underlying assumptions that may also inform a service design process: positivist notions of representativeness, the constructionist perspectives that often underpin methods like design ethnography, and critical participatory practices. We begin with some background to these different interpretations of representation, exploring representativeness and constructionist perspectives as distinct from the explicitly critical underpinnings of participation. Next, we explain the ways in which the rhetoric of participation has been adopted by the UK public sector, including some of the ways in which the market-driven rationality that accompanies it can present issues for the designer. To illustrate why we are concerned about the risks of an overly pragmatic, operationalized interpretation of participation in service design, we offer a rich historical excursus of participation’s radical roots in international development and critical pedagogy as well as antecedents closer to home, like the participatory design emerging from Scandinavia. In the final sections, we return to Arnstein to explain the dangers we perceive in uncritical acceptance of the ‘horses for courses’ pragmatism that underpins much of the seminal literature about participation in the design for services, concluding with a call for designers to prioritize critical reflexivity in their practice and to advocate for sufficient time and flexibility for participation. Thus, designers can equip themselves with the means to resist tokenistic or manipulative uses of participation. Our critique originates in attempting to merge the practical and pragmatic experience of two of the authors working in the UK public sector and the conceptual work of another influenced by the more critical (and perhaps idealistic) critique of participatory rhetoric that has emerged from development studies.

8.1 What is representation? In the simplest possible terms, representation is the way in which people and their lived experiences are depicted, whether artistically, linguistically or in a social research report. In the context of research, it’s also relevant to consider what claims are being made about the truthfulness and objectivity of the representations, and how those claims are supported. There are different ways of looking at the ways users are represented in the design for services, and one way of distinguishing between different approaches is to group them using the positivist, constructionist and critical paradigms (Lincoln et al. 2011). The notion of representativeness draws heavily upon conventionally positivist assumptions about objectivity; for example, does the sample of users represent adequately the demographic profile of the population that will be using the service, or will the insights the designer gains be skewed? Have questions been framed correctly, or will they lead to bias or error in analysis? These are the considerations



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that would underpin a typical social research report that might be commissioned by a service provider. Conversely, reacting against ‘the indignity of speaking for others’ (Foucault and Deleuze 1980), acknowledging that it is never possible to fully, accurately, objectively represent someone else’s lived experience – in anthropology this epiphany was styled the ‘crisis of representation’ (Said 1989) – led to other ways of thinking about what we might claim when people are represented. This type of representational practice, which can be described as construction of meaning, is concerned with the ways in which people can be depicted linguistically, symbolically and aesthetically (Hall et al. 2013); with how we as designers and researchers turn knowledge into insights, weaving those into the design process (e.g. see Uhn 2013), and acknowledging our own part in shaping this interpretative process. In practice, this may not look much different to the processes and techniques underpinned by representativeness; but the designer who believes that objective representation is not possible, and potentially even oppressive, will adopt a different sort of reflection and way of judging the information created by these processes. In particular, they will be committed to careful and sustained reflection on their positionality, and to the ways in which the power dynamics of a specific process or context might serve to privilege some voices and silence others. For example, two of the authors conducted research into parents’ awareness, understanding and behaviour towards supporting the early development of their children under five. The aim was to inform the development of early learning services that parents could use in the convenience of their own homes. The commissioner – an organization that delivers a number of children’s centre services across the UK on behalf of local authorities – was interested in informing an alternative, more costeffective and more scalable service, particularly for parents who do not currently engage with children’s centres for, at the time, unknown reasons. We conducted design ethnographic research (Barab et al. 2004) with nine families across three geographic areas. Synthesis of the qualitative data gathered from interviews revealed a segmentation of four types of families. This may not be representative of all families with young children across the UK, yet it constructed meaning that was true to the realities of the nine families who participated, with logical transferability across other families. Accordingly, designers decided to focus on the families with the greatest need, and who would most benefit from an alternative service when sustaining further participation to inform the co-design process. However ultimately, it was those ‘shortlisted’ families who were most confident, interested and available to continue their participation in the project (e.g. by attending workshops and testing service ideas in their own homes), who ended up being the most vocal and instrumental in shaping and influencing the new early home learning service. We are not arguing that a deliberate decision was made to focus on the most vocal families over those who may be less engaged, or that the wrong group was represented; rather we are attempting to highlight the issue that however carefully and thoughtfully the designer plans the process, constraints of time and resource exist and these can present the designer with a difficult set of options. They can go ahead with confident and easier to reach

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volunteers and achieve their goals on time and budget, or take the extra time (and risk) of attempting to engage with those who would never normally participate, but without whom the process cannot be as representative as a commitment to epistemic justice (Fricker 2011) would hold as the ideal. Recognizing that representation is a process of constructing meaning has some links into the practice of co-design, which seeks to involve users throughout the service design process. In some senses, users become self-representing in a collaborative meaning-making process between themselves and the designer. However, there is a distinct difference between co-design as practised in much of the UK public sector, and participation as envisaged by the upper rungs of Arnstein’s ladder. Due to this radical heritage (which we will explain later in the chapter), we argue that this sort of power devolving participation can fit with what has been termed the critical paradigm, underpinned by historical and materialist points of view and concerned with emancipation from oppression. Before we go into some depth on participation’s radical heritage, in the next section we provide some background to its contemporary application in the UK public sector, including an example of some of the ways in which it can be constrained.

8.2 Participation in service design The practice of involving users throughout the design process is well established (Marmot 2010; Dubberly et al. 2010; Needham and Carr 2009; Russell-Bennett 2012) and similar ideas are woven through a variety of fields in the social and health sciences, such as education (Kemmis and McTaggart 2005); community development (Fals-Borda and Rahman 1991; El-Askari et al.1998; Kretzman and McKnight 1996; Sharpe et al. 2000) management (Arvidsson 2008); theology (Berryman 1987); international development (Chambers 1997; Hickey and Mohan 2005); social psychology (Fine 2006; Fine and Torre 2006); criminology (O’Neill 2012; O’Neill et al. 2005); geography (Cahill 2007; Cahill et al. 2007; Kesby 2005; Kindon et al. 2007); and health (Tritter and McCallum 2006; Israel et al. 1998; Cornwall and Jewkes 1995; Khanlou 2010). There are many advantages in adopting a participatory approach to service design, including the potential for innovation (Heinelt and Smith 2003; Schmitter 2002) and sustainability (Caddy 2005; Department for Business Innovation and Skills 2008). Currently in the UK public sector, commissioners frequently specify some form of collaboration or user involvement when briefing designers. But all too often in the experience of practicing designers, the work needs to happen according to a schedule that would be feasible if the designers were working solo, but not when they have to factor in the practicalities of participation, such as identifying people to approach, designing methods to engage them, securing their commitment, designing methods to ensure maximum participation, and co-ordinating multiple people’s existing schedules and commitments. And because participation is time-consuming



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to manage, additional resources are required from either the commissioner or the designer (or both). For the project commissioner a leap of faith is required, as it is not possible to predict at the beginning what sort of outputs might result from the project. And thus, due to the commissioner’s desire to understand the likely outputs at an early stage, allied to scarcity of time and resources, participation can be scaled back to a relatively tokenistic level of input from the public, or to a consultation with ‘user’ representatives at key milestones throughout the work, rather than sharing or devolving power. In some cases, the solution can be as straightforward as pointing out the problem to a client, persuading or educating them, but we should acknowledge that things could be more complicated, if a public sector client is firmly wedded to the idea that they are the expert and those whom they regard as their service users are less qualified, there is then a direct conflict between the rhetoric of participation and how much a client is willing to take service users into the process as full participants. As a result, even if the designer is fully aware of participation’s critical underpinnings and the need for careful reflexivity, they may not be allowed the time, space or flexibility to act upon this understanding. One case for example involves a commissioner tasking one of the co-authors to conduct a participatory process, in order to inform the development of a happiness toolkit that would be distributed among Londoners to help improve their well-being. In this instance, the output has already been decided before the participation process had even begun: a happiness toolkit. During the project initiation phase, the designer underwent a lengthy and resource intensive process to negotiate a more ‘open’ and truly participatory brief with the commissioner. By the end of the process, the outputs included the much-anticipated happiness toolkit, but this was designed in the form of a pop-up public game supported with an engaging service and promotional campaign. This holistic solution was informed by participant recommendations, in order to enhance the sustainability, engagement and social impact of the toolkit as an output. To understand why these restrictions in resourcing matter, we should appreciate that the sort of participation Arnstein was advocating for was a political methodology of empowerment. It was subversive and revolutionary; a method developed to challenge power structures and make the world a better place. It wasn’t supposed to be a technique fitted into existing knowledge and political structures. The next section outlines some of the global antecedents of the participatory methods in use today, showing how they evolved from movements for social change, democracy and liberation.

8.3 Entwining strands The emergence of co-design in the 1990s can usefully be placed in a global context, situating the development of participatory praxis in a much broader socio-historical setting than the UK-centric story we’ve told so far. We suggest that it is important to incorporate this legacy of critical practice from different disciplines into the service

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design literature, and seek to begin this process here. The 1990s were also the point at which many development organizations – including USAID (Atwood 1993) and the World Bank (Aycrigg 1998) – adopted participatory principles officially. Around the same time, geo-political changes such as the demise of various totalitarian regimes, including the ending of apartheid, led to increasing interest in the concept of civil society (De Oliveira and Tandon 1994). But the roots of participation stretch back many years, beginning with what Tandon (2008) calls ‘subaltern practices of community organizing’ (p. 285) expressed through art, music, poetry and drama. In the early twentieth century, such ‘subaltern’ movements attracted the notice of management theorists, resulting in initiatives like the Hawthorne studies (Roethlisberger and Dickson 1939) and work with British coal miners (Mayo 1933), which are regarded as very early examples of politically engaged research. However, by far the most significant influence on the story of participation, according to Tandon, is the phenomenon of international development. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, a top-down approach dominated development practice, with little regard for, or indeed awareness of, subaltern community practices. In the late 1960s and 1970s however, development organizations began to wake up to the potential of participation, prompted by mounting concern over the exploitations practised in the name of the top-down development model. Contemporaneously in the UK public sector, the practice of working with the public was emerging in urban and architectural design and planning (Driskell 2002; King et al. 1989); and in Scandinavia, the practice of participatory design focused on systems knowledge, overcoming resistance to change and increased democracy in the workplace (Gregory 2003). Two more strands are knitted into the fabric of our story here: the first is the critical pedagogy movement spearheaded by philosopher-activists Paulo Freire, Myles Horton and Julius Nyerere, whose ideas have been linked with those of Gandhi (Tandon 2008; Narayan 2000). Paulo Freire (1921–97), probably the best known of the three, was born in Recife, Brazil, to a middle-class family. The economic crisis of 1929 plunged his family into extreme poverty, forcing him to gain first-hand experience of the ‘plight of the wretched of the earth’ (Shaull 2005: 30). Freire taught at secondary school, studied law and philosophy, and engaged in activism related to worker rights. It was through his activism that he began to realize that oppressed people understood the world via their own language, ‘the language of the people’ (Freire 1970: 96). As a Professor of Educational Philosophy he sought to inspire his students to learn this language and to view their research as part of an educational movement towards emancipation, in order to overcome a culture of silence that maintains an unfair status quo. Freire has been called an ‘anthropological educator’ (McKenna 2013: 448); his method involves ethnographic-like work to understand a community, their language and what is important to them, which becomes the basis for critical dialogue and social transformation. Freire’s critical pedagogy (1970), along with the people-centred philosophies of the other pioneers, were significant influences in the development of methods like Participatory Rural Appraisal in the late 1980s (Tandon 2008; Chambers 1997). The second strand attended to structural dimensions, highlighting incompatibilities between the legacy



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of colonial systems designed to control the masses, and the relatively recent goal of facilitating participation among the poor. An example of this approach can be found in the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development’s (UNRISD) Popular Participation programme. By the mid-1980s, considerable effort was being expanded to include ‘beneficiaries’ (Tandon 2008: 289) in the conception of programmes, particularly in relation to health, education and the management of natural resources.

8.4 Whose participation is it anyway? What we have shown so far is that participation as a form of representation can be understood as a critical practice underpinned by a politically radical heritage, and therefore at its core should be confronting unfairness and inequality. In other words, it is cultivated on the spikes of injustice (Fine 2006), and as such should seek to give voice to those service users who are typically marginalized, both generally by the society they live in and by the design process. But as we suggested earlier in the chapter, in practice in the UK public sector, attempts to foster participation can end up as tokenistic gestures that are closer to positivist notions of representativeness. On a number of projects, the co-authors have experienced a stronger interest from commissioners in viewing and signing off the ‘long list’ of service users engaged in a design process, and how well they represented the wider user group demographically or situationally, than in the nature of the contributions these users have made to the service being designed through participatory approaches. A commonly deployed tactic underpinned by such assumptions is to identify types of ‘stakeholders’ whose views are assumed to represent other users with similar characteristics (Cornwall 2008). Such pre-defined groupings might take the form of a kind of segmentation, using age, gender, ethnicity, the part of a city in which one lives, the voluntary organization to which one belongs, or other apparently relevant ways of delineating. For example, local government in the UK is bounded by units of spatial organization like Wards and Super Output Areas (ONS 2011), and will use socio-geographical data like Local Alcohol Profiles (LAPE 2013) and the Index of Multiple Deprivation (DCLG 2015) to make decisions about targeting service provision and intervention. The segmentation of parents discussed at the beginning of this chapter is one such example of pre-defined groupings. Sometimes, such stakeholders are chosen by default: the people who are willing to join in activities and attend meetings are the ones who end up representing others. But categories imposed by researchers or designers, while they might seem sensible and neutral, scientific even, and can certainly be useful, can replicate existing power dynamics rather than challenge them. It is risky to assign objective representational power to apparently self-explanatory, ‘ready to wear’ characteristics (Robertson 2002: 788). Those people we place into certain categories for particular purposes of our own, such as ‘young people’ or ‘women’ or ‘people from a deprived neighbourhood’, may not see themselves and their lives in

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the way researchers, designers and commissioners might. Perhaps an older person feels more affinity with their family of varying ages than with their contemporaries; or a resident of a particular neighbourhood finds their priorities chime more closely with their work colleagues across the city than with the people who live in their building, for instance. Some of the parenting segments we described earlier are ‘unaware’ and ‘unskilled’ in early child development but only from the perspective of early learning experts. From their own perspective, they are trying to do the best that they can for their children, within the knowledge and resources they have available to them, and the often-challenging lifestyles that they lead. Therefore, their sense of self might be completely different to the role they are being asked to perform as representatives (Cornwall 2008). And, probably more significantly, services are often about solving problems, and when people are conceptualized as representing those with ‘problems’ or ‘areas of need’ this can distort their identity, their ‘public self’ (Harvey 1999) in ways that make it harder for their voices fully to be heard. It is however necessary to understand the context of public sector organizations from a systemic point of view. They are all required, as part of the legislative system, to include an element of participation and engagement in the design or iteration of public services. From having worked with over a hundred public sector organizations in the past ten years, two of the co-authors have experienced the challenges to participatory practice from the commissioner’s perspective: budgets are tight and expectations are high, there is a lack of knowledge and understanding of what good looks like when it comes to public participation, and many commissioners feel pressured in their role to simply ensure that boxes are ticked, not out of lack of responsibility or passion for the project at hand, rather due to growing commissioning requirements, checklists, logistics and criteria they are required to navigate. Despite these arguments, according to one of the seminal publications in the public sector (Involve 2005), operating at the lower rungs of Arnstein’s ladder in this way is not necessarily an issue. In fact, the report’s authors reject normative typologies like those proposed by Arnstein, Pretty (1995) and White (1996), claiming instead that there are not necessarily ‘good’ or ‘bad’ sorts of participatory practice, merely that different levels of participation are more or less appropriate in different situations. They recommend as an alternative the sorts of pragmatic typology that David Wilcox has termed ‘horses for courses’. But it seems to us that most of what Arnstein wanted to say about participation has been neutralized by this process of adoption (or what some might regard as co-option) by the public sector. In sympathy with Freire’s aims for radical social transformation, Arnstein sought to define citizen participation as citizen power, not as a process for consultation, innovation or enhanced effectiveness. She wanted the ‘have-not’ citizens to be included in the political and economic process, to have them join in the decisions of governance, to, as she writes, ‘share in the benefits of the affluent society’ (p. 216). She illustrates the emptiness of participation without redistribution of power with a poster created in 1968 by French students to explain the student-worker rebellion, which translates as ‘I participate, you participate, he participates, we participate, you participate … they profit.’ This is, perhaps, the ‘dark side’ of



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using participatory techniques, and is what Arnstein meant by naming the lower rungs on her ladder ‘manipulation’ and ‘therapy’. While there are notes of caution about an uncritical acceptance of a rhetoric that tells us any participation is inherently superior to none (Involve 2005; Newman 2001), this critique appears largely absent from the pragmatic approach to participation set out by experts like Wilcox and Involve, which makes little room for an adequately critical analysis of what the power to represent actually means.

8.5 Conclusions In this chapter, we have explored participation in the service design process as a representational practice that can usefully be compared to two other modes: positivistic representativeness and representation underpinned by an acknowledgement that meaning is always co-constructed and interpreted. We have styled participation as a critical practice rather than a purely interpretative one, and placed it in a historical context of radical thinkers who sought to undermine structures of domination and oppression through the legitimation of lives and voices that would not normally be invited to represent themselves. In such a context, we have shown that the pragmatism and constraint often imposed upon designers can be theoretically as well as practically problematic. There may be horses for courses in terms of different sorts of participatory practice, but in our experience, tokenistic or manipulative participation risks causing greater harm than no participation at all, because the designer implicitly promises users voice, equality, and the power to represent themselves and their communities. If participation’s implied promise is not kept in the eyes of the users, who have given time and energy to a process, the damage can be significant – particularly if the group of users is vulnerable or excluded. Overall, a designer managing and facilitating participatory processes has a challenging responsibility at hand. Most importantly, the designer should be aware and critical of the degree of participation both expected and permissible from commissioners (note here that participation expected and permissible may not sit at the same level), to negotiate a higher level of autonomy for users, to determine the goals and boundaries of participation, and for users’ own interpretations about their lives to be the ones that are privileged over the interpretations of others. Simultaneously, the designer would need to communicate to a commissioner that a leap of faith is necessary, as good practice in participation often yields unexpected outputs, which are often superior to underlying assumptions, and more effective in meeting the needs of service users. Finally, while service designers are equipped with valuable visual, communication, narration, and creative thinking to represent the under-represented imaginatively, and to amplify their voices, they should build into their own practices the time and space for critical reflection about these representations that they are crafting. Are the groupings and definitions chosen by the designer those that users would recognize,

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and would they use this language about themselves and their lives? A designer can and should resist pressure to include in their projects participation that they feel is overly rushed, tokenistic or simply for show. That is the responsibility of a designer transforming public services for, with, and by the people.

Acknowledgements Cat Drew at the Policy Lab

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Narayan, L. (2000), ‘Freire and Gandhi: Their Relevance for Social Work Education’, International Social Work 43 (2): 193–204. Needham, C. and Carr, S. (2009), ‘SCIE Research Briefing 31: Co-production: An Emerging Evidence base for Adult Social Care Transformation’, Policing 8 (11). Newman, J. (2001). Modernising Governance: New Labour, Policy and Society. London: Sage Publications. O’Neill, M. (2012), ‘Cultural Criminology and Sex Work: Resisting Regulation Through Radical Democracy and Participatory Action Research (PAR)’, Journal of Law and Society 37 (1): 210–32. O’Neill, M., Woods, P. A and Webster, M. (2005), ‘New Arrivals: Participatory Action Research, Imagined Communities, and “Visions” of Social Justice’, Social Justice 32(1) 75–88. Pretty, J. (1995), ‘Participatory Learning for Sustainable Agriculture’, World Development 23 (8): 1247–63. Robertson, J. (2002), ‘Reflexivity Redux: A Pithy Polemic on “Positionality”’, Anthropological Quarterly 75 (4): 785–92. Roethlisberger, F. J. and Dickson, W. J. (1939), Management and the Worker. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Russell-Bennett, R. (2012), ‘Service Business Approach’, Debate at European Social Marketing Conference, 27–28 November, Lisbon: European Social Marketing Association. Said, E. W. (1989), ‘Representing the Colonized: Anthropology’s Interlocutors’, Critical Inquiry 15: 205–25. Schmitter, R. (2002), Technical Outreach Services to Communities Scope of Work and Budget. Georgia Tech Research Institute. Sharpe, P. A., Greaney, M. L., Lee, P. R. and Royce, S. W. (2000), ‘Assets-oriented Community Assessment’, Public Health Reports 115 (2-3): 205–11. Shaull, R. (2005), ‘Foreword’, in P. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 29–34. London: Continuum. Stoker, G. (2006), Why Politics Matters: Making Democracy Work. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Sultana, F. (2007), ‘Reflexivity, Positionality and Participatory Ethics: Negotiating Fieldwork Dilemmas in International Research’, ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 6 (3): 374–85. Tandon, R. (2008), ‘Participation, Citizenship and Democracy: Reflections on 25 Years of PRIA’, Community Development Journal 43 (3): 284–96. Tritter, J. Q. and McCallum, A. (2006), ‘The Snakes and Ladders of User Involvement: Moving beyond Arnstein’, Health Policy 76 (2): 156–68. Uhn, P (2013), ‘Utopian Things’, in J. Donovan and W. Gunn (eds), Design and Anthropology. Farnham: Ashgate. White, Sarah C. (1996), ‘Depoliticising Development: The Uses and Abuses of Participation’, Development in Practice 6 (1): 6–15. Wilcox, D. (1994), The Guide to Effective Participation, available online: http://www. partnerships.org.uk/guide/index.htm (accessed 4 November 2015). LAPE (2013) Local Alcohol Profiles for England. http://www.lape.org.uk/data.html (accessed 6 May 2016). DCLG (2015) English Indices of Deprivation 2015, https://www.gov.uk/government/ statistics/english-indices-of-deprivation-2015 (accessed 6 May 2016). ONS (2011) Super Output Areas Explained. https://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/ HTMLDocs/nessgeography/superoutputareasexplained/output-areas-explained.htm (accessed 6 May 2016).

9 Co-design, organizational creativityand quality improvement in the healthcare sector: ‘Designerly’ or ‘design-like’? Glenn Robert and Alastair S. Macdonald

9.1 Introduction Co-creation, co-production, co-design: the last decade has seen a growing recognition of the importance of a more collective contribution from those who are both delivering and receiving any form of public service. Within the healthcare sector increasing adoption of co-design as a means of improving service quality is confronted by a predominantly positivist paradigm which relies upon objective (independent) scientific methods of inquiry, such as experiments and statistics. This has created tensions and a challenge for progressive design approaches. We highlight how – within this particular context – two forms of ‘designing’ have successfully created new conversation spaces between patients, carers and healthcare staff. The first we characterize as ‘designerly’ in that it sits squarely within the service design field: it is led by designers and is firmly rooted in participatory design and iterative prototyping. The second we term ‘design-like’ as – although drawing on design-based tools, techniques and ways of thinking – it is led by non-designers and framed as using a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach as part of a quality improvement intervention. PAR sets out – in contrast to a positivist paradigm – to recognize and directly address complex human and social problems. While much of the early action research in healthcare was criticized for poor design and lack of rigour,

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and it was often neither educative nor empowering for those involved, proponents of PAR have since argued that the sacrifice of some methodological and technical rigour is worth the additional face validity and practical significance that is gained (McIntyre 2008; Robert 2013). While enabled through different mechanisms – design probes and prototypes, and ‘trigger’ films respectively – both forms outlined above have led to the development, implementation and evaluation of complex interventions in the (often messy) world of healthcare delivery. (Throughout, we use the term ‘complex intervention’ to refer to an intervention that has several interacting components, involves social processes and is easy to adapt and tailor [Craig et al. 2008].) Based on retrospective case studies – and from our respective backgrounds of design (AM) and organizational sociology (GR) – we explore the processes of designing, by both designers (in the professional sense) and non-designers, within healthcare organizations and how ‘impact’ might best be evaluated. In doing so we raise the issue of how commensurable the aspirations and currently reported outcomes of designers are with those of the positivist paradigm currently underpinning quality improvement (QI) work in healthcare organizations. Our critical position is that improving the quality of healthcare services requires both ‘designerly’ and ‘design-like’ approaches working together in complementary ways. Drawing on the concept of ‘infrastructuring’ and the notion of ‘organizational creativity’ we outline the potential value of combining these approaches. But we argue that significant challenges remain – as evidenced in emerging descriptions of designer-led interventions in healthcare organizations – in reconciling differences in cultures, methods, expectations, forms of ‘evaluation’, and constructions of ‘evidence’ and ‘knowledge’.

9.2 The healthcare sector In terms of a service environment, several aspects of healthcare make it rather different from other sectors; not least its sheer scale, variety and complexity, as well as the (often) fragility, vulnerability and dependency of its clients. Healthcare organizations and services are also typically complex, hierarchical, and highly socio-technical settings (the dynamics within interdisciplinary healthcare teams are often as complex and hierarchical as those between teams and their patients). Healthcare organizations and the wider context in which they are situated therefore throw up many challenges and issues, first for the successful development and local implementation of any interventions and, secondly, for the evaluation of these. These challenges have important implications for service design.



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9.2.1 Development and local implementation The Medical Research Council (MRC) framework (2000) for guiding development and evaluation of complex interventions was published in response to these realizations, and later updated (MRC 2008). The framework depicts an approach incorporating several iterative, non-linear phases (Craig et al. 2008) leading to the evaluation of an intervention through a definitive randomized controlled trial (RCT). As Murray et al. (2010: 10) acknowledge, however, the complexities and ‘multiple confounders’ of the healthcare sector inevitably mean that approaches to prospective solutions developed by a single discipline may be less successful than those embodying the collective experiences, insights and expertise of all involved. The development of such complex interventions – pragmatic enough to be applied in real-life settings – therefore remains challenging (Paul et al. 2007). Criticism has been levelled at health services researchers for conducting insufficient groundwork and spending inadequate time and resources on intervention development, with the result that many interventions are either never (or poorly) implemented or fail to achieve their original intentions (Craig et al. 2008). Despite agreement in the research and clinical communities regarding the need for careful planning and design of complex interventions (Rowlands et al. 2005), there is no consensus on optimal methods for developing, evaluating and implementing them and considerable variation in the practical application of the MRC framework (Murchie et al. 2007; Tilling et al. 2005; Robinson et al. 2005). Notably, the MRC framework places no emphasis on the intervention’s interaction with context – the setting in which it is to be delivered (Bonell et al. 2012; De Silva et al. 2014). The MRC (2008) does emphasize involvement of ‘users’ at all stages of intervention development and evaluation in order to deliver an intervention that is fit for purpose, thereby enhancing the likelihood of it being implemented in practice. They advocate use of qualitative research methods to involve users and gain insight into change processes.

9.2.2 Quality Improvement in healthcare Broadly defined as ‘better patient experience and outcomes achieved through changing service provider behaviour and organization through using a systematic change method and strategies’ (Ovretveit 2009: 8), QI lies at one intersection between service design and healthcare organizations. Although QI ‘work’ draws on a wide variety of methodologies, approaches and tools it has historically been dominated by a positivist paradigm; witness the plethora of scientific and technology-based solutions as well as guidelines, scorecards, metrics and measurement systems. And fitting within the positivist paradigm, and following the tenets of evidence-based medicine (EBM), the RCT – with its robust scientific approach – is traditionally viewed as the gold standard of ‘evidence’ against which to assess the relative effectiveness of these QI tools and the new innovations in service delivery that result from their application.

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The healthcare context also has significant implications for the evaluation of the impact of any design-led ‘solutions’, for – as Lewin et al. (2009: 1) note – ‘complex healthcare interventions involve social processes that can be difficult to explore using quantitative methods alone’. Therefore, despite the supposed pre-eminence of the RCT, findings from such studies often do not sit comfortably with the complexities of daily life, particularly where ‘proven’ innovations must become part of the routine practice of multiple teams comprising individuals with very different disciplinary backgrounds and hierarchical status.

9.3 The service design perspective We believe that solving the implementation and evaluation challenges briefly outlined above may be significantly shaped by attending to issues currently (largely) neglected by the world of evidence-based medicine (Greenhalgh et al. 2014): issues such as culture, language and cognition, identity and citizenship. Such considerations are often embedded in the best of service design which builds on ‘the generation of a deep and holistic understanding of the service user experience, uncovering the “touchpoints” or points of emotional connection (both delight and despair) with a service’ (Snook 2015), as well as placing ‘a stronger emphasis [on] individual and community empowerment, creating the conditions and increasing the opportunities for people to work with public service providers to participate in the definition of community solutions, enabling a real shift of power’ (Marmot 2010, cited in Snook, 2015). If we accept that the knowledge of both specialists and lay individuals is useful, valuable, vital even, then how do we create a forum for exploring alternative, ‘improved’, healthcare services? Here the term ‘public’ as defined by Le Dantec and DiSalvo is useful: ‘In our use of the word ‘public’, we embrace the contention, unevenness, and permeability of a public by recognizing that a public is usefully understood as a plurality of voices, opinions, and positions’ (2013: 243). Where is the space for this collective, open discourse where the prevailing hierarchies and predominant modes of thinking can be challenged and suspended, where differing views of ‘evidence’ and ‘knowledge’ are not mutually exclusive, and where there is the opportunity to allow simultaneous inherent contradictions (as distinct from consensus)?

9.3.1 Publics and infrastructuring Such a public – or open space – needs to be inhabited by the essential actors so that they can then work collaboratively. In this forum, the intention is to use design: ‘a set of practices aimed at realizing a certain desirable future’ (Storni 2013: 51). However, in the healthcare arena, the designer has neither expertise in the clinical or care sense, nor is s/he a ‘virtuoso of experience’. These fora and activities also therefore require what Björgvinsson et al. (2010) refer to as ‘infrastructuring’, i.e. ‘to capture particular



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views and ways of engaging when designing complex sustainable systems’ (Seravalli and Eriksen, 2017) designing situations, activities and materials to enable a ‘greater proportional symmetry’ (Strickfaden and Devlieger 2011: 208) between key players, and ‘reducing social distance’ (Greger and Hatami 2013) between the varied cultures, languages, and motivations of the different stakeholders. In doing so such activities seek to level traditional hierarchies and neutralize assumed authority, with the twin aims of better empowering all stakeholders and improving decision-making. Within this open space, the assembled team are ‘individuals bound by a common cause’ (Le Dantec and DiSalvo 2013: 243), ‘a dynamic organization of individuals and groups formed by the desire to address an issue’ (ibid.: 254) ‘moving away from a technocratic view of innovation towards one that includes social innovation – innovation that arises out of social interactions […] and actions that arise from the constitutions of a public’ (ibid. 247). This space and the use of infrastructure materials within it allow the participants to explore the ‘lived experiences’, to allow the ‘plurality of voices, opinions and positions’ to emerge and which can then be reconciled through a PAR process.

9.4 Healthcare quality improvement and design-based approaches It is in addressing the common implementation and evaluation ‘gaps’ described above that a combination of design-based and social science perspectives can make a significant contribution. On the one hand, user-centred (or participatory) design offers methods, tools and techniques which were little used in healthcare QI work until very recently (Robert 2013). More broadly, design thinking (Cross 2011) offers a new lens, or frame of mind, through which to conceive approaches to improving the quality of healthcare; primarily its pragmatic nature highlighting the importance of ‘making sense’ of experience and finding solutions to poorly designed interactions. Similarly, PAR sets out – in contrast to the traditional, positivist, science paradigm – to recognize and directly address complex human and social problems. Although encompassing a wide range of research practices, McIntyre (2008: 1) proposes four underlying tenets to the majority of PAR projects: a) a collective commitment to investigate an issue or problem; b) a desire to engage in self- and collective reflection to gain clarity about the issue under investigation; c) a joint desire to engage in individual and/or collective action that leads to a useful solution that benefits the people involved; and d) the building of alliances between researchers and participants in the planning, implementation and dissemination of the research process. In doing so, PAR can be viewed as ‘design-like’ – enabling in-depth understanding of the meanings and meaning-making practices of individuals and social groups (Donetto et al. 2015) – as well as bringing theoretical insight to change interventions aimed at

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addressing very practical concerns (Bate and Robert 2008). Below we describe two recent case studies that have sought to overcome the all-too-common shortcomings relating to the development, implementation and evaluation of new innovations in healthcare service delivery. Both working explicitly within the MRC Complex Interventions framework they have used either a ‘designerly’ or ‘design-like’ approach, thereby ‘combining people-based and evidence-based research into complex social settings characterized by uncertainty and the unknown’ (Chevalier and Buckles 2013).

9.4.1 Case study 1 Elsewhere we have described the origins and evolution of the experience-based co-design (EBCD) methodology (Robert 2013; Robert et al. 2015), an action research process that takes a user-centred orientation (by adopting a narrative story-telling approach) and centres around a participatory, collaborative co-design process. EBCD has been conceptualized as a ‘grand project’, in contrast to the bespoke nature of most design interventions (Macdonald, 2017). Box 1 describes one example of implementing this service design-informed approach in a healthcare setting.

Box 1  Designing and evaluating a quality improvement intervention using EBCD without designers (based on Tsianakas et al. 2015) Case study 1 describes a feasibility trial, which used EBCD to develop an intervention to support carers of outpatient cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. The trial followed the MRC’s Framework for Developing and Evaluating Complex Interventions (phases I-IV) and, importantly, as well as the content of the intervention itself this included the co-design with staff of the process by which the intervention was best delivered to carers. The project was led by non-designers (supported by an online toolkit). In Phase I (pre-clinical phase) the EBCD process commenced with two weeks of non-participant observation (including of chemotherapy administration, doctorled consultations consenting for chemotherapy and nurse-led pre-chemotherapy consultations). Interviews with carers and professionals were then undertaken; carers discussed their experiences of supporting a friend or relative through chemotherapy (following the EBCD process, these interviews were filmed digitally) and staff were asked about their perceptions of the carer’s role and the support currently offered to them. In Phase II (modelling phase) three separate facilitated workshops were held with (1) staff (2) carers, and (3) carers and staff together. These workshops enabled participants to review themes arising from analysis of their own Phase I data independently and then work together in the combined workshop to co-design an intervention for carers supporting friends or relatives through chemotherapy. The carer



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workshop began with playing an edited 20-minute film compiled from the touchpoints identified from the carers’ filmed interviews. At the final workshop carers and staff came to a shared agreement about the ideal components and delivery of the new support package (‘Take Care’) which comprised a 19-minute supportive/educative DVD, an accompanying booklet and 1-hour protocol-guided group consultation conducted by one of two chemotherapy nurses trained in group facilitation. In Phase III (Exploratory trial) forty-seven carers were recruited, randomized between ‘Take Care’ (n=24) and control (n=23) groups. A questionnaire was completed pre- and postintervention measuring knowledge of chemotherapy and its side effects, experience of care, satisfaction with outpatient services, coping and emotional well-being. Carers in receipt of the ‘Take Care’ intervention reported statistically significantly better understanding of symptoms and side effects and their information needs being more frequently met than carers in the control. Confidence in coping improved between baseline and follow-up for the intervention group and declined for the control. Staff and carer focus groups confirmed the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention. Study findings supported the conduct of a fully powered RCT to determine the intervention’s effectiveness and cost-effectiveness (Phase IV: Evaluation).

Given that EBCD, in this type of space, has already demonstrated an arguably successful form of designing without designers (Macdonald, 2017), an important question is to define the particular roles and contributions of the designer, and of design.

9.4.2 Case study 2 With this question in mind, our second case study (while also demonstrating the process and benefits of integrating a mixed methods approach into the MRC’s Framework) describes a feasibility RCT where the development of the intervention was designer-led but where therapists and stroke survivors played a significant role (see Box 2).

Box 2  A designer-led visual intervention for physical rehabilitation following stroke Case study 2 concerns the development of visual tools, exploiting motion capture and motion sensor technologies, for use in physical rehabilitation following stroke (Loudon et al. 2014). These were evaluated in three separate RCTs as follows: 1) for upper limb rehabilitation (Jones et al. 2014), 2) lower limb rehabilitation (Thikey et al. 2014), and 3) for the tuning of ankle foot orthoses (Carse et al. 2014). In their design, both the patients’ and therapists’ needs and agendas had to be articulated

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and embodied along with clinical biomechanists’. Their design and development was achieved through an iterative participative process throughout the four phases of the trial, employing mock-ups and prototypes of digital mannequins displaying motion capture and other essential data. In the 4 phases of this trial, qualitative methods used were briefly as follows: 1. Design: focus groups and testing and feedback sessions (stroke survivors and therapists not involved in the subsequent trial); 2. Pre-trials: patient interviews, health professional interviews (patients and their therapists). 3. Trials: observations, videos (patients and their therapists); and 4. Posttrials: patient interviews, health professional interviews, workshops with patients and health professionals (patients and their therapists). In terms of evaluation, an interpretative descriptive methodology was adopted, using a mix of semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions at key phases during the trial process. The data were analysed iteratively using Framework Analysis. As reported in Loudon et al. (2014: 385) ‘this process allowed researchers to gain an understanding of the end-users’ interpretations of and responses to the visualizations, to employ their many suggestions and ideas for improvement …’ and that ‘early findings would suggest that the visual method allows for: improved patient understanding of their rehabilitation tasks and progress: and improved communication between patient and therapist previously perplexing challenges to successful rehabilitation’ (ibid.: 387). Findings indicate that these visual tools were able to mediate and enhance the social discourse between the therapist and the patient while simultaneously making appropriate biomechanical information available in formats understandable to each to benefit both patients and therapists.

Traditionally, in an RCT, the clinician would have determined and designed the intervention with the patients as ‘subjects’ and with therapists administering the intervention. In case 2, had designers not become involved, a ‘public’ would not have been created, the positivist scientific orthodoxy would have prevailed, and predominantly quantitative data (i.e. the scientific measurement of step length, symmetry and speed) would have been collected, except for some ‘cursory’ qualitative data from pre- and post-trial interviews. To differentiate this case from the EBCD approach in case 1 above, the designers’ iterative use of evolving visual prototypes to constantly probe, with therapists and stroke survivors in the open space ‘what if?’ and tangibly demonstrate ‘how things could be’ led to a longer-than-usual design phase, but the qualitative responses elicited by the prototypes throughout the participative process were valuable in helping address issues raised at the start of this section (particularly identity, language, culture and cognition). Analysis of the qualitative data from the trial iteration of the prototype found how much this collectively created tool assisted communication and understanding between the therapist and patient.



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9.5 Bridging the divide: Infrastructuring to release organizational creativity and improve service quality Having created a ‘publics’ as an exploratory and developmental space – whereas non-designers may be inclined to use methods more familiar to them (filmed interviews, focus groups, brainstorming and QI approaches such as Quality Circles or Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles) – the case studies above illustrate how designers will typically employ a wider range of methods as ‘learning tools’ (Coughlan et al. 2007: 124), and as ’effective tools for organizational change’ (ibid.: 132) (including, for example, stimulus cards, mappings, storyboards, scenarios, games, mock-ups and visualizations), using prototypes as means of ‘building to think’ (ibid.: 128) and ‘giving permission to explore new behaviors […] in a nonthreatening, low-risk way’ (ibid.: 130), Nonetheless, the extended type of engagement demonstrated in both case studies above recognizes the iterative nature of stakeholder involvement, of the gradual refinement and emergence of an improvement or innovation. So, while previously in QI ‘work’ there may have been more of a top-down technocratic approach to the

Designing ‘open’, democratic, user-experience-based, mixed methods

Non-designer (e.g. EBCD) ‘design-like’

Designers ‘designerly’

e.g. trigger films

e.g. prototyping

weaknesses • Limited range of outcome • Incremental, less ‘radical’ • Too long, too complicated • Limited ideation tools • Needs more robust evaluation

strengths • Measurable economic benefits • Adaptability • Critical mass (part of QI) • Well reported ‘Evidence’ • Scalability • Shifts power relationships

strengths • Iterative • Build to think • Makes ideas tangible early • Permits new behaviours • ‘Experience prototypes’ • More transformative

weaknesses • Anecdotal • lack of robustness: poor reporting and evauation of evidence • Bespoke • Lack of scalability • Lack of adaptability

Complementary attributes worth combining

FIGURE 9.1  Strengths and weaknesses of ‘designerly’ and ‘design-like’ approaches

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development of interventions, there is now the opportunity to bring a more sociotechnical perspective to bear, albeit within the prevailing discourse of RCTs and ‘complex intervention’ frameworks. While the two approaches to ‘designing’ improvements in healthcare quality have – as briefly illustrated above – similarities, each has strengths and weaknesses that differentiate it from the other; these are summarized in Figure 9.1. Referring to our previous discussion on ‘infrastructuring’ – which as a reminder we broadly define as the design of the situations and materials (socio-technical) to enable new forms of discussions and activities (including designing) to occur to achieve certain aims – the two case studies above illustrate two different approaches to this. In the first case trigger films were used, in the second prototyping, to support respective infrastructuring arrangements. Importantly, as Björgvinsson et al. (2010: 43) note, ‘Infrastructuring can be seen as an ongoing process and should not be seen as being delimited to a design project phase’. In our created ‘publics’, each with its particular kinds of tools and approaches, one can suppose the encouragement of the mutual crafting of narratives, prototypes and other socio-technical materials, all within the widely recognized and accepted MRC Framework. However, the different forms of infrastructuring, which we observed in our case studies – while both building and sustaining the ‘publics’ – appear to us to have released rather different forms of organizational creativity.

9.6 Organizational creativity Operating as we do at the confluence of design and QI ‘work’ in healthcare organizations, we are struck by Woodman’s notion of organizational creativity, which (writing from an organizational theory perspective) he defines as ‘the creation of valuable new products, services, ideas, processes, or procedures by individuals working together within complex systems’ (2014: 10). Woodman emphasizes ‘the importance of building creative capacity into the system’ (2014: 12) which relates to our earlier argument regarding the ‘publics’ and how infrastructuring might help provide a space where organizational creativity might be encouraged and released to drive quality improvements (Figure 9.1). In case study 1 above, the nature of the quality improvements related to improved understanding and confidence among participants (in this case carers of chemotherapy patients) while case study 2 saw the creation of an interactive rehabilitation environment through new visual tools whereby – for example – both patient and therapist were able to better communicate and discuss key issues and progress with rehabilitation tasks. Certainly Woodman’s conceptualization of organizational diagnosis – ‘things could be better’ – chimes neatly with the ‘what if …?’ kind of design activities that take people out of their normal hierarchies and task-roles and use their insights and expertise to reimagine the service. The use of ‘democratic’ methods inherent in



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PAR also challenges the ‘top management … proprietary’ issues (Woodman 2014: 8) and assists in breaking down the ‘barriers to creativity’ (ibid: 10). If design is ‘a set of practices aimed at realizing a certain desirable future’ (Storni 2013: 51) then it might also be regarded as the ‘quasi-experimental design’ which Woodman discusses (2014: 7). Design strategist Penny Hagen suggests that much is to be gained from effective integration of evidence-based and user experience-based approaches to design for healthcare services (Hagen 2014). Although this integration requires ‘some collaboration and open thinking’ to bridge the different philosophical stances of the two approaches, we agree – as evidenced by the incorporation of our own work into the MRC Framework – that there is great value in integrating ‘the human-centred tools and values of user experience design into existing processes and models that already have leverage within organizations’ (ibid.).

9.7 Designerly or design-like? Referring to Figure 9.1, designerly (designer) and design-like (non-designer) behaviours are distinguished: both have their strengths and weaknesses in the context of healthcare QI work. In looking at these two approaches is there a profitable central ground? Case 1 involved design-like approaches. Thomson et al. (2015) critique EBCD suggesting a need for much more focus on ideation tools, a supposition which they test through a designer-led intervention in an outpatient service for multiple sclerosis patients. However, we would note that this study provided no insight or ‘evidence’ that the designer-led use of ideation tools lead to an improvement in quality over and above what, for argument’s sake, EBCD would have done, suggesting that being ‘designerly’ alone offers no particular advantage, possibly less. We also note that Bowen et al. (2013) were a little underwhelmed by the outcomes and changes brought about in the project they led as designers – which focused on the medical outpatient service for older people – suggesting the need for an expanded vocabulary of creative methods in EBCD. Case 2 involved designerly approaches and although the evaluation of this process was arguably robust, the scalability and adaptability of the methods remains unproven.

9.8 Conclusions We propose that the creation of a ‘publics’ which provides a democratizing space can now be supported by infrastructuring using a wider range of engagement activities from the social sciences and design as illustrated in our two case studies above, either of which can complement (and perhaps subtly challenge) the positivist orthodoxy (as represented by the MRC Framework). Such a combination may help designers and QI

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practitioners in healthcare organizations continuing to avoid ‘talking past one another’ and enable both to benefit from the other’s constructions of knowledge and ‘evidence’. However, if designers wish to achieve wider legitimacy for their approaches and for their design solutions to be assimilated into routine healthcare practice what should they do? We argue that they need to learn how to better relate not only to different evaluation approaches and forms of knowledge but also to the complex social systems in which they find themselves operating. As argued elsewhere (Donetto et al. 2015), robust evaluations of design-led approaches to healthcare improvement are clearly needed and these should be accompanied by rigorous conceptual analyses of their theoretical and methodological bases (by both designers and non-designers alike).

References Bate, S. P. and Robert, G. (2007), Bringing User Experience to Health Care Improvement: The Concepts, Methods and Practices of Experience-based Design. Oxford: Radcliffe Publishing. Björgvinsson, E., Ehn, P. and Hillgren, P. A. (2010), ‘Participatory Design and Democratizing Innovation’, in PDC ’10: Proceedings of the 11th biennial participatory design. Conference, Sydney, Australia, 29 November–3 December 2010. New York: ACM Press, 41–50. Bonell, C., Fletcher, A., Morton, M., Lorenc, T. and Moore, L. (2012), ‘Realist Randomised Controlled Trials: A New Approach to Evaluating Complex Public Health Interventions’, Soc Sci Med. 75 (12): 2299–306. Bowen, S., McSeveny, K., Lockley, E., Wolstenholme, D., Cobb, M. and Dearden, A. (2013), ‘How was it for you? Experiences of Participatory Design in the UK Health Service’, CoDesign: International Journal of CoCreation in Design and the Arts: 230–46. Carse, B., Bowers, R. J., Loudon, D., Meadows, B. C. and Rowe, P. J. (2014), ‘Assessing the Effect of Using Biomechanics Visualisation Software for Ankle-foot Orthosis Tuning in Early Stroke’, Gait & Posture 39 (1): S2–S3. Chevalier, J. M. and Buckles, D. (2013), Participatory Action Research: Theory and Methods for Engaged Inquiry. Abingdon: Routledge. Coughlan, P., Fulton Suri, J. and Canales. (2007), ‘Prototypes as (Design) Tools for Behavioral and Organizational Change: A Design-based Approach to Help Organizations Change Work Behaviors’, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 43 (1): 122–34. Craig, P., Dieppe, P., Macintyre, S., Michie, S., Nazareth, I. and Petticrew, M. (2008), ‘Developing and Evaluating Complex Interventions: The New Medical Research Council Guidance’, BMJ 29 (337): a1655. Cross, N. (2011), Design Thinking: Understanding how Designers Think and Work. Berg/ Bloomsbury. De Silva, M. J., Breuer, E., Lee, L., Asher, L., Chowdhary, N., Lund, C. and Patel, V. (2014), ‘Theory of Change: A Theory-driven Approach to Enhance the Medical Research Council’s Framework for Complex Interventions’, Trials 15: 267. Donetto S., Pierri, P., Tsianakas, V. and Robert, G. (2015), ‘Experience-based Co-design and Healthcare Improvement: Realising Participatory Design in the Public Sector’, The Design Journal 18 (2): 227–48.



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Greenhalgh, T. Howick, J. and Maskrey N. (2014), ‘Evidence-based Medicine: A Movement in Crisis?’, British Medical Journal 348: g3725. Greger, S. and Hatami, Z. (2013), ‘Reducing Social Distance through Co-design’, in T. Keinonen, K. Vaajakallio and J. Honkonen (eds), Designing for Wellbeing, 125–9. Helsinki. Aalto University Publication Series, Art+Design+Architecture. Hagen, P. (2014), ‘Integrating User Experience and Evidence-based Approaches to Design’. available online: http://www.smallfire.co.nz/2014/01/25/integrating-userexperience-and-evidence-based-approaches-to-design/ (accessed July 2015). Jones, L., Wijck, F. van, Grealy, M. and Rowe, P. (2014), ‘Investigating the Feasibility of Using Visual Feedback of Biomechanical Movement Performance in Sub-acute Upper Limb Stroke Rehabilitation’, Gait & Posture 39 (1): S48. Le Dantec, C.A. and DiSalvo, C. (2013), ‘Infrastructuring and the Formation of Publics in Participatory Design’, Social Studies of Science 43 (2): 241–64. Lewin, S., Glenton, C. and Oxman, A. D. (2009), ‘Use of Qualitative Methods Alongside Randomised Controlled Trials of Complex Healthcare Interventions: Methodological Study’, BMJ 339: b3496. Loudon, D., Taylor, A. and Macdonald, A. S. (2014), ‘The Use of Qualitative Design Methods in the Design, Development and Evaluation of Virtual Technologies for Healthcare: Stroke Case Study’, in M. Ma, L. A. Jain, A. and P. Anderson (eds), Virtual and Augmented Reality in Healthcare 1, 371–90: Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Macdonald, A. S. (2017) ‘Negotiating Design within Sceptical Territory: Lessons from Healthcare’, in R. Cooper and E. Tsekleves (eds), Design for Healthcare. Aldershot: Gower. Marmot, M. (2010), The Marmot Review: Fair Society, Health Lives. Strategic Review of Health Inequalities in England post-2010. London, The Marmot Review. McIntyre A. (2008), Participatory Action Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. MRC (2000), A Framework for the Development and Evaluation of RCTs for Complex Interventions to Improve Health. London: Medical Research Council. MRC (2008), Developing and Evaluating Complex Interventions: New Guidance. Medical Research Council, London. Murchie, P., Hannaford, P. C., Wyke, S., Nicolson, M. C. and Campbell, N. C. (2007), ‘Designing an Integrated Follow-up Programme for People Treated for Cutaneous Malignant Melanoma: A Practical Application of the MRC Framework for the Design and Evaluation of Complex Interventions to Improve Health’, Fam Pract 24: 283–92. Murray, E., Treweek, S., Pope, C., MacFarlane, A., Ballini, L., Dorwick, C., Finch, T., Kennedy, A., Mair, F., O’Donnell, C., Ong, B.N., Rapley, T., Rogers, A. and May, C. (2010), ‘Normalisation Process Theory: A Framework for Developing, Evaluating and Implementing Complex Interventions’, BMC Med 20 (8): 63. Ovretveit, J. (2009), Does Improving Quality Save Money? A Review of the Evidence of which Improvements to Quality Reduce Costs to Health Service Providers. London: Health Foundation. Paul, G., Smith, S. M., Whitford, D., O’Kelly, F. and O’Dowd, T. (2007), ‘Development of a Complex Intervention to Test the Effectiveness of Peer Support in Type 2 Diabetes’. BMC Health Services Research 7 (136). Robert, G. (2013), ‘Participatory Action Research: Using Experience-based Co-design (EBCD) to Improve Health Care Services’, in S. Ziebland, J. Calabrase, A. Coulter and L. Locock (eds), Understanding and Using Experiences of Health and Illness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Robert, G., Cornwell, J., Locock, L., Purushotham, A., Sturmey, G. and Gager, M. (2015)

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‘Patients and staff as co-designers of health care services’, British Medical Journal, 350: g7714. Robinson, L., Francis, J., James, P., Tindle, N., Greenwell, K. and Rodgers, H. (2005), ‘Caring for Carers of People with Stroke: Developing a Complex Intervention following the Medical Research Council Framework’, Clin Rehabil 19 (5): 560–71. Rowlands, G., Sims, J. and Kerry, S. (2005), ‘A Lesson Learnt: The Importance of Modelling in Randomized Controlled Trials for Complex Interventions in Primary Care’, Family Practice 22: 132–9. Seravalli A. and Eriksen, M. A. (2017). ‘Beyond Collaborative Services: Service Design for Sharing and Collaboration as a Matter of Commons and Infrastructuring’, in D. Sangiorgi and A. Prendiville (eds), Design for Service. London and New York: Bloomsbury, 237–50. Snook (2015), ‘LEAN and Service Design. Understanding the Differences’. Available online: http://pbc.io/wearesnook/lean-and-service-design-understanding-thedifferences/ (accessed 3 June 2016). Storni, C. (2013), ‘Design for future uses: pluralism, fetishism and ignorance’. Available online: http://www.nordes.org/opj/index.php/n13/article/viewFile/276/258 (accessed 1 June 2016). Strickfaden, M. and Devlieger, P. (2011), ‘Empathy through Accumulating Techné: Designing an Accessible Metro’, The Design Journal 14 (2): 207–30. Thikey, H., Wijck, F. van, Grealy, M. and Rowe, P. J. (2014), ‘A Virtual Avatar to Facilitate Gait Rehabilitation Post-stroke’, Gait & Posture 39 (1): S52–S53. Thomson, A., Rivas, C. and Giovannoni, G. (2015), ‘Multiple Sclerosis Outpatient Future Groups: Improving the Quality of Participant Interaction and Ideation Tools within Service Improvement Activities’, BMC Health Services Research 15: 105. Tilling, K., Coshall, C., McKevitt, C., Daneski, K. and Wolfe, C. (2005), ‘A Family Support Organiser for Stroke Patients and their Carers: A Randomised Controlled Trial’, Cerebrovasc Dis. 20 (2): 85–91. Tsianakas, V., Robert, G., Richardson, A., Verity, R., Oakley, C., Murrells, T., Flynn, M. and Ream, E. (2015), ‘Enhancing the Experience of Carers in the Chemotherapy Outpatient Setting: An Exploratory Randomised Controlled Trial to Test the Impact, Acceptability and Feasibility of a Complex Intervention Co-designed by Carers and Staff’, Supportive Care in Cancer (10): 3069–80. Woodman, R. W. (2014), ‘The Science of Organizational Change and the Art of Changing Organizations’, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 50 (4): 463–77.

PART THREE

Designing for service in public and social spaces T

his third section offers four contributions on service design and its role in the new and emerging area of social innovation and government policy, with each chapter offering perspectives to support and articulate design’s role in these very culturally specific social spaces. In each chapter the authors discuss the specific social and cultural challenges, while also advancing service design’s contribution for delivering transformational change. The section starts with Young and Warwick’s review of service design’s increasing involvement in the voluntary community sector (VCS) and the benefits and challenges of such collaborations. The authors note the difficulties for VCS organizations to familiarize themselves and learn more about the discipline of design and co-design and how practices of engagement with service designers, when it takes place, need to be sustained once the collaboration has finished. To overcome the current limitations of service design within these types of organization the authors propose the need for a socio-economic paradigmatic shift to deliver and increase the exposure of the sector to design, to sustain its engagement with design, and to develop an understanding and relate to the infrastructure, that is the contextual structures that the organizations and stakeholders operate in. They argue that it is only once these three areas have been addressed that service design will move from the periphery and fragmentary activity with VCS to a mainstream transformative practice within the sector. Focusing on social innovation, in the second chapter Cipolla and Reynoso use indigenous social innovation services in Mexico and Brazil to explore the relevance of cultural factors when designing services for low-income segments and how this

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may provide inspiration for service designers. The authors, through two case studies, demonstrate how local entrepreneurs at the bottom of the pyramid incorporate their local embedded cultural backgrounds into their indigenous services and how local interpersonal relationships and cultural practices shape the unique characteristics of the service offer. To understand the specific nature of these social innovations from a design perspective, an area for the authors that is currently under-researched, they propose the use of service design tools and anthropologically inspired methodologies to investigate the distinct characteristics of these service contexts. Meroni, Corubolo and Bartolomeo similarly focus on social innovation but in this piece they chart the rise across Europe of social innovation programmes and argue that the use of ‘designerly’ ways of empowering people to act, rooted in service design, design thinking and co-design, can enhance and support social innovation. Presenting results from the EU-funded TRANSITION Project, the authors offer different ways that service design can catalyse and incubate social innovation especially in the area of ‘challenging citizens, social organizations and administration to explore compelling social issues’. The authors identify a number of key roles for service design to play in sparking and supporting sustainable social innovation but here too, attention is drawn to the importance of the contextual readiness of individuals in the local eco-system together with service design’s ability to visualize and communicate a clear social proposition. In contrast to the previous three contributions the final chapter by Buchanan, Junginger and Terrey presents the current adoption of service design by government policy makers in different national contexts to analyse the different tools being applied. Taking three examples from Australia, the UK and Germany, the authors compare the motivations for the uptake of such practices and present the key contributions made by service design. Drawing on the similarities and differences from the examples, the authors present insights on the cultural and communication differences that exist between government and design and the difficulties this presents to designers. For the authors, for service designers to work in this area they need to familiarize themselves with policy making and also again engage with the ethical dimensions of this type of work.

10 Service design and the edge effect Robert Young and Laura Warwick

10.1 Introduction As designers have become involved in the design of services as opposed to products, the design of services for social good rather than simply for economic benefit has become an area of interest in research and practice. The use of service design in the public sector is well documented, with a ‘design thinking approach’ being employed in healthcare, social and government services (Mulgan and Albury 2003; Manzini 2010; Kimbell 2011a). As funding for the public sector diminishes, a heavier reliance is being placed on the third or voluntary community sector (VCS) to pick up the slack left by shrinking public services. If this is to continue, we must ask: what is the role of service design practice and research in building knowledge and capacity in the VCS, and is there a socio-economic paradigm to support its involvement, given that there is no existing margin to pay for this work? As a young discipline – the first service design consultancy, Live|Work, was only formed in 2001 – most of the research community has focused on defining the field; articulating and proving why design could and should work on services (Sangiorgi 2011; Wetter Edman 2011). In Sangiorgi et al. (2014), ‘Mapping and Developing Service Design Research in the UK’ research report, White and Young characterized the existing research focus on design methods and process questions as: ‘How can we make desirable social far futures near futures through the development of appropriate methodologies?’ Examples of this focus are seen in the work of Meroni and Sangiorgi (2011) and Tan (2012), and this has continued with the work of Warwick (2015) and Yee, White and Lennon (2015). These researchers have illustrated how the development of knowledge and tools for service design, to understand its complex contexts, to engage the people who use, run and commission services to co-create value, is as important to the VCS as it is to business and public services.

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Nevertheless, the growing appetite in the sector to use design is evident from the noticeable increase in the number of VCS organizations engaging with service designers, including in the UK: Age UK, Mind, the Citizens Advice Bureau and Macmillan Cancer Research. BIG Lottery Scotland has also funded a programme, Better by Design, introducing and implementing design into fifteen VCS organizations.1 Universities are also building capacity in design for social innovation with an increasing volume of undergraduate, postgraduate projects and doctoral projects in this area (see SDR Network web resources2 and DESIS International Labs and activities web resources3). Although the UK economy as a whole has seen growth in recent years, it is estimated that the VCS’s income will be 12 per cent lower (£1.7bn) in 2017/18 than pre-reform levels (Clarke et al. 2012). While the research focus described above has been on defining the field, refining methods and proving why design should work on services, research into the value of design to the VCS is still in its infancy (Armstrong et al. 2014). Yet the economic forces affecting it and the opportunity for design to have impact are also pressing. This was characterized by White and Young, in Sangiorgi et al. (2014), as: ‘How can we develop a sustainable socio-economic paradigm to support social innovation practices?’ It is this question that this chapter discusses, synthesizing the key issues emerging from the experience of service design projects with the VCS based on the doctoral case studies of Warwick (2015), and the VCS’s growing appetite to use design in the face of economic forces militating against it. The chapter uses the analogy of the ‘edge effect’ to help characterize and understand the ecology of this dilemma, based on the interventions and actions that are occurring at the boundary of the VCS sector and service design practice: ‘The tendency for increased variety and diversity at community junctions is known as the edge effect …’ (Odum 1971: 14).

10.2 The state of the VCS VCS organizations are established to deliver services to address specific needs, for example, families caring for relatives with life-limiting conditions, supporting refugees or enabling older people to be supported to remain living in their own homes. However, the scope and focus of funders, funding initiatives and, latterly, the state is constantly changing, meaning that VCS organizations end up reacting to these changes, rather than truly meeting the needs of their users. For example, PricewaterhouseCoopers (2010) reported that it is feared that changes and pressures on VCS organizations and agencies will drive them to cost-cut, rather than try to transform the service offering for users and its delivery mechanisms. The VCS has changed its shape and purpose several times since its materialization in the nineteenth century; from the sole provider of services with little or no support from the state (Smith 1995), to working alongside government as a provider of essential public services (Cairns, Harris and Young 2005). However, this created a



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contract relationship between the state and the sector (Macmillan 2010: 5), which following the global financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent significant contraction in state funding, has created a fragile third sector (New Philanthropy Capital 2010). The UK Labour government began a major reform of public services prior to the economic crash in 2008 and this accelerated under the new UK government in 2010, aiming to increase the diversity and competiveness of providers in order to build capacity, foster innovation and improve user responsiveness. As well as increasing the intensity of the contract culture, the reform has also impacted on the relationship an organization has with its service user; there is now a considerable emphasis to create services that can be tailored to an individual’s needs, placing more emphasis on ‘relational’ rather than ‘transactional’ approaches to delivery (Needham and Carr 2009: 3). Therefore, the VCS is faced with the challenge of meeting these altered expectations for the services they deliver, how they are offered, as well as how they are funded. This reform is also taking place at a time when the impacts of the financial crisis are still being felt. As well as the decreasing availability and value of statutory contracts, grant funding also fell following the economic crash to its lowest levels since 2006/7 and research conducted into the impact of the recession on the VCS shows that the rate of volunteering and charitable giving also decreased (Clarke et al. 2012). The far-reaching impact of the crash has therefore had a considerable impact on VCS organizations’ capacity, with a decrease of 70,000 staff across the sector (ibid.). However, the social impact of the financial crisis has meant that charities are also trying to respond to a sizeable increase in service demand; 67 per cent of VCS organizations surveyed reported an increase during 2012 and 72 per cent expected a higher demand for services in 2013 (Oakley et al. 2012). As a result, the sector is trying to meet a rapidly rising demand for better, more personalized services with fewer resources than ever. Despite this difficult operating climate, VCS organizations are still considered a key stakeholder in both public service delivery and societal change: The innovation and enthusiasm of civil society is essential in tackling the social, economic and political challenges that the UK faces today… [We will] support the creation and expansion of mutual, co-operatives, charities and social enterprises, and enable these groups to have a much greater involvement in the running of public services. (HM Government 2010: 29) Although there is an appetite to see the sector as a leader in social innovation, there is little evidence that corroborates the perception that the VCS can deliver services in a distinctive way that improves outcomes for service users (Hopkins 2010; Miller 2013). In fact, in 2008 the Public Administration Select Committee reported that: The central claim made by the Government, and by advocates of a greater role for the sector in service delivery, is that VCS organizations can deliver services in

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distinctive ways which will improve outcomes for service users. We were unable to corroborate that claim. Too much of the discussion is still hypothetical or anecdotal. (House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee 2008: 3) Recent evidence also suggests that the shift to contractual relationships further restricts innovation and distinctiveness (Crowe et al. 2014: 8). During this time of great change, VCS organizations are perhaps ‘better at believing they are innovative than being innovative’ (Hopkins 2010). In this edge-effect condition, it is uncertain if the VCS has the capacity to innovate at pace to respond to the two main drivers for change: demand for more personalized services, and the current socio-economic crisis. There is also no prescribed model as to how such change should be enacted, creating an opportunity for design to be used to effect user-centred change (Warwick 2015).

10.3 The fragmentary ascendency of design The VCS’s provider–purchaser (of more personalized services) relationship with the state, as a key driver of change, is the main reason for the use of design. Increasingly, parts of the public sector have looked to design to help them innovate in times of change and austerity. The formation of the NHS’s Institute for Innovation and Improvement in 2005 signalled the permeation of design into the VCS’s infrastructures (Bate and Robert 2007). Similarly, the move in urban, regional and national settings towards so-called New Public Management (NPM), an approach to governance that applies private sector methods and metrics to deliver public services, is an important factor in design’s ascendancy (Cooke and Kothari 2001). These are practices by which governance theory via New Public Governance models are put into action (Mathiasen 1996; Lynn 1998). Although based on private sector methods, such models do not automatically carry across commissioning mechanisms to support the intervention of service design in VCS service development, much less the scale of funding that the private sector would normally consider necessary to support the widespread application of professional design expertise. The increasing prevalence of design in the VCS context reflects a macro shift in the discipline from focusing purely on service innovation for businesses, to also encouraging social change in public contexts (Manzini 2011; Wetter Edman 2011). Likewise, there has been a swing from the design of single interactions, to systems of engagement; from an organization’s services, to the strategy that underpins them (Sangiorgi 2011: 30). Alongside this, our understanding of services themselves has altered from something distinguishable from goods (Zeithaml, Parasuraman and Berry 1985) to a form of economic exchange (Vargo and Lusch 2004); thence to the creation of value-in-use (Vargo and Lusch 2008; Kimbell 2011b). More recently, there has been a call for designers to view services as complex and relational entities that remain indeterminate and therefore cannot be fully designed; ‘designing is achieved



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in fragments and managing unintended consequences at the limits of efficacy and power are critical’ (Blomberg and Darrah 2014: 130). Understanding this indeterminacy is helped by analogy with the ecology of the edge effect: the clash of cultures, contexts, models, methods and practices, in which design is learning piecemeal by doing, working across sector boundaries to create value-in-use, thereby building a case for wider deployment. In building a case for the use of design in the public sector, there has been a conscious effort to attain and determine the financial impact from recent projects; the Design Council’s Public Services by Design programme concluded that there was a social return on investment of £26 for every £1 invested in design (Design Council 2010: 5). The complex nature of service value can make it difficult to track the significance of a design intervention in monetary terms, but other impacts have been regularly and consistently cited as outcomes of service design processes, including: improved customer experience (Hollins 1993); distinct service offerings (Meroni and Sangiorgi 2011); connected, cohesive systems (Bate and Robert 2007); community ownership of ideas or resources (Freire and Sangiorgi 2009); efficiency savings (Design Commission 2013: 35); and shifts in organizational strategies and cultures (Junginger and Sangiorgi 2009). The expanding reach, role and value of service design have not been without critics. Researchers and practitioners have suggested that designers cannot or should not work on social issues in isolation as they lack the skills to completely address such complex issues (Tonkinwise 2010; Campbell 2014; Junginger 2014; Mulgan 2014). Similarly, others point to the designer’s frequent inability to scale-up innovations to address social problems on a broad level, as a further limitation of design in this context (Drenttel 2010; Morelli 2014). Design interventions in public settings have increased, but few have progressed to a systems level, with many remaining as one-off projects, rather than becoming embedded into the organization or system. This has undoubtedly added to the difficulty for design in making an argument for its intervention at scale and therefore does not support a concomitant argument for the development of an economic paradigm for its deployment on business terms. Its value is perceived in terms of its tactical intervention to develop new services, rather than as a strategic business process or driver of innovation policy in the organization. The meteoric rise of the use of service design in the public sector and the associated impacts suggest that it should be of value to the VCS. This logic was shown to have credence with recent research publications, in particular, Warwick’s (2015) doctoral inquiry, which established that a design for service approach could affect VCS organizations at a transformative level of policy. More recently, Yee, White and Lennon’s (2015) AHRC-funded research showed that design is of value and is valued by VCS organizations. Both case studies indicate that VCS organizations are generally more receptive to the role of design than SMEs and to the capacity of designers to act in a position of influence to transform their organizational culture. The findings from these studies also indicate that an economic paradigm needs to encompass: exposure

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to design; continuous engagement with design; and the design of infrastructures within the sector (Warwick 2015; Yee et.al. 2015). They separately synthesize this conclusion by characterizing the role of the service designer as the ‘Critical Friend’ of the organization and the following section discusses these actions.

10.4 Exposure to design to support the paradigm The first of the issues supporting the socio-economic paradigm for service design requires the exposure of VCS organizations to the discipline and its inherent values. In practice and research, it is common for the majority of stakeholders to be unclear as to the specific tools, roles or value of design prior to commencing a collaboration (Tan 2012; Warwick 2015; Yee et al. 2015). Tan (2012: 69) and Warwick (2015: 228) both identified that stakeholders had to invest trust in both the designer and the design approach in order to participate in such a project. In both of Tan’s and Warwick’s doctoral enquiries, the design engagements studied were sponsored by another body – i.e. the Design Council in the case of DoTT 07 (Tan 2012) and Northumbria University in the case of Warwick’s case studies (2015) – making the investment required by participating organizations one of human resources and time, rather than financial capital. Similarly, in the case studies that comprised Yee, White and Lennon’s (2015) study, the BIG Lottery sponsored one of the collaborations (as part of the Better by Design programme, referenced previously). Although some were traditional contract relationships, such as FutureGov’s project with the Municipal Association of Victoria4 and New South Wales’ Department of Family & Community Services,5 many drew on resources from multiple sources as part of a specific policy aim. All three studies found that through exposure, but more importantly, participation in the design process, stakeholders’ understanding of design improved exponentially. In many cases, this led to an extended or subsequent engagement with design. Warwick’s (2015: 257) model of the role of design in the initial engagement in VCS organizations explicitly links stakeholders’ participation in design to the ‘increased reach and impact of the approach’. While the relationship between exposure to design and the understanding and appreciation of its value to VCS organizations has been recently verified independently by Warwick (2015) and Yee et al. (2015), the lack of general knowledge and awareness of the discipline in the sector still proves to be a barrier to engagement. The challenge, therefore, must be to find ways to increase exposure and participation in design in a meaningful way.



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10.5 Continuous engagement with design to support the paradigm Social design literature stresses the importance that designers must design for the time when they are no longer active participants (Blomberg and Darrah 2014). It thus underpins the continuing shift in the discipline from designing for, to designing with, to creating designers (Yee et al. 2013), which has various ramifications for service design practice and might be interpreted as being at odds with the challenge of developing a sustainable socio-economic paradigm to support social innovation practices in the VCS by service designers. However, with the previously mentioned pressures on human resources and capacity and financial capital in the VCS, how can the creation of designers be realized in this context? In Warwick’s (2015) three case studies, two charities were both keen to engage with service design following their case study. They took part in a further service design pilot and in running a workshop respectively. However, these opportunities were in themselves limited, and both were provided following the original study, directly or indirectly. In general, the opportunities for those interested in service design to learn more about the discipline are limited to: direct engagement of a service designer to provide bespoke training; or enrolling on a small number of training opportunities, e.g. Design Management Institute (DMI)’s Service Design for Business6 or Central St Martins’ Service Design summer programmes,7 both of which are based in London and cost over £700 per attendee. As a young discipline, the lack of available training in service design is not surprising, and will increase as the demand does, but it does mean that in the interim, there are limited opportunities for VCS organizations to continue their training other than through direct project engagement. Botero and Hyysalo (2013: 38) contest that there ‘is an urgent need’ for designers to adapt tools and methods that help stakeholders to continue to use a co-design approach once a designer leaves. Yu and Sangiorgi (2014) also state that more understanding is needed about how design methods can be modified to support their continued use post-collaboration. However, recent publications (e.g. Junginger 2015) have challenged the idea that design can be truly embedded into organizations, but point out that this is really because designers and researchers are not able to properly articulate organizational design practices and their legacies. The findings of Warwick’s (2015) doctoral inquiry that design should operate as a ‘critical friend’ in order to be of value to the VCS, similarly noted in Yee, White and Lennon’s (2015) report, would also suggest that designers need a certain amount of autonomy in order to be effective while acting in a humble, integrative and co-creative manner. What is clear is that the VCS’s ever-changing operating climate requires stakeholders, organizations and partnerships to undergo wholesale, permanent change. There is therefore a clear need to consider how design can be used to not only support an initial shift, but subsequent cycles of reconfiguration in a way that suits the resource-poor, capital and capacity-poor VCS context. Practising service designers and

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academic design researchers need to be directly involved in the creation and shaping of funding opportunities or capability-building programmes that support the continued use of design in the VCS.

10.6 The design of infrastructure to support the paradigm Although service design is consistently described as an iterative process through the development of a service or product service system (e.g. Double Diamond Design Process Model, Design Council, 2005), little research has been undertaken to understand how this process should perform in the subsequent phases of delivery (Yu and Sangiorgi 2014; Botero and Hyysal 2013). Botero and Hyysal (2013) suggest that the traditional research and development depiction of the design process offered by Sanders and Stappers (2008), with a ‘fuzzy front end’ being refined to a single solution, should be revised to reflect the complexities of designing with communities. They present an alternative representation of the approach relevant for communities, which depicts the design activity as ongoing and often seeding further work, meaning that it never tails off. Botero and Hyysal (2013: 51) highlight that the ‘trajectories and rhythms’ of the community of practice and its infrastructure can affect and dictate the pace of the co-design work. Although service designers have made great strides in understanding the value of the intervention (the co-design activity) to different practices (the organization and stakeholders), there is still much to be done in terms of understanding how design should relate to and is impacted by the infrastructure (the contextual structures that the organizations/stakeholders operate in). In this paper, the authors specifically refer to infrastructure as a noun to describe the VCS context to be researched and co-designed, rather than the term ‘Infrastructuring’, which is a concept from the field of participatory design, to capture particular views and ways of engaging when designing complex sustainable systems, communities and publics, as summarized by Karasti (2014). Among the criticisms levelled at design in social contexts, much relates to the extent to which it can transform organizations or communities in isolation. Some suggest that this is because design is not yet penetrating the levels required to support the use of the approach (Schulman 2010). Botero and Hyysal (2013: 48) suggest that the ongoing, iterative nature of design, coupled with complex, ever-changing community contexts ‘demand infrastructural strategies for co-designing’ at this edge effect. Considering the process and outcomes of Warwick’s research case studies (2015) in relation to Young’s (2009) design content model (Figure 10.1), the design activity and research to date remains predominantly at the systems level, yet it demonstrates and irrefutably establishes the potential to act as a catalyst for transformation in VCS organizations (Warwick 2015). However, this transformation will continue to be limited by the lack of change in the wider context (Warwick 2015; Yee et al. 2015).



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FIGURE 10.1  Young’s design content model of three levels of design impact (Young 2009)

Schulman, of design studio ‘In with for’, suggests that to truly affect social problems, there needs to be ‘critical questioning of social policy alongside the creative freshness of design’. She contends that to achieve long-term social transformation, designers, and the systems they work in, must be equipped to grow, prototype and disseminate rigorous theories of change (Schulman 2010). Demonstrative projects like Design Against Crime and Public Services by Design (Design Council 2010) have highlighted the value of involving design approaches in the creation of policy. A new Policy Lab was recently launched in the UK Cabinet Office, with designer, Dr Andrea Siodmok, as its head (Siodmok 2014). While this will hopefully directly integrate user need into local and national government policies, which should eventually be echoed by infrastructure in the VCS, there is still a need to create better conditions to support the use of service design in the sector. Designers need to position themselves to be involved in the designing of the infrastructure at the community level (see Figure 10.1). Although the three actions discussed here may be relevant and already happening across both public and private sectors, the case study research of Warwick (2015) and Yee et al. (2015) shows that they can happen in the VCS, but are not doing so consistently enough to contribute to a paradigm shift.

10.7 Conclusion The discussion presented in this chapter describes the fragmented ascendency of design in social contexts and its recent successful use in the VCS. The fragile state

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of this sector means that while design may be of proven social value, its use is still piecemeal; operating at the edge of the sector, it needs to be supported effectively and sustainably to ensure that it can have the maximum impact over a long period of time. To this end, the chapter proposed the need to address three actions to support the development of a socio-economic paradigm for service design in the VCS: exposure to design, continuous engagement with design, and the design of infrastructure, as distinct from infrastructuring, which is the concern of sharing-based, collaborative services or commons (Karasti 2014). Although the authors address these three actions discretely, they ought to work concurrently and flexibly to support different types of engagement. For example, one of the case studies in Yee, White and Lennon’s study, Uscreates and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM), describes creating a ‘strong and enduring relationship’ through a variety of funding pathways to support different types of engagement: as project partners, on a ‘pay as you go’ basis and on an ‘advice only’ level (Yee et al. 2015: 16), which represents a rudimentary form of sustainable engagement. There is evidence (e.g. Warwick [2015]) that service designers are supporting VCSs by maximizing their intervention at the highest levels of organizations, i.e. at a policy and strategic level rather than just at an operational level. This has the advantage of addressing the growing pressure resulting from limited resources by doing more with less, which is reminiscent of the quote attributed to the physicist Ernest Rutherford, who split the atom: ‘We’ve got no money, so we’ve got to think.’ The ongoing question for design’s role in public service development by the VCS in society is: ‘how can we develop a sustainable socio-economic paradigm to support social innovation practices?’ At present, service design has made good progress addressing the VCS driver to provide more personalized services. However, until it can operate across all three levels in VCS organizations (Young 2009) and concurrently on all three actions (Warwick 2015), the transformation of service design from an edge effect to a mainstream practice in the VCS will be limited and its ecology will remain fragile rather than sustainable.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of Hazel White in the development of this chapter.

Notes 1

https://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/betterbydesign (accessed 10 July 2015).

2

http://www.servicedesignresearch.com/uk/education/ (accessed 10 July 2015).



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3

http://www.desis-network.org/content/desis-labs (accessed 10 July 2015).

4

http://www.wearefuturegov.com/blog/connecting-like-patchwork-in-australia (accessed 10 July 2015).

5

http://www.wearefuturegov.com/work/family-and-community-services-new-southwales (accessed 10 July 2015).

6

http://www.dmi.org/event/id/455194/DMI-Workshop-Service-Design-for-Business.htm (accessed 10 July 2015).

7

http://www.arts.ac.uk/csm/courses/short-courses/three-dimensional-design/productdesign-and-development/service-design/ (accessed 10 July 2015).

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11 Service design as a sensemaking activity: Insights from low-income communities in Latin America Carla Cipolla and Javier Reynoso

C

ultural issues are notable challenges to service design and management focused on low-income segments in emerging economies. Existing service models, developed in other settings, may not apply accurately, which suggests the need for new interpretative approaches to service design theory and practice that include local cultural issues. Analysing social innovations in low-income communities may provide useful insights in this direction, especially when they are regarded as indigenous services, that is, service solutions developed autonomously by local entrepreneurs in the communities for themselves and other relevant segments, and strongly based on local cultural values. With a view of service design as a ‘sensemaking activity’, and by investigating how it intertwines with local culture, this chapter proposes a framework of cultural aspects in services targeted to low-income segments, using indigenous services as the analysis context. An application of this framework to case examples from Brazil and Mexico reveals its strength.

11.1 Social innovations and indigenous services in low-income communities Social innovations are ‘new ideas (products, services and models) that simultaneously meet social needs and create new social relationships or collaborations. In other

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words, they are innovations that are both good for society and enhance society’s capacity to act’ (Murray et al. 2010: 3). Such innovations might be developed by public, private, or third sectors, as well as by users and communities. However, ‘some innovation developed by these sectors does not qualify as social innovation because it does not directly address major social challenges’ (Harris and Albury 2009: 16). That is, as Djellal and Galouj (2012) argue, social innovations change the way consumers’ needs (functions) are satisfied, in that they entail new services that have been developed by transitioning from formal (i.e. services provided by an external service provider) to informal modes of satisfaction. Emerging countries frequently present examples of social innovation as services, in the form of indigenous services that arise when ‘people living in low-income communities demand and provide existing services through entrepreneurship, such that they create solutions to ensure daily survival’ (Reynoso 2011: 162). Studies and projects on design for social innovation and sustainability are key influences on the development and consolidation of service design research (Manzini 2009) and indicate that indigenous services in low-income communities can be inspirational for service design practices. Accordingly, social innovations have been described as expressions of socially diffused creativity (Meroni 2008) and a society in which ‘everybody designs’ (Manzini 2015). The diffusion of creativity also gets expressed in services developed by entrepreneurs in low-income communities. Therefore, service design research that focuses on indigenous services must investigate their specific features while also recognizing that exogenously developed services may not be easily understood, accepted or performed in local settings. So-called ‘top-down’ service initiatives, such as those coming from multinational enterprises attempting to conquer new markets and expand their businesses, often lack evidence of intrinsic knowledge of or experience in the local context, such that they fail to prosper or become truly embedded in the community (Reynoso et al. 2015). Instead, the active role of low-income communities in developing indigenous services has been acknowledged in management studies that identify the huge, low-income segment of society as ‘the base of the pyramid’ or BoP (Prahalad 2004). Current understanding establishes that people at the BoP actively need, demand and consume services; they also are true innovators who create and provide service solutions for themselves and other segments of society. Examples range from microfinance for farmers in Bolivia to retail banking for first-time customers in Mexico to village phone concepts in Bangladesh to logistics cooperatives in India, among many others. Analyses of these initiatives tend to focus, as their unit of observation, on groups or communities instead of individuals, because it is the collectivity that possesses the creativity and purchasing or decision power. Thus the reality involves complex dynamics of interactions, happening at different levels of analysis, inside and around the base of the pyramid, involving persons, groups, communities and organizations from various income-level segments (Gummerus et al. 2013). Social innovations (also known as indigenous services in low-income segments) in turn can constitute new service models, in which interactions strongly reflect local



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cultural values and social networks. Prior research uses the terms collaborative (Jegou and Manzini 2009) and relational services (Cipolla and Manzini 2009) to reflect the recognition that participants and innovators collaborate in interpersonal collectives to achieve commonly shared and recognized results. Moreover, these social innovations are new ideas that challenge existing paradigms, so the service models they represent – which we refer to as indigenous services at the BoP – can help shed light on and extend the theory and practice surrounding service design for these segments. This chapter accordingly focuses on how indigenous services reflect the cultural framework in which they operate. The findings provide some suggestions for how service designers should proactively leverage this aspect when working for and with low-income segments. The definition of (service) design as a sensemaking activity provides a basis for our argument.

11.2 Interpretative framework: Indigenous services, cultural values and sensemaking Designers are ‘producers of sense, or sense makers’ (Manzini 2015: 35). Sensemaking in turn is ‘a motivated, continuous effort to understand connections (which can be among people, places, and events) in order to anticipate their trajectories and act effectively’ (Klein et al. 2006: 71). Kolko (2010: 18) defines sensemaking ‘as an action oriented process that people automatically go through in order to integrate experiences into their understanding of the world around them’ and relates it to the process of design synthesis, which is ‘an abductive sensemaking process’. Social innovations, as manifested as indigenous services at the BoP, express entrepreneurs’ sense of their situation and local cultural context, because this sense becomes manifest in the specific solutions they develop. Therefore, they design effectively, and the process they perform highlights the relation of design with culture, including the production of quality, value and beauty (Manzini 2015). Understanding the sensemaking processes that appear within these solutions therefore is a key activity for service designers working at the BoP, because such understanding can enable them to access a key aspect of design activity. In service design terms, the focus is on sensemaking as a social construction of meaning (Maines 2000), such that sensemaking develops during social interactions. This definition is applicable to the service design domain, where services get produced through social interactions, especially face-to-face encounters; social interaction refers to ‘the regulated coupling between at least two autonomous agents, where the regulation is aimed at aspects of the coupling itself so that it constitutes an emergent autonomous organization in the domain of relational dynamics’ (Jaegher and Paolo 2007: 493). An indigenous service entrepreneur acts within the interaction of individual sensemaking (how that entrepreneur, as an individual, makes sense of his or her own

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experiences) and joint or participatory sensemaking, defined as ‘the coordination of intentional activity in interaction, whereby individual sense-making processes are affected and new domains of social sense-making can be generated that were not available to each individual on her own’ (Jaegher and Paolo 2007: 497). Analysing joint or participatory sensemaking requires the consideration of two levels: 1 At a broader level, the overall cultural framework in which the entrepreneur

operates is the vast cultural background, produced by the entrepreneur as a member of the community but mainly inherited. 2 Entrepreneurs then translate this broader cultural framework, through their

own sensemaking activity, into the specific service solution and thereby engage others in joint processes of sensemaking, which then produce the indigenous service.

11.2.1 Sensemaking analysis: Local culture (Level 1) For the analysis at the cultural level, it is critical to understand the cultural environment that forms the basis for the sensemaking process that gives rise to the specific indigenous service solution being analysed. For service designers, understanding this broader cultural framework might include, for example, comprehension of the ethos of ubuntu (or humanness) as a unique expression of the bonds that traditionally kept African individuals and communities together (M´Rithaa 2009). Ubuntu is evident in Africa ‘through various forms of self-reliance and mutual assistance such as bataka kwegaita (communal solidarity) among the Banyakore people of Uganda, boipelogo (self-reliance) in Botswana, harambee (pulling together) in Kenya, and ujamaa (familyhood) in Tanzania’ (M’Rithaa 2008: 30). Or the comprehension might focus on guanxi in China and how it ‘shapes a person’s relation to society and interactions with others … As a form of social capital, guanxi works more effectively at the base of the social pyramid: The formal economy is more regulated and supported by well-developed institutions, whereas the informal economy requires social capital to survive and grow’ (Reynoso et al. 2015: 166). Local social networks and traditional institutions also need to be acknowledged, such as those that persist in Latin American urban and rural communities, such as slums and indigene groups. In research into the central role of social networks in Latin America, Lomnitz (2009: 19) asserts that organizations arising from the informal economy use traditional institutions, such as ‘family, friendship, membership of an ethnic group or system of beliefs’, to survive, and these institutions in turn are based on a ‘cultural definition of trust and loyalty, which are central elements to the work of informal networks’. Furthermore, Lomnitz (2009: 19) claims that ‘a social network is a field of relations among individuals’ that establishes ‘complex relations within a specific social space’. These relationships support the formation of solidarity networks, or ‘an exchange system of goods, services and information that occurs within the



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sociability’ (Lomnitz 2009: 19). New arrangements of social actors form through these networks, revealing new ways to solve daily problems. For service designers, the focus on this Level 1 also implies the necessary research effort to identify existing studies (e.g. anthropology, sociology) that detail the role of cultural traditions and networks in low-income communities’ contexts, especially those under analysis. The aim is to understand contextual factors (Level 1) that affect how indigenous services are designed (Level 2). Therefore, this effort constitutes an important field for service design research. Cultural issues, as well as interpersonal and social networks, represent huge challenges for service design and management. Most service models, common service design architectures, and policies to foster service innovations in these segments may not work properly in low-income segments. For example, many ‘Chinese people live in an intricate web of personal and social interconnections, using informal rather than formal incentive structures and enforcement mechanisms’ (Reynoso et al. 2015: 166). In Brazil, a behavioural analysis of entrepreneurs from Rocinha (a slum in Rio de Janeiro) reveals a type of rationality, different from the one normally applied by public policies to promote entrepreneurship (i.e. credit availability and management skills), that relies strongly on stakeholder commitment and local social networks (Pereira and Bartholo 2015).

11.2.2 Sensemaking analysis: Indigenous solution (Level 2) The analysis at this level aims to identify the way entrepreneurs embed their cultural background (Level 1) in their indigenous service solutions (Level 2). That is, identifying features at Level 1 provides an interpretative background for building the analysis at Level 2, by determining how the first level shapes the design of indigenous services by entrepreneurs in low-income communities. Research into design for social innovation, though not solely focused in low-income segments, has suggested how detailed analyses of indigenous services might advance research in the service design field. Studies indicate that social innovations offer a promising source of knowledge about emerging service models, especially in terms of the characteristics of service encounters and new interaction patterns that emerge in service solutions developed by local communities (Cipolla and Manzini 2009; Jegou and Manzini 2008). For example, one analysis uses service design tools like the service journey to identify and analyse distinctive features that constitute new service models (Cipolla 2012). Other tools and anthropologically inspired methodological procedures similarly might be used to investigate the distinctive characteristics of indigenous services in low-income communities, which constitutes the second level in this proposed framework.

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11.3 Interpretative framework application: Examples from Brazil and Mexico This contribution aims to highlight the possibility that service designers can explore the interplay of these two levels as a platform to generate new knowledge about service design for low-income segments. We demonstrate this interplay and application by considering two cases, in Brazil and in Mexico.

11.4 Brazil 11.4.1 Context: Favelas in Rio de Janeiro The favela of Babilônia is located among the neighbourhoods of Botafogo, Urca and Leme, in the southern zone, a wealthier area of the city of Rio de Janeiro. In 2010, its population was estimated at 2,451 people, living in 777 residences (IBGE 2010). Among this population, 26.9 per cent of the people are poor, with household incomes of R$235.08 per month (equivalent to approximately US$98.05), and 6.4 per cent are indigent, with household incomes of R$117.54 per month (US$49.03) (FIRJAN 2010). Although favelas are characterized by informality in several aspects, about 54.3 per cent of Babilônia’s population has a formal job (ibid.). In comparison with other slums worldwide, many favelas in Rio de Janeiro have relatively privileged access to resources, due largely to Brazilian public policies that focus on the development of low-income segments through housing, education and public security support.

11.4.2 Favela Orgânica Regina Tchelly arrived in Rio from Paraíba, in northeast Brazil, to live in Babilônia. Her first work was as a house cleaner and cook in a family house, a common job for immigrants from other regions of Brazil. She remembers being surprised at observing the enormous waste of food in the city. Getting the most out of every vegetable, by consuming every part of it, was a value embraced by Regina’s family. In general, the favelas are rich with the knowledge and traditions of northeastern Brazil, brought into the large capitals (like Rio and San Paulo) by immigrants. With the support of her employer, Regina acted on her interest in learning more about cooking. She started as a student in a technical course, during which she improved her cooking skills as well as her ability (previously encouraged by her family) to use all parts of the fruits and vegetables she was cooking, including parts that usually would be discarded (e.g. peels, stalks). With this new expertise, instead of looking for a job in a restaurant, Regina developed an entrepreneurial idea: cooking workshops that would teach people how



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to prepare recipes such as pies, snacks and cakes made with banana peels, the talus of broccoli, watermelon rinds and so on. This idea was the starting point of what later became the Favela Orgânica, a service that operates today as a buffet service that prepares food using all parts of the vegetable and fruit ingredients. This service, according to the definition proposed herein, is an indigenous service. We therefore analyse its characteristics according to the framework we have proposed in this chapter.

11.4.3 Analysis: Local culture (Level 1) Favelas in Rio de Janeiro, like Babilônia, are known for their particular aesthetics (mainly reflecting the self-built houses), poverty, and lack of access to services that are provided in other parts of the city. These spaces also suffer from ‘strong sociospatial stigmatization, specially inferred by the residents of the other parts of the city’ (Silva 2009: 22–3). Rio de Janeiro thus is perceived as divided, between favelas and outside areas, or asfalto (which have their own particularities). Residents of favelas survive through their ‘use of social networks, in which happens a continuous flow of exchanges based on the rules of reciprocity’ (Lomnitz 2009: 8–9). Such relationships enable the formation of solidarity networks in which ‘an exchange system of goods, services and information … occurs within the sociability’ (Lomnitz 2009: 19). They also are distinctive in terms of the informality that permeates the related social and work relations. This informality in favelas may reflect interpersonal relations, or clase special de proximidade psicosocial, which are characterized by trust, or the ‘hope we should have in a person to which we are about to ask a favor or a service’ (Lomitz 2001: 140). This definition of ‘informal’ thus does not entail elements that are unregulated or unorganized but rather addresses the factors on which exchanges are based, which are explicitly not signed contracts or money. The ‘exchange processes are based on trust and loyalty, which are central elements to the work of informal networks’ (Lomnitz 2009: 19). In creating and continually developing Favela Orgânica, Regina operated within her cultural environment (Level 1) and took advantage of the informality to obtain the required human and financial resources, as well as to identify her local context, organize sociocultural qualities in a meaningful way, and making sense of them so that she could define distinctive features for Favela Orgânica.

11.4.4 Analysis: Indigenous solution (Level 2) Favela Orgânica was only possible because of Regina’s ability to leverage local cultural values and norms, as described in the first level, and then make sense of them. To do so, she engaged in service development and operations, and the results were manifested in the sociocultural quality of the service.

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11.4.5 Service development and operation For Favela Orgânica, Regina initially had the entrepreneurial idea to offer cooking workshops about how to cook using fruits and vegetables fully. From this starting point, all subsequent developments were based on her ability to activate informal networks in her communities. Conventional, formal financial channels were not available to her. Instead, Regina approached local informal networks to raise financial resources. Furthermore, she activated professional resources (e.g. a dressmaker who produced uniforms for her business) and developed a supply system to receive produce from local vegetable sellers, especially vegetables that had not sold and were at risk of spoiling, for free. This system created a relationship of fidelity, because Regina maintained commercial relationships with the same sellers and created a collaborative exchange process that mutually empowered these local businesses. In this networking effort, the local neighbourhood association also helped attract the attention of external partners, such as Slow Food Brazil, a critical external supporter that promotes the service internationally. As these examples indicate, Regina relied deeply on the favela´s informal networks to develop her service innovation. Later and progressively, she diversified the service concept, from cooking workshops to buffet services, such that the micro-business became more formalized.

11.4.6 Sociocultural qualities of the service The way Regina defined the sociocultural qualities of Favela Orgânica reveals her ability to make sense of the cultural elements of the context, including the favela itself. Low-income contexts are usually considered as ‘in need’ of resources, with the assumption that they can mainly or even only provide unskilled labour, such as the house cleaning services Regina offered when she first moved to the area. But Regina also was able to develop a service that moves from the favela to the rest of the city and that draws its very identity from its origin there. The sense of Favela Orgânica is made by being provided from the favela. All the components of the service reinforce its main identity, including the service concept, supply system and service delivery, as well as how they are integrated in a coherent way. First, in terms of the service concept, Favela Orgânica teaches how not to waste food and how to cook delicious food. The service relies on traditional knowledge that highlights the value of the food and avoiding waste, transmitted to Regina by her family in the northeast part of Brazil, which she has adapted and made new sense of in Rio de Janeiro. Second, with regard to the service delivery, the local community started to help Regina prepare her buffets and workshops, so the service is provided effectively from people in the favela. The relationship between them and Regina is evident, reflecting her effort and ability to make sense of interpersonal relations and informal networks to define service features (and to create many jobs in turn). Third, the supply system is based on informal networks in the favela (e.g. collaboration with local



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vegetable sellers) and reinforced by the initiative to motivate other residents to start home gardens. Home gardens are common in the Brazilian countryside but unusual in Rio de Janeiro´s asfalto. However, immigrants living in the favela are connected with this practice, so Regina could make sense of it in her service, increasing its value and the references and links to the favela. Therefore, this service is very meaningful: it contributes to overcoming the stigmatization of favelas. Regina’s networking ability also has extended beyond the favela. She engages external supporters, like Slow Food Brazil, which advertises her services. Regina also manages her main communication channel carefully: a Facebook profile entitled ‘Regina Tchelly, Favela Orgânica’. With this channel, she actively reinforces networks outside the favela, most of which are based on her own interpersonal relations.

11.5 Mexico 11.5.1 Context: Indigenous groups in Mexico Indigenous groups living in remote countryside communities throughout Mexico present another rich context, useful to illustrate the value of sensemaking for service design at the BoP. As in the case of urban favelas, indigenous groups live excluded from the rest of society, in impoverished conditions. However, they also lack basic services for their well-being or infrastructure and resources to start formal businesses. In many cases, these groups live in areas distinguished by their rich biodiversity and culture, yet people frequently lack formal job opportunities that would enable them to support their families. These groups are also deeply rooted into their own habits and traditions.

11.5.2 Case: Red Indígena de Turismo de México (RITA) In 2002, Cecilio Solís Librado, a Nahua indigenous group from the state of Puebla, founded the Red Indígena de Turismo de México (RITA; in English, Indigenous Tourism Network of Mexico), which originally included thirty-two companies created and managed by indigenous groups in sixteen villages across fifteen Mexican states. Its main objective was to promote sustainable tourism services and preserve the cultural and environmental heritage of the regions, which provides a powerful basis for economic development in these communities. The creation of the network sought to support the tourism-based businesses of indigenous people by providing access to technology and information, as well as building capacity through active and responsible participation of its members. Today, RITA (2015) provides unique ‘indigenous tourism’ experiences in specific regions of Mexico (e.g. Colima, Oaxaca, Chiapas,

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Yucatan) and promotes total immersion in the local culture. Twelve years after its founding, the expanded organization includes more than 150 companies in sixteen states throughout the nation.

11.5.3 Analysis: Local culture (Level 1) Indigenous people traditionally have been discriminated against and excluded from their own countries. Most live in poverty and are considered part of the local folklore, but they have not been active participants in the development of their regions. In Mexico, approximately 10 per cent of the national population is indigenous. Among these 11 million people, more than 70 per cent live in poverty or extreme poverty. Because of the lack of business literacy and planning, indigenous communities have witnessed external actors exploit the richness of their regions, faced with unequal competence and a status as ‘objects’ of growth, even as their poverty rates continued to increase. This situation forced people to find new and creative ways to survive, and many of them have embraced tourism as a vehicle for development. Tourism, and particularly indigenous tourism, is a widespread means to fight poverty while sharing and leveraging the cultural wealth and biodiversity of a region. Mexico is a very attractive destination, ranked among the top three most biodiverse countries in the world, due to its endemic and rich biodiversity. In turn, different indigenous networks seek to foster local and regional development through indigenous tourism, which implies a clear recognition of the intrinsic links between natural areas and indigenous people. With their status as a minority population, many indigenous communities are interested in preserving, developing and reassessing this richness, together with their ethnic identity and cultural heritage, by sharing their ancestral knowledge of medicinal plants, culinary, crafts, music and dance. At the same time, tourists from various socio-economic segments are looking for new experiences and more accurate knowledge about the culture of a region, such that they can become a part of it in some sense. Indigenous tourism attractions include native museums, archeological sites, cultural villages, nature-based tours, indigenous tours, ceremonies and festivals. Increasing awareness of the environmental effects of tourism also has encouraged the search for new destinations, which has benefited indigenous tourism initiatives. In particular, indigenous tourism evolves when indigenous people become active participants in their own development, providing facilities and controlling tourist access to cultural sites, natural resources and tribal lands. With this situation, they can preserve their traditional knowledge, natural resources and culture. This goal was the main reason for the creation of RITA, which seeks to foster development through the empowerment of indigenous men and women.



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11.5.4 Analysis: Indigenous solution (Level 2) The RITA network was the result of integrated collaboration among multiple, indigenous, micro-businesses that appeared in different villages, supported by their rich cultural assets. Making sense of them translated into effective win–win solutions for tourism. The RITA network has branches in 70 per cent of Mexico’s richest areas, in terms of biological diversity, which thus can provide truly enhanced experiences for tourists. The network resulted from the development and operation of a service that incorporates intrinsic cultural characteristics to create value for customers.

11.5.5 Developing and operating the service With the creation of RITA, indigenous people gain a means to create and manage their own businesses, as well as to collaborate in offering unique experiences to domestic and foreign visitors. By combining resources related to the environment, culture and tourism, indigenous people contribute to their regional development in a sustainable way. The related network includes indigenous companies, government agencies and international organizations. The social fabric of the local area and its culture play key roles. Furthermore, RITA is the only rural tourism network in Mexico created, led and managed by indigenous men and women concerned about the development of their communities. They accordingly have developed new and unique knowledge about indigenous tourism, such that they have adapted their service offers to local needs while still integrating ancestral knowledge. For example, the interpretative trails and first-aid practices both combine modern, technical knowledge with traditional approaches to navigation and medicine, respectively. All the members of RITA are entrepreneurs who serve as both owners and workers, and their opinions are central to RITA’s decision-making processes. The strength of the network has led to benefits for more than 3,500 families, including the creation of more than 18,000 jobs and 150 small businesses across sixteen Mexican states. Moreover, RITA has had impacts on public policies, prompting more attention to the care and conservation of nature. Finally, it has encouraged a revaluing of local culture. This model in turn has been replicated in Argentina, Bolivia and Peru.

11.5.6 Sociocultural qualities of the service Although it has resulted from the need of indigenous communities to create resources for their own development, using their cultural wealth and respecting their natural link with biodiversity, RITA also has had to overcome many challenges associated with the complexity of creating and executing such an extensive network in such a diverse context. The sociocultural qualities of the service, in terms of its service concept, service delivery and supply system, thus can be described as follows.

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First, in its service concept, RITA is a network of indigenous micro-businesses that provide tourism experiences. The hosts are local people dressed in a traditional way, speaking in their native language, and offering and sharing their culinary and ancestral culture through stories and legends or visits to their ceremonial centres. Second, for the service delivery, the micro-businesses have been created, led and managed by indigenous men, women and families (around 30 per cent of members are women). They offer tourists a wide range of lodging, food and related services to assure an authentic experience with minimal environmental impact. All micro-business owners are actively involved in network decisions, and RITA operates according to eight main principles that all its members agree to embrace: MM

Professionalism to create a proactive and efficient environment among all actors.

MM

Responsibility for all activities and their consequences.

MM

Brotherhood ties among all members of the network.

MM

Honesty and respect among all actors involved (customers, members, suppliers, institutions).

MM

Commitment to the sustainability and viability of the network.

MM

Tolerance for different political or religious practices.

MM

Solidarity to promote understanding and empathy among all actors.

MM

Loyalty to the purpose of the network.

Third, in this supply system, all the micro-businesses are maintained by local entrepreneurs, developing economic activities. To maintain their regional identity, most suppliers are local. In some cases, this network has resulted in the creation of other small businesses, by activating local economies and developing local know-how for the benefit of not just network members but also members of their surrounding communities.

11.6 Conclusions Relevant service design issues thus arise when it comes to services in low-income markets, particularly in developing countries. The sensemaking dimension of services is particularly critical in BoP contexts. Sensemaking can be a source of creative ideas, in that indigenous people translate their broader cultural framework into specific solutions that create value for the actors involved. The nature, characteristics and dynamics of the cases we have analysed affirm the notion that the value co-produced through services by indigenous people at the BoP relies largely on complex and varied interactions among entrepreneurs, friends, family, community members (e.g.



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employees) and customers (individuals, groups, communities inside and outside BoP segments). Previous service design research already has investigated how indigenous solutions – and social innovation in general, when presented as services – entail innovative service architectures and organizational features that are distinctive from those designed for other segments. This chapter continues these efforts by proposing a two-level analysis to understand the development of services focused on BoP contexts. The first level refers to the local culture, which includes the cultural framework, local social networks, and the traditional institutions on which the service will operate. The second level involves how these values get embedded in service solutions developed for these segments. The two cases presented in this chapter describe local cultural values and interpersonal relations (Level 1), as well as how these values and relations determine how the indigenous services get designed and continue to operate today (Level 2). Because we analyse only two cases, a promising research direction would be to enlarge this analysis to other indigenous services, across various local and cultural backgrounds. Such assessments could generate additional knowledge about specific service architectures and organizational features for BoP segments – knowledge that already is embedded in the indigenous services developed at the BoP. As we have argued, design is a diffused ability, such that social innovators make sense of their own reality by translating cultural elements into specific solutions and performing indigenous service design activities. The two cases in this chapter show how both urban and rural low-income communities can be protagonists in service development. Whether the innovations start inside favelas or indigenous villages, they can spread beyond such areas. They have taken advantage of their social networks to achieve and leverage their in-depth knowledge of the local culture, its values, and its qualities, which enable these BoP entrepreneurs to define the meaning of their services accurately and meaningfully. Service designers thus can learn from these social innovators, particularly in terms of how they make sense of their reality and transform it into new services. This chapter also brings to light several additional questions to explore. For example, what role do families or other social groups take in motivating service design at the BoP? How does the use of technology affect the design of innovative service solutions? What can service designers learn from social entrepreneurs about the roles of persons, groups, families and communities in the design for services at the BoP? Can service designers identify and incorporate social and relational service attributes that are relevant to the design of services for low-income customers? In general, the integrated interactions among involved actors represent rich sources for continued research into service design and sensemaking at the BoP.

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Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge the collaboration of senior researcher Karla Cabrera in the preparation of this manuscript.

References Cipolla, C. (2012), ‘Solutions for Relational Services’, in S. Miettinen and A. Valtonen (eds), Service Design with Theory. Discussions on Change, Value and Methods, 34–40, Rovaniemi: Lapland University Press. Cipolla, C. and Manzini, E. (2009), ‘Relational Services’, Knowledge and Policy, 22: 45–50. Djellal, F. and Gallouj, F. (2012), ‘Social Innovation and Service Innovation’, in H. W. Franz, J. Hochgerner and J. Howald (eds), Challenge Social Innovation. Potentials for Business, Social Entrepreneurship, Welfare and Civil Society, 119–37. Berlin: Springer. FIRJAN (2010), Diagnóstico Sócio-Econômico Comunidades com Unidades de Polícia Pacificadora do RJ. Available online: http://www.firjan.com.br (accessed May 2016). Gummerus, J., Lefebvre, C., Liljander, V., Martin, C., McColl-Kennedy, J., Nicholls, R., Ordanini, A., Reynoso, J., Shirahada, K., Von Wangenheim, F. and Wilson A. (2013), ‘Global Perspectives on Service’, in R. Fisk, R. Russell-Bennet and L. l. Harris, Serving Customers: Global Services Marketing Perspectives, 298–322. Australia: Tilde University Press. Harris, M. and Albury, D. (2009), The Innovation Imperative. London: Nesta. IBGE (2010), Census 2010. Available online: http://censo2010.ibge.gov.br/ (accessed May 2016). Jaegher, H. D. and Paolo, E. D. (2007), ‘Participatory Sense-making. An Enactive Approach to Social Cognition’, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 6: 485–507. Jegou, F. and Manzini, E. (eds) (2008), Collaborative Services. Social Innovation and Design for Sustainability. Milano: PoliDesign. Klein, G., Moon, B. and Hoffman, R. (2006), ‘Making Sense of Sensemaking: Alternative Perspectives’, Intelligent Systems (IEEE) 21: 4. Kolko, J. (2010), ‘Abductive Thinking and Sensemaking: The Drivers of Design Synthesis’, Design Issues 26 (1): 15–28. Lomnitz, L. (2001), Redes Sociales, Cultura y Poder. Ensayos de Antropología Latinoamericana. Mexico: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales. Lomnitz, L. (2009), Redes Sociais, Cultura e Poder. Rio de Janeiro: E-Papers. Maines, D. R. (2000), ‘The Social Construction of Meaning’, Contemporary Sociology 29 (4): 577–84 Manzini, E. (2009), ‘Service Design in the Age of Networks and Sustainability’, in S. Miettinen and M. Koivisto (eds), Designing Services with Innovative Methods, 44–59. Helsinki: Taik. Manzini, E. (2015), Design, When Everybody Designs: An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation. Cambridge: MIT Press. Meroni, A. (2007), Creative Communities: People Inventing Sustainable Ways of Living. Milano: PoliDesign. M’Rithaa, M. (2008), ‘Engaging Change: An African Perspective on Designing for Sustainability’. Turin: Proceedings of the Changing the Change (CtC) International Conference.



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M´Rithaa, M. (2009), ‘Embracing Sustainability: Revisiting the Authenticity of “Even” Time’. São Paulo: Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Sustainable Design (II ISSD). Murray, R., Caulier-Grice, J. and Mulgan, G. (2010), The Open Book of Social Innovation: Ways to Design, Develop and Grow Social Innovation. London: Nesta and Young Foundation. Pereira, I. N. and Bartholo, R. (2015), ‘Entrepreneurship in Rocinha: A Non Goal-Driven Activity’, La Rovere, in R. Ozório and, L. J. Melo (eds). Entrepreneurship in BRICS: Policy and Research to Support Entrepreneurs, 163–78. New York: Springer. Prahalad, C. K. (2004), The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Wharton School Publishing. Reynoso, J. (2011), ‘Evolución hacia la administración de servicios en países emergentes: reflexiones sobre América Latina’, in Ch. Lovelock, J. Reynoso, G. D’Andrea, L. Huete and J. Wirtz, Administración de Servicios: Estrategias para la creación de valor en el nuevo paradigma de los negocios, 99–114. Mexico: Pearson Prentice Hall. Reynoso J., Kandampully, J., Fan, X. and Paulose, H. (2015), ‘Learning from sScially Driven Service Innovation in Emerging Economies’, Journal of Service Management 26 (1): 156–76. RITA (2015), ‘RED INDÍGENA DE TURISMO DE MÉXICO’. Available online: http://www. rita.com.mx/ (accessed May 2015). Silva, J. (2009), O que é a favela, afinal? Rio de Janeiro: Observatório de Favelas do Rio de Janeiro.

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12 The social innovation journey: Emerging challenges in service design for the incubation of social innovation Anna Meroni, Marta Corubolo and Matteo Bartolomeo

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his chapter contributes to the ongoing debate about design and social innovation and relates it to the practice of service design. Moving from the experience of a team of service designers and social business developers based in Milan, the essay incorporates the lessons learnt from their participation in the European project TRANSITION.1 It describes a methodological path developed for the incubation of social innovation, namely the social innovation journey (SIJ), designed to offer a simple and customizable professional tool to practitioners. The chapter also presents a first set of arguments on the specificities of social innovation and on the kinds of venture it can generate. It also discusses how service design can be instrumental to social innovation and how it can be integrated with other competences, within incubation processes that are specifically conceived for social innovations. Finally, the emerging challenges for service design are presented. These are associated with the need not only to incubate social innovation but also to encourage it by creating local ecosystems with a cultural, political and regulatory aptitude to experiment that will actually facilitate it.

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12.1 Design for services and for social innovation We can observe that in Europe ongoing economic challenges have accelerated innovation processes and opened up entrepreneurial opportunities in different fields. These emerge from the retreat of the welfare state, but also from changes in opportunity costs and risks for entrepreneurship. In the social business area, this trend is visible and a new wave of entrepreneurs has entered the social business domain. Furthermore, several European cities have been experimenting with new approaches to governance, in order to develop more efficient ways of identifying issues and co-producing solutions with diverse stakeholders, and thus foster the innovation capability of society as a whole (Bonneau, in Urbact II Capitalisation, 2015). In fact, the many social innovation acceleration programmes, public–private experimental partnerships and crowd-sourcing and crowd-funding initiatives put in place by public administrations, or by private entities with public endorsement, have created a favourable local ecosystem for social innovators. The role of design, and in particular service design, in this framework is today acknowledged because of its transformational capacity due to its aptitude for systemic thinking, sensemaking and skill training (Cautela et al. 2015). By ‘empowering people’ to conceive, develop and produce solutions together, i.e. to innovate (European Commission 2013; Davies and Simon 2013a), design dialogues with management, organizational disciplines, economics, social sciences and sustainability studies (Meroni and Sangiorgi 2011; Zurlo and Bohemia 2014; Sangiorgi 2014). The term ‘social innovation’ refers to this capacity of people to innovate together; it is now a familiar way of referring to ‘new solutions (ideas, products, services, models, markets, processes etc.) that simultaneously meet a social need (more effectively than existing solutions) and lead to new or improved capabilities and relationships, and to a better use of assets and resources. In other words, social innovations are both good for society and enhance society’s capacity to act’ (The Young Foundation 2012: 18). Therefore, empowering people to act is today a goal of many public and cultural policies across Europe (Hubert 2010). In this chapter we argue that using approaches, methods and tools from service design, co-design and design thinking to support innovations produced by society (Cautela et al. 2015) is a designerly way (Cross 2001) of ‘empowering people’, making them feel able to influence decisions or actually enabling them to do so (Davies and Simon 2013b). In fact, according to Manzini (2015), this activity is an increasingly important role for expert designers – ‘people trained to operate professionally as designers’ (ibid.: 37) – while design is a capability that everybody possesses. In its very essence this role is similar to incubating, using a ‘collection of techniques that can be used to prove an idea, develop a team and de-risk ventures for later-stage investors’ (Miller and Stacey 2014: 4). When it comes to social innovation, the designer’s job is thus a mix of capacity building and professional consultancy for designing practices that can be equated with services (European Commission 2013).



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12.2 Service design when it comes to incubating and scaling social innovation 12.2.1 Scaling means increasing the capacity of a social innovation to be self-sustainable and make an impact The distinction between ‘scaling out’ – disseminating social innovation to benefit more communities – and ‘scaling up’ – connecting the social innovation to opportunities in the broader economic, political, legal or cultural context (Westley and Antadze 2013) – is useful to frame the subject of design for social innovation. Likewise, it is worth considering that geographically dependent innovations do not spread by increasing the number of users, but are likely to scale out by replication: that’s to say, through ‘circles’ or communities each one guaranteeing trustworthy and meaningful interaction to its users (Morelli 2014). In this case the core service concept philosophy is preserved, but some variables are customized to the cultural and geographical traits of their communities. That said, we argue that when talking about incubating and scaling social innovation there is not only a technical dimension to consider (service modelling, sustainability, feasibility, viability etc.), but also a cultural/geographical one. This refers to the use of design creativity and knowledge to generate shared meanings, citizens’ self-awareness and capacity to act within the social and public realm (Meroni et al. 2014). Incubating (proving an idea and empowering a team) and scaling/replicating an innovation (spreading and expanding it) is a seamless design process, in which both technical and cultural instances are tackled in an evolutionary journey from infancy to maturity and diffusion. We have conceptualized this as an ideal ‘Social Innovation Journey – SIJ’ (TRANSITION 2016, Gabriel 2014), where ‘scaling’ is any transformation along it that increases the capacity of the innovation to become self-sustainable and to create impact. This definition of ‘scaling’ is consistent with what emerges from the research project TEPSIE.2 This is: first, that simply applying the concept of ‘scaling up’ to the growth of social innovation can narrow thinking about possible routes and approaches to growth; secondly, that there is a need for greater clarity concerning the specific nature of the innovation to be spread (an idea, a specific intervention, a social practice or an organization); and thirdly, that spreading innovation is a highly contingent social process (Davies and Simon 2013a).

12.2.2 A consistent body of knowledge The ‘Social Innovation Journey’ is one output of the European project TRANSITION,3 which has experimented and created a common path for the support of social innovation, comparing the experiences of six Scaling Centres across Europe. It had the aim of expanding and integrating a widely scattered, tacit experience of social innovation incubation into a consistent, transferrable body of knowledge.

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The issue of incubating social ventures is not in itself new and it has already been investigated from different perspectives. What is new in TRANSITION is that initiatives and practices are included in the subject of investigation that are apparently far from being, or being about to become, any form of conventional enterprise. In fact, the discourse on incubation so far has continued to be about organizations that can demonstrate a ‘proven and measurable social impact and revenue model’ and that are ‘trying to achieve a social or environmental impact through business principles […] social ventures that aim to achieve impact at a large scale’ (Miller and Stacey 2014: 4, 6). While the criterion of social impact is and remains a primary one, when considering social innovation projects, profitability could instead be reframed as ‘selfsustainability’: a broader capacity to continue over time, thanks to diverse ‘adaptive’ strategies for co-evolving within a changing environment and in response to changes in the interacting parts. Another new angle of investigation by TRANSITION comes from the definition of scaling as: progressing at any stage of development of a social innovation, from being a simple ‘prompt to act’ to ‘making a system change’, with reference to the Nesta and Young Foundation’s ‘spiral’ (Murray et al. 2010). This implies the design of a flexible incubation path, where initiatives can join or leave at any stage. In other terms, social innovations need people to work with, a proposition to test, customers, sources of advice, money, a place to work and mentorship (Miller and Stacey 2014), but also a continuous alignment of intentions and visions with a broader and more fluid community, a motivational stimulus, the creation of a local culture and a methodological framework for operating and taking decisions. The SIJ is being built to integrate all these aspects in as simple a path as possible, inspired by the ‘spiral’ model and organized so as to include methods and tools derived from enterprise incubation and acceleration, as well as a wide set of service design tools (Corubolo and Meroni 2015).

12.2.3 The social innovation journey The SIJ consists of two circles of incubation and eight main steps (Figure 12.1). The external circle (steps 1–4) comprises activities traditionally referred to as pre-incubation, from raising awareness to creating a vision, defining an idea and designing a pre-prototype ready to be tested. The internal circle (steps 5–8) works with more formalized social innovations, helping them to achieve a more structured and replicable solution. Both the external and the internal circles touch on the main areas of incubation work corresponding to WHY, WHO, WHAT and HOW. WHY is about the capacity of the design team to make the solution meaningful to users and stakeholders, and thus increase its social and cultural impact. WHO (steps 1 and 6) is about supporting people in creating a group, in building capacity, and in defining skills and roles. Thus, it is about helping a mix of people to develop into a group or a team.



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FIGURE 12.1  The social innovation journey (courtesy of Transition project)

WHAT (steps 2 and 7) is about supporting social innovators in generating the idea, defining the social value offering and the product service system design, and thus developing the initial vision into an idea and then a proposal. HOW, in terms of viability (steps 3 and 8), is about investigating the sustainability of the ideas, their business models and business plans (if needed) and the organizational part of the ‘venture’, thus developing it from a proposal into a structured undertaking. HOW, in terms of feasibility (steps 4 and 5), is about looking at the technical and operational feasibility of the innovation, tested through prototyping. The journey is a non-continuous and non-linear process, with multiple possible iterations and customizations depending on the different natures of the social innovations. While its general structure can suit the scaling needs of any venture, what makes it peculiar to social innovation lies in the tools and activities used in the different stages and provided through the support of professional advisers. This body of tools and activities can be tailored to the unique features of an innovation, making them effective regardless of whether given sequences or the full journey are completed. One of the distinctive features of the scaling path supported by the SIJ is constant interaction with the social stakeholders, through structured co-design activities all along the journey. This enables the innovators, the users and the wider network

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of stakeholders to collaborate in making sense of a solution. It also keeps the design activity focused on the innovativeness of the solution and starts a collective reflection on its desirability and practicability in everyday life. Finally, the SIJ leads to continuous assessment of the social goal and the expected impact of the solution at any stage.

12.2.4 The contribution of service design The Italian Scaling Centre for TRANSITION was based in Milan and made up of the Polimi DESIS Lab (Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability, at the Design Department of Politecnico di Milano) and Avanzi-Make a Cube (a consultancy specialized in incubation of social enterprises). As such, we have contributed to the development of the SIJ, particularly focusing on the conceptualization of the path and on the integration of service design and management tools. The service design approach, in particular, was our peculiar contribution, as the Polimi DESIS Lab is the only design organization in the project consortium. It can be argued that social innovations are services because they define new, regulated ways of co-producing social benefits through solutions that imply the application of knowledge and skills by different parties (Meroni and Sangiorgi 2011). Social innovations are in fact behaviours and interactions proposed, made possible, organized and regulated to generate new value propositions and social value in particular. As forms of services, social innovations could benefit from supporting actions to make them more sustainable and meaningful, and work more effectively, with greater impact. Therefore, they could benefit from empowerment and incubation as mentioned, to enable them to scale. The vast and heterogeneous knowledge coming from service design is of key importance to social innovators but the challenge is to make it accessible to them and usable. The SIJ is a step in this direction: in fact, it can be seen as a hands-on journey into service design and management thinking with and for the social innovators, to strengthen their capacity to make decisions, to make them more effective entrepreneurs and, in a way, to train them as service designers. In conjunction with management tools, different service design tools have been introduced at all stages, focusing on: sensemaking and user experience; shared value and community-centred design, co-design and prototyping. Examples are: the ‘Social Innovation Scanner’, to self assess and monitor the expected social impact of the solution; the ‘Problem/Opportunity Definition’, to identify and define the proposal; the ‘Social Copy Strategy’, to focus on the social promise; the ‘Offering Map’ and the ‘Sustainability Scanner’, to articulate the service value proposition; the ‘System Map’, to visualize the main solution stakeholders and their relationships; the ‘Story Board’ and the ‘Interaction Storyboard’, to design the user journey and roles of the main stakeholders; the ‘Personas’, to accurately define the service target; the ‘Touchpoint Map’, to design the service encounters and the different service interfaces; the



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‘Co-Design Plan’, to define the participatory activities and interaction with the stakeholders; the ‘Prototyping Framework’, to plan the field test. A brief overview of issues emerging from the different stages of the SIJ and from the use of the tools will help us understand the distinctive features of the social innovation that TRANSITION intercepted in Milano.

12.3 Social innovation in the Milanese context 12.3.1 Social innovations are dependent on their context and promoters Besides collaborating in the TRANSITION project, the Milanese Scaling Centre has been involved in several social innovation projects, in a wide range of fields. The reflections in this chapter are therefore built on multiple experiences that shared the same ecosystem. Many initiatives promoted by public administration, private organizations, companies or foundations contributed to create an unprecedented liveliness in the city and to foster the transformation of Milan into a ‘smart and sharing city’. From the beginning of this new course of social innovation, the centrality of services has become increasingly apparent: e.g. services as the manifestation of social innovation, services as assets in a smart city, services as a strategy to open access to data and infrastructures (Direzione Centrale 2014). Since the Milanese Scaling Centre (a combination of two distinct entities: a university and a consultancy) is involved in a good number of these initiatives, a service design mentality and approach naturally influenced the action and started the hybridization with other areas of expertise such as management and training. This is the local background of the SIJ methodology and toolbox. Since the beginning the centre has experimented with all its steps and with as wide a variety as possible of social innovation practices, adopting a very diversified engagement strategy, ranging from a call for ideas to direct invitations. Looking backward, we can use two key criteria to help us cluster the innovations that have entered the journey: 1 ‘Context readiness’ (relating to factors external to the organization): whether

the environment is ready and willing to accept the innovative solution proposed by the project. This may concern both cultural (policy level, cultural norms, social environment, desires and needs) and technical aspects (infrastructures, technology, legislation, economy) and may be defined as ‘mature’ or ‘premature’. 2 ‘Innovator readiness’ (relating to factors internal to the organization): the

degree of organization of the promoters (the team proposing an idea), their alignment towards a shared vision and mission, the entrepreneurial approach. Social innovators range from ‘loose’ teams (spontaneous groups of people

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sharing an intention, groups of volunteers or informal teams of pro-active citizens or neighbours) to ‘structured’ ones (organized groups with an entrepreneurial mindset and/or will) (Corubolo and Meroni 2015). The combination of these two factors provides a first picture of the innovation and of the needs it might have in terms of support. Despite the fact that not all initiatives intend (or aim) to become forms of enterprise (Murray, Caulier-Grice and Mulgan 2009), all of them seek to become more effective and self-sustainable, yet based on volunteering, intrinsic motivation, personal fulfilment and a flexible involvement of ‘staff’, where this term is not to be intended in a conventional way (Cautela et al. 2015). This can be visualized through a 2by2 Positioning Diagram (Figure 12.2) where the different cases can be mapped. It allows for an initial evaluation of the ‘skill & will’ of the promoters and the contextualization of the cases in their local ecosystems, so as to be able to tailor the SIJ to their needs. To explain this map, two opposite quadrants can be commented: when an innovation is positioned within the quadrant ‘loose/premature’ we are likely to be facing a cuttingedge societal issue and a forward-thinking group of people with an initial insight, but lacking a truly shared vision and mission to drive them forward. Therefore, at an early stage, they first need support to align their intentions, expectations and to articulate

FIGURE 12.2  The ‘Positioning Diagram’ of some of the social innovations that entered the Transition Milano Scaling Centre (courtesy of Transition project)



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FIGURE 12.3  The ‘Social Innovation Scanner’ (courtesy of Transition project) a vision. In order to achieve this, in our experience, a service designer needs to dive deep into the social innovators’ environment and organize immersive co-design activities until the idea is well defined and robust enough to be taken forward (Selloni 2014). We can consider this immersive activity as one of the distinctive features of community-centred design (Manzini and Meroni 2012). These actions are placed in the ‘People’ and ‘Prompt’ stages of the SIJ (Figure 12.1) as they are crucial to motivate the group, strengthen social engagement and enable people to make things happen (Fuad-Luke 2009; Fry 2011). When an innovation is in the quadrant ‘structured/mature’ instead, we face a relatively well-known societal challenge within a cultural/regulatory system that is already changing and experimenting with new solutions. There is already a team of people with an entrepreneurial mindset who still need to understand or fine-tune some technical part of the service they aim to offer or are already delivering. They need training in how to use some of the most common basic service design tools in order to define the user journey, the stakeholder interaction, the business model and/ or the touch-points, or to plan the prototyping phase. At this stage of development, where the WHAT is still an open issue, the ‘Social Innovation Scanner’ (Figure 12.3) helps to show the potential social impact of the innovation. It encourages social innovators to assess their project according to characteristic areas and to identify the actions that generate these positive effects.

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12.3.2 Social innovations are relational, collaborative, multistakeholder and adaptive services The distinctive features of social innovation – being associated with relational, collaborative and hybrid forms of service provision – require specific incubation actions and have implications for the practice of service design. First, the human capital is one of the distinctive assets of social innovations, as they require personal commitment and the engagement of staff in the service delivery. This implies that the service encounters are of a relational kind, meaning interpersonal interactions based on the ‘ability to truly relate with the other’ in a mutual relationship, including both dialogue and encounter ‘without preconceptions or certainties’ as if hazarding into an ‘unknown adventure’ (Cipolla and Manzini 2009: 46). These services are extremely dependent on people and very heterogeneous (Parasuraman et al. 1985) affecting the possibility to define and deliver to service ‘standards’. A second reflection questions whether these services are ‘collaborative’ according to the definition provided by Jégou and Manzini (2008): ‘social services where final users are actively involved and assume the role of service co-designers and co-producers’ (p. 32). We can argue that this condition is frequently but not always met: indeed, we commonly recognize a collaboration in the way the initiatives establish direct relationships with users and call for their participation, or in the way a loose group of citizens

FIGURE 12.4  The ‘Interaction Storyboard’ (courtesy of Transition project)



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(moved by civic-mindedness) starts ‘randomly’ to interact around an insight or to build a solution for the community. The ‘social’ dimension of innovation is in fact twofold: on the one hand it concerns social benefit and the social issues the organization itself is aiming to solve. On the other it may concern the collective action of doing, experimenting, designing and validating new ideas for social issues. Civic passion, in fact, moves many social business projects whose core idea could be connected to personal experiences and problems. In terms of implications for service design, this requires the introduction of co-design methods to guide such a diversified community of innovators to conceive, develop, prototype and eventually produce a service and their personal role in it, turning dilettantism into professionalism. A third reflection, as a consequence of the second one, is the blurring of the conventional front-end/back-end distinction, the so-called ‘line of visibility’ of the service. This implies the adoption of a multifaceted model of interaction and responsibility sharing: a multi-stakeholder service design and delivery model based on a governance structure that brings stakeholders together to participate in a dialogue about decision finding and making regarding communal problems that cannot be solved by one organization alone (Hemmati, 2002). The need to design for these multistakeholders interactions was addressed with the use of the ‘Interaction Storyboard’ tool (Figure 12.4). It requires social innovators to assume the perspective of each

FIGURE 12.5  The ‘Co-Design Plan’ (courtesy of Transition project)

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subject involved in the project and to reflect on the various and inter-dependant roles that they may assume in crucial phases of the service. Furthermore, being multi-stakeholder, the most interesting social innovations result from the combination of markets, services and approaches with the explicit aim of achieving equity, participation, democracy and accountability in the absence of strict vertical hierarchies. For this reason, these innovations are developed by organizations that are per se the combination of different stakeholders, or that must deal with a multi-stakeholder process in order to advance and scale. Social innovators continuously interact with users, clients and other stakeholders, while the service they deliver becomes an adaptive, ever-evolving entity, open to external inputs. From a designer standpoint, this process has been formalized in a plan of internal and external co-design activities that has been named the ‘Co-design Plan’ (Figure 12.5). It presents an overview of the methods and techniques that can be adopted according to the object of the co-design and to the degree of involvement between the designer and the stakeholders. By guiding the social innovators in setting in place a co-design session, it supports them in collecting external contributions and in reinforcing the interaction with stakeholders. Ultimately, a peculiar aesthetics emerges from these services due to what the service does and how the service is delivered. Various projects in fact creatively reuse material and immaterial resources including abandoned spaces, waste materials and

FIGURE 12.6  The ‘Sustainability Scanner’ (courtesy of Transition project)



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energy, but also know-how and experience. This trend is not only related to scarcity and the economic crisis: on the contrary, in many projects a new aesthetics and culture of up-cycling is emerging and the exchange value of products and services is directly connected to the ability of innovators to transform existing assets into smart responses to societal needs. To focus on this, the ‘Sustainability Scanner’ has been developed (Figure 12.6). This tool invites the social innovators to identify and assess the overall sustainable actions put in place by their project, encouraging them to reorient their actions and therefore reinforce their value proposition.

12.3.3 Social innovations are entrepreneurial, conflicting and diversified ventures In parallel to the reflections about the service typologies, we will introduce here some further considerations about the nature of the emerging ventures social innovations are generating. First, social innovators are more entrepreneurs than employees. Regardless of the contractual arrangements that regulate the work relationships (including the volunteer contribution), they take risks, they work for a while without compensation, they pivot services and business models in order to find more effective and efficient ways to respond to user needs. These are clearly features of an entrepreneurial approach. Secondly, innovations often emerge from situations of conflict, such as house squatting, large migration flows, boycotting of retail chains, environmental disasters, land exploitation, to mention a few. Conflicts have the power to stimulate and test new ideas, to consolidate networks, to attract interests and to pave the way for side innovations. When innovations move into the (social) business domain, other conflicts emerge, where the discussion about profit or non-profit and volunteer or professional role may become contentious. As a consequence, the legal forms adopted by the innovators may vary from informal groups to associations, foundations, cooperatives, traditional businesses and more. The conventional legal forms appear obsolete, together with the dichotomy between profit and non-profit. This may suggest that a new form of capitalism is emerging, where profits are purely instrumental and impacts or benefits to the society are the main objectives of doing business (P2P Foundation 2015). The ‘Prototyping Framework’ (Figure 12.7) together with the ‘Business Model Canvas’ can help innovators to define the business model of their activity by testing the different activities on the field. In particular, the ‘Prototyping Framework’ tool supports the innovators in making a prototyping session, by providing a sequence of steps and a check-list for the before, during and after the test. Within social innovation practices, prototyping aims at being more than a simple functional and technical test of viability and feasibility: instead it is likely to be an engaging event (or sequence of events) that activates a broader community of stakeholders and reinforces a wider network of partners.

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FIGURE 12.7  The ‘Prototyping Framework’ (courtesy of Transition project)

12.4 Discussion Acknowledging, on one side, the transformational role of design and, on the other, the dramatic challenges that today public administration and economy are facing (Bonneau, in Urbact II Capitalisation, 2015), this chapter discusses the opportunities related to the incubation of social innovation practices and the role that service design can have. From the Milanese experience of the TRANSITION project, social innovations have emerged as relational, collaborative, multi-stakeholder and adaptive kinds of service; and as entrepreneurial, conflicting and diversified kinds of venture. Their possibility to scale depends on both the context and the innovator readiness. An evolved incubation path, the social innovation journey has been designed and experimented across Europe within TRANSITION, in order to acknowledge these peculiarities and finally offer a relatively simple but customizable professional approach to social innovation incubators. Applying and adapting service design methods and tools within the SIJ, we have finally identified a number of challenges that the design and incubation practice encounters when supporting social innovations. Social innovations require not only incubating, but also encouraging. Service design can play a role in fostering social innovations by challenging citizens, social



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organizations and public administration to explore compelling social issues. Besides those investigated in TRANSITION, design-driven experiments can be reported worldwide that have succeeded in activating community engagement and civic commitment around shared challenges (Selloni 2014; Bason 2014). Here, design contributes by supporting innovators in envisioning future service systems and by providing expertise to define new collaborative models. These forms of early incubation are design-driven strategies that allow for the growth of an innovation mindset in society and that support ‘loose’ teams at the beginning of an SIJ, when there is a strong need for an initial process of alignment and envisioning, which implies an immersive participation of the designer in the innovators’ community. These early incubation strategies might also respond to another need: since the incubators for social businesses seem not yet to have provided effective responses to some of the severe challenges of today’s society, an early design-driven approach could point to these issues. In fact, the typical incubation process, which consists in attracting and selecting projects via open calls, leaves a great number of problems unaddressed and attracts a large number of innovations for problems that are only partly stringent. Here again, the responsibility of social business incubators should move forward and take into consideration the new priorities of contemporary society. The launch of challengebased exploratory actions could be a way to do so. These could include: specific challenges where innovators gather to solve identified societal challenges; citizen engagement initiatives meant to aggregate stakeholders’ coalitions around communal issues; incubators’ own projects. An open question here is who can promote these public interest initiatives in the downturn of economic resources available to public administration. Social innovation ecosystems need to be set up and nourished. While the previous reflection mainly regards the innovation’s internal factors, another key observation regards external factors, and precisely the context readiness and the characteristics of the local ecosystem. Here we refer to the role of design, and of service design in particular, as instrumental to participatory innovation strategies on the part of public administrations; and the role of the third sector, of philanthropic organizations and civic society associations. By creating platforms of collaboration between stakeholders, these open-innovation and open-government policies (European Commission 2013) can actively contribute to the development of two attributes of an ecosystem favourable to social innovation: 1 A cultural humus that is made up of new ideas and expectations about quality

of life. The assumption is that, since personal and communal values can foster a community more receptive to innovative proposals, service design can play a role in alimenting this humus through forms of ‘cultural activism’ (Fuad-Luke 2009; Fry 2010; Scalin and Taute 2012). 2 A regulatory framework that sets the conditions for actually enabling

innovation. It is today widely recognized that social innovation occurs in

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the ambiguity or at the edge of regulatory systems. Therefore, to prompt innovation in the regulatory framework, an experimentation is urgently needed with civil servants and civic organizations, not only to solve problems but also to envision new possibilities (Bason 2014). We can see this as a form of indirect incubation that acts on the local ecosystem. It can be considered a way to ‘scale up’ social innovation and connect to opportunities in the economic, political, legal and cultural context. Relational and collaborative services need to be nurtured over time by a clear social value proposition. Since social innovation is relational and collaborative, it appeals to the value system, personal beliefs, aspirations and psychological needs of all the stakeholders and must make sense in their lives. The sense-making capacity of design (Zurlo 2012; Verganti 2009) – the ability to create contexts of shared meaning, by providing thought-provoking ideas, visions and scenarios, and by stepping into the shoes of both users and service providers – can assist a social innovator in conceiving a service that materializes as a meaningful social value proposition. This has to do with the concepts of relevance (the meaning and the utility for people’s everyday lives) and trust (proximity of the personal network) that Morelli (2014) points out as the reasons why the ‘strategies to scale up highly localized and personalized service platforms cannot be based on a wild fire expansion. It is not the number of users that should expand to scale-up the platform, but the number of communities’ (p. 222). Unlike incubators in the technological or digital fields, social business incubators, have to focus on replicable businesses and not only on scalable ones, pursuing emulation and replication without applying the same recipe to different situations. Multi-stakeholder models require articulated ways to manage the stakeholder engagement for service design and production. Collaborative services break the conventional provider-user bilateral relationship and the rule of the ‘line of visibility’. Multi-stakeholder services add to this the complexity of an interaction triggered by diverse motivations, informed by different capacities and personal availabilities, and not necessarily driven by converging interests. Service design can intervene to make explicit and envision this multifaceted interaction. To do so and to become instrumental for an effective combination of interests toward a shared goal, service design tools need to evolve in order to take into account multiple levels of simultaneous interaction, one-to-one as well as one-to-many relations between the stakeholders, and a more volatile engagement and standards of performance. This translates into the difficulty of defining a service blueprint that balances and synchronizes demand with supply and understands multiple forms of reward for the stakeholders in the context of the same initiative.



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Notes 1

‘Transnational Network for Social Innovation Incubation’ http://transitionproject.eu (accessed 10 October 2016).

2

‘The Theoretical, Empirical and Policy Foundations for Building Social Innovation in Europe’, http://www.tepsie.eu (accessed 10 October 2016).

3

Transnational Network for Social Innovation Incubation – 2013–16, Funded by EC – 7th FP.

References Bason, C. (2014), ‘The Frontiers of Design for Policy’, in C. Bason (ed.), Design for Policy, 225–35. Aldershot: Gower. Cautela, C., Meroni, A. and Muratovski, G. (2015), ‘Design for Incubating and Scaling Innovation’, in L. Collina, L. Galluzzo and A. Meroni (eds), Proceedings of CUMULUS Spring Conference 2015 – The Virtuous Circle Design Culture and Experimentation, Politecnico di Milano 3–7 June, Milano: Mc Graw Hill. Available online: http://www. ateneonline.it/cumulusmilan/home.asp (accessed 10 October 2016). Cipolla, C. and Manzini, E. (2009), ‘Relational Services’, Knowledge, Technology & Policy 22 (1): 45–50 Corubolo, M. and Meroni, A. (2015), ‘A Journey into Social Innovation Incubation. The TRANSITION Project’, in L. Collina, L. Galluzzo and A. Meroni (eds), Proceedings of CUMULUS Spring Conference 2015 – The Virtuous Circle Design Culture and Experimentation, Politecnico di Milano 3–7 June, Milano: McGraw Hill. Available online: http://www.ateneonline.it/cumulusmilan/home.asp (accessed 10 October 2016). Cross, N. (2001), ‘Designerly Ways of Knowing: Design Discipline versus Design Science’, Design Issues 17 (3): 49–55. Davies, A. and Simon, J. (2013a), Growing Social Innovation: A Literature Review. A deliverable of the FP7-project: TEPSIE. Brussels: European Commission, DG Research. Davies, A. and Simon, J. (2013b), The Value and Role of Citizen Engagement in Social Innovation. A deliverable of the project: TEPSIE, Brussels: European Commission, DG Research. Direzione Centrale Politiche per il Lavoro, Sviluppo Economico, Universita e Ricerca, Settore Innovazione Economica, Smart City e Università – Servizio Smart City, Comune di Milano (2014), Milano Smart City – Guidelines, May. Available online: www. milanosmartcity.org (accessed 10 October 2016). European Commission – DG Regional and Urban Policy and DG Employment, Social affairs and Inclusion (ed) (2013), Guide to Social Innovation. Working paper. Available online: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/presenta/social_ innovation/social_innovation_2013.pdf (accessed 10 October 2016). Fry, T. (2011), Design as Politics. Oxford: Berg. Fuad-Luke, A. (2009), Design Activism: Beautiful Strangeness for a Sustainable World. London: Earthscan. Gabriel, M. (2014), Learning Methodology and Preliminary Framework. A deliverable of the FP7-project: TRANSITION. Brussels: European Commission, DG Research & Innovation.

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Hemmati, M. (2002), Multi-stakeholder Processes for Governance and Sustainability. Abingdon and New York: Earthscan. Hubert, A. (2010), Empowering People, Driving Change: Social Innovation in the European Union, Report. Available online: http://www.net4society.eu/_media/Social_innovation_ europe.pdf (accessed 10 October 2016). Jegou, F. and Manzini, E. (2008), Collaborative Services Social Innovation and Design for Sustainability. Milano: Polidesign Editore. Manzini, E. (2015), Design, When Everybody Designs. Boston: MIT Press. Manzini, E. and Meroni, A. (2012), ‘Catalysing Social Resources for Sustainable Changes. Social Innovation and Community Centred Design’, in C. Vezzoli, C. Kohtala and A. Srinivasan (eds), Product-Service System Design for Sustainability, 362–79. Sheffield: Greenleaf Publishing. Manzini, E. and Staszowski, E. (eds) (2013), Public and Collaborative. Exploring the Intersection of Design, Social Innovation and Public Policy. DESIS Network. Available online: http://nyc.pubcollab.org/files/DESIS_PandC_Book.pdf (accessed 10 October 2016). Meroni, A., Selloni, D., Gamman, L. and Thorpe, A. (2014), ‘Empowering the Culture of Social Innovation’, in A. Breytenbach and K. Pope (eds), Proceedings of Cumulus Johannesburg. Designing with the other 90%, 108–16. Johannesburg, 22–24 September 2014. Meroni, A. and Sangiorgi, D. (2011), Design for Services. Aldershot: Gower. Miller, P. and Stacey J. (2014), ‘Good Incubation. The craft of supporting early stage social ventures’. Nesta. Available online: http://www.nesta.org.uk/sites/default/files/good_ incubation_wv.pdf (accessed 10 October 2016). Morelli, N. (2014), ‘Challenges in Designing and Scaling-up Community Services’, in D. Sangiorgi, D. Hands and E. Murphy (eds), Prooceding of ServDes 2014. Service Future, 215–25. Lancaster University, 9–11 April 2014, Linköping University Electronic Press. Murray, R., Caulier-Grice, J. and Mulgan, G. (2009), Social Venturing. London: The Young Foundation. Murray, R., Caulier-Grice, J. and Mulgan, G. (2010), The Open Book of Social Innovation. London: Young Foundation and Nesta. P2P Foundation (2015), Mapping the Emerging Post-capitalist Paradigm, and its Main Thinkers. Available online: http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/mapping-the-emerging-postcapitalist-paradigm-and-its-main-thinkers/2015/11/29 (accessed 10 October 2016). Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., and BerrySource, L. L. (1985), ‘A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and Its Implications for Future Research’, The Journal of Marketing 49 (4): 41–50. Sangiorgi D. (2014), ‘Service Futures’, in D. Sangiorgi, D. Hands and E. Murphy (eds), Prooceding of ServDes 2014. Service Futures. Lancaster University, 9–11 April 2014, Linköping University Electronic Press. Scalin, N. and Taute, M. (2012), The Design Activist’s Handbook. How to Change the World (or at Least Your Part of It) with Socially Conscious Design. Blue Ash, OH: HOW Books. Selloni, D. (2014), ‘New Service Models and New Service Places in Times of Crisis. How Citizens’ Activism is Changing the Way We Design Services’, CUMULUS Spring Conference 2014 – What’s on: Cultural Diversity, Social Engagement, Shifting Education. University of Aveiro, 8–10 May 2014. The Young Foundation (2012), ‘Social Innovation Overview: A deliverable of the project: “The Theoretical, Empirical and Policy Foundations for Building Social Innovation in Europe” (TEPSIE)’, European Commission – 7th Framework Programme, Brussels: European Commission, DG Research.



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TRANSITION Project (2016), TRANSITION SIJ Toolbox, Learning Outcomes of the Project. Brussels: TRANSITION. Available online: http://transitionproject.eu/learning-outcomes/ (accessed 10 October 2016). Urbact II Capitalisation (2015), Social Innovation in Cities. Saint Denise: Urbact. Verganti, R. (2009), Design-Driven Innovation. Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating What Things Mean. Boston: Harvard Business Press. Westley, F. and Antadze, N. (2013), ‘When Scaling Out is Not Enough: Strategies for System Change’. Paper presented at Social Frontiers: The Next Edge of Social innovation research, 14–15 November, London Westphal. Available online: http://www. nesta.org.uk/event/social-frontiers (accessed 10 October 2016). Zurlo, F. and Bohemia, E. (2014), ‘Editorial: Designers as Cultural Intermediaries in an Era of Flux’, in E. Bohemia, A. Rieple, J. Liedtka and R. Cooper (eds), Proceedings of the 19th DMI: Academic Design Management Conference, 5–8, London 2–4 September 2014, Design Management Institute. Available online: http://www.dmi. org/?page=ADMCConferenceTracks (accessed 10 October 2016).

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13 Service design in policy making Camilla Buchanan, Sabine Junginger and Nina Terrey

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any policy situations today are new in their scale and uncertainty. The nature of the problems policy makers have to address, the energy and dedication behind these programmes and the reach of their potential outcomes surpass many initiatives in the private sector. Policy makers are witnessing a change in their roles and finding themselves working with unfamiliar groups and conditions. They are building closer relationships with people who implement policies, particularly public managers and staff in public administration organizations. They also find it necessary to work more closely with citizens and stakeholders to develop and implement policies that are meaningful to them. The new demands on policy making require different tools and methods. One area policy makers are looking at now is service design. What we see in our respective work is a sincere engagement with service designers and an eagerness to learn how design tools support the development of policies that can be implemented more effectively with better outcomes for citizens. In our experience, these developments expand the original role of service design in the public sector, where service design was typically used to develop frontline services that improved how citizens engage with organizations. We now find service designers involved in strategic issues and policy design. In this chapter we explore the growing relevance of service design to policy makers and we analyse the service design tools and contributions to policy making. We reflect on the ways in which service design is being used by governments in Australia, the UK and Germany. We then compare the motivations for policy makers and service designers to work together. We finish by outlining some of the challenges and ethical considerations for service designers in policy making. Policy making is a new area for service design and practical work tends to be ahead of academic literature. The insights here are largely drawn from our hands-on experience using design with policy makers.

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13.1 Growing interest in service design from policy makers Service design is a younger design profession that has emerged and matured over the past two decades. Depending on the service in question, it may involve the design of digital, face-to-face, written, or spatial components that contribute to positive interactions between a service provider and customers and positive user experiences. Service design draws on theories and methods that have their roots in product and communication design and is greatly influenced by interaction and human-centred design. The latter two provide bridges to sociology, psychology, organizational studies and business. The focus in service design on human experiences and methods suited to tracking and analysing how people complete tasks and make decisions as they engage with a service are among the reasons why private businesses and public organizations are turning to service design when they seek to improve their customer relations. Today, service design is also gaining traction in more strategic parts of governments, particularly in policy making. This is partly because conventional approaches to policy making, like top-down processes or even seemingly participatory processes like public consultation have proven insufficient to support the complex and challenging issues of service development and delivery in contested matters, for example in community health.1 There is growing agreement among scholars and practitioners that desired policy outcomes depend on governments’ ability to close the gap between policy making and policy implementation (see, for example Andrews 2012; Eppel et al. 2011; Bason 2014). Most government agencies, however, struggle with inclusive and participatory methods. The number of those who are making conscientious efforts to introduce them is still low. In addition, most policy makers are not well prepared to employ idea generation methods. They continue to focus on problem solving and decision making based on data and experiences in the past instead of envisioning and working towards desired future outcomes (Junginger 2014). Policy makers defend their way of working sometimes by citing time constraints that prevent any such inquiries. They point out that in practice, many policies need to be written very quickly and often in confidence. These circumstances seem to prohibit wider, open-ended inquiries as well as collaborations and participatory approaches. Nonetheless, service design is beginning to influence policy work. The following sections explain why this is the case and provide examples of how service design is being employed in the policy context. We can begin by looking into what service design methods contribute to generating insights and actionable information relevant to policy challenges.



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13.2 Service design methods in policy making Many of the tools and methods employed by service designers have their foundation in product and communication design as well as human-centred design and interaction design. They are often concerned with first principles (Buchanan 2006), which include human dignity, human rights and social justice. In our view, this social and human emphasis is the foundation for new meaningful design practices in government. Today’s service designers rely heavily on ethnographic methods in the early stages of the design process. They gather data on human experiences from real people and develop concrete service solutions to improve these experience. Though the methods may differ from one school of design to another, we can organize them into six basic categories:2 1 Tools and methods for observation:

These methods offer means to learn about people’s behaviour and perspectives. 2 Tools and methods for engagement:

These methods focus on the inclusion and participation of people. 3 Tools and methods for ideation/envisioning:

These methods foster idea generation, imagination and ‘what if’ scenarios. 4 Tools and methods for making and visualizing (prototyping):

These methods support the realization of ideas, making them real and concrete. 5 Tools and methods for testing and evaluation:

These methods are used to continuously and iteratively to evaluate ongoing design. 6 Tools and frameworks that help to structure projects:

These methods provide a high-level structure or ‘template’ to follow in design projects. A range of these service design methods are suited to supporting policy teams, especially approaches that help bridge the gap between a policy vision and policy implementation. Likewise, methods that produce human insights can provide new and essential information to policy makers. Tools to rapidly generate ideas and the use of clear visual communication can also help policy makers working under time pressure. The challenge for both service designers and for those working on policy development and implementation is to understand each of these methods, to know when to use them and most importantly for what ends. Employing service design methods in policy making is not a process of direct translation. Instead, careful adaptations are required to work with new design approaches in a policy context.

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13.3 Key contributions of service design to policy making The use of service design in policy making is one example of how the design field is expanding to many other sectors where design, too, has begun to address strategic challenges. In particular, designers have been credited with initiating new knowledge, setting project directions, mediating between stakeholders, creating conditions for participation and collaboration as well as visualizing ideas that can seem intangible (Wilson and Zamberlan 2015). If we pair the list of service design methods described in the section above with these contributions, we can distil key ways service designers support policy teams. These contributions have been observed through our own work, which includes working inside government, consultancy and academic research across different countries. They are not conclusive but they are compelling arguments for policy makers to use design: MM

Closer collaboration with citizens: tools and methods for observing and engagement often enable much closer working between policy makers and citizens. They help to build empathy towards citizens by creating new frames of understanding (Cameron et al. 2016).

MM

Improved stakeholder engagement: the effectiveness of service design often comes down to the ability to draw together diverse views through workshops for example, which are a cornerstone of many design projects.

MM

Generating new ideas quickly: service design is very effective at generating new ideas, partly because it focuses on new evidence, particularly perspectives from citizens.

MM

Visualizing policies and complex systems: using clear visualization and branding can have significant impacts in the text-based and analytical culture of policy making.

MM

Making things real or ‘reflective making’: mocking up (prototyping) an idea in practice, to experience how the ‘thing’ that a policy seeks to describe will work. The participatory nature of prototyping can create new kinds of dialogues between policy makers and citizens and result in changes to project directions (Brandt et al. 2012).

MM

Creating project frameworks: policy makers often need to move from a high-level policy idea to delivery. Design frameworks such as the Double Diamond (UK Design Council3) can help to structure uncertain projects by providing discipline to move from concept to implementation.

MM

Creating new directions: one of the strongest elements to a design process



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is the ability to hold a number of conflicting or different agendas in tension, and instead of that leading to conflict, leading to the development and exploration of a new way of doing things. In addition, one of our key observations among policy makers who engage with service design is a shift in thinking. In our experience, gaining an understanding of the concept of design principles and practice is often more important for policy makers than individual design tools. This can mean that while most service design is still introduced to policy teams through individual projects, it also changes the design understanding more broadly and insights from specific projects are often re-expressed and repurposed by policy teams in work that sits beyond the original brief. Thus a service design project can be a vehicle for building wider knowledge that influences the behaviour of a policy team more broadly. This is partly because policy makers can be working to long time frames while needing to adapt their agendas to shifting political environments. A quote from a UK policy maker at the Home Office using design in a complex legislation project sums up some of the potential impacts for policy teams using design: Seeing policy as a design gives it a different flavour – it’s not just a structured paper process. I know that, as Government, we want to be creative and design allowed us to think more openly and creatively. The more we can do that I think the better our policy, the better our delivery to ministers and therefore to the public. This quote resonates with our collective experience. What service designers can provide within the policy context is a service in its own right: a service to aid policy makers, lawmakers, public managers and other civil servants in opening new paths of thinking and delivery relevant to policy issues. Service design is especially good at reminding people in government that human experiences matter – those of people within government agencies and those who depend on government services and have no choice but to use them. The methods and contributions above directly derive from our own work with policy makers, many of whom are looking for new ways of developing and delivering public services. For us, too, the task to translate, adjust and appropriate different design methods to specific policy matters presents a challenge. We continue to look for a better understanding of what tools from service design are most effective for policy teams, at what point in the policy process and for what ends. To do so, we have found it necessary to engage with the fundamentals of the policy process and basic government structures. One of the lessons we draw is that it is not enough to possess an arsenal of tools or methods without being able to situate these within specific policy projects. In addition, we realize that for those working within these new spaces, sharing needs to go beyond exchanging tools or methods. We need to learn from each other what to expect, how to structure projects and how to feed back our experiences

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and insights in ways that can advance our collective knowledge and understanding. What follows are examples from Australia, the UK and Germany.

13.4 Examples from Australia, the UK and Germany The three examples illustrate how current governments are making use of service design in national contexts we are familiar with: Australia, the UK and Germany. These examples help us to understand how service design is currently being used, who is involved and how this happens. Our first example is Australia, where the growth of design as a way of creating public services has grown from the early pioneering work of the design of tax products and services in the Australian Taxation Office (Terrey 2012) to other Commonwealth departments such as Department of Human Services and Department of Health, and at the state and territory agencies such as ACT Government, NSW Government and Victorian Government. There are cases of successful service design shaping policy recorded and documented, for example the ACT government in 2011 commissioned the co-design Strengthening Families initiative with design firm ThinkPlace (Body and Forrester 2014) which has been recognized as best practice in redesigning human services for vulnerable families (Evans 2013). In 2007 the Designing Out Crime research centre (DOC) was established as part of a  NSW  Department of Police & Justice initiative, partnered with the University of Technology Sydney applying design thinking as the core approach. The Australian Commonwealth public sector invested in a pilot initiative called ‘DesignGov’, an Australian Public Service crossagency collaborative innovation capability. DesignGov was in operation from 2012 until December 2013 and raised awareness of user-centred design in the public sector.4 This initiative was a precursor to other initiatives by the Australian government to drive innovation using service design. In 2015 the Digital Transformation Office (DTO) was established to ‘lead the transformation of government services to deliver a better experience for Australians’.5 This initiative has set a new standard for applying service design across the public sector, and has seen an increase in demand from both policy makers and service delivery agents for service design. The overall service design market in Australia has seen significant growth in the last ten years with niche design firms making significant contributions in the public service sector. Requests for training are driving a significant part of the demand from policy makers and service administrators. This demand is also increasingly addressed by the public management education sector, through programmes designed for public policy managers in service design, co-design and design methods.6 Our second example is the UK, where interest in the potential of design to improve the policy development process has also grown significantly over the past few years. This is a departure from earlier service design work in the public sector, which took place mainly in contexts where citizens interact directly with government, particularly



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in healthcare. Today, the UK offers many examples of the impact of design on frontline services, such as the Design Council’s Design Challenge called Reducing violence and aggression in Accident and Emergency: Through a better experience with the UK Department of Health. The project is particularly valuable for research purposes because it included an evaluation showing that the design work reduced violent behaviour by 50 per cent in pilot cases. The subsequent introduction of design to policy making in the UK has a political context. The UK’s Coalition government (2010–15) set an efficiency and reform agenda in 2010 at the start of their five-year term. Key to this process was then Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude’s agenda to ‘apply new technologies and to redesign services around the needs of users, not bureaucrats’ (Maude 2015). Maude prioritized three approaches to achieve the agenda of better policy outcomes, digital, design and data (ibid.). One of the most significant outcomes from the reform agenda is the Government Digital Service which was created in April 2011. It sits under the Efficiency and Reform Group in the Cabinet Office and is tasked with transforming the provision of government digital services. In 2012 the Coalition government published the Civil Service Reform Plan, a strategy document that set out plans to make the civil service more skilled and less bureaucratic. The Civil Service Reform Plan also sought ‘a clear focus on designing policies that can be implemented in practice’ and aimed to ‘bring in outside expertise into the UK Civil Service’ (HMG 2012). The plan included the brief for a new unit in the Cabinet Office called the Policy Lab with a mission: ‘bring new tools and techniques to policy making, from data science to design’ (Kimbell 2015). The Policy Lab was put in place in April 2014. By the end of 2015 it had introduced thousands of policy makers to design tools and initiated a number of design projects with policy teams. Between 2014 and 2015 other design and digital nodes were established in central government, including the Ideas Lab in UK Trade and Investment and large digital teams at the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Work and Pensions. Design was also integrated into Civil Service training and Policy Schools and some designers have been employed and commissioned directly by policy teams such as the Social Investment and Finance Team in the Cabinet Office. In the Social Investment and Finance Team, for example, design has been used over a three-year period to understand and address systemic challenges in the UK social investment sector, particularly from the perspective of frontline organizations. This is still an atypical approach to setting new policy directions, deep knowledge of frontline organizations has been built and projects are being taken forward by different actors in the sector. The work is closer to system design than service design.7 Our third example is Germany. The home of the Bauhaus school and the HfG Ulm has only recently begun to show interest in design matters on the policy level. Moreover, few initiatives actually mention design. No official government supported design-driven public innovation lab exists at the time of writing. Instead, the Chancellor’s office has invested resources in a behavioural research group whose

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goal is to provide citizens with appropriate information at the right time in places they can easily access and in formats they can easily understand. This effort can be viewed as a design approach; however, it is understood within Germany only as a ‘nudging’ project. The three-member project team includes a sociologist, a consumer researcher, and an expert in behavioural research. They are conducting field work with citizens and employ a range of ethnographic methods. For the Chancellor’s office, these efforts are part of the ‘effective government’ (‘wirksam regiere’) initiative.8 On a regional level, policy planners of the conservative party of Bavaria have established a working group around the topic ‘Modern Governance’ that consciously draws on design thinking and design innovation. In 2015, this group visited the Danish Cross Ministerial Innovation Unit MindLab and the Danish Design Centre as well as the Behavioural Economic Unit in the UK in search for understanding what other countries see in design and how they apply it. For some of these events, journalists from major Bavarian newspapers were invited. In the current Bavarian context, design is looked at as a path to reduce bureaucratic burden on citizens and to arrive at practical local solutions that work for people, are meaningful and are more efficient. Curiously, design has been introduced into German policy not by service designers or any other design professionals. So far, the drivers have been German policy makers and people active on a political level who have heard about one of the international design initiatives usually at an international event. This may be an indication that the role of service design, which aligns more closely with policy implementation, is still waiting to be discovered and understood in its fullest application across the policy spectrum. Nonetheless, interest in how design thinking and design methods can support the development of meaningful and relevant policies by co-designing and co-producing with citizens and other stakeholders is rapidly growing. Several German political and scientific foundations are now actively trying to understand design thinking for its contribution to public sector innovation. These foundations are often able to work across the federal and political divides.9 This is significant because within German ministries and public organizations, divisions of responsibility and authority based on hierarchical status or subject matter continue to work against integrated collaborations even within these organizations, let alone when it comes to drawing in regular citizens. Foundations in contrast enjoy strong European networks and can quickly catch up with new developments. All this means that we can anticipate many new developments concerning design in policy making and policy implementation in Germany in the near future.

13.5 Key groups driving using service design in policy making We can see from these three examples that the use of design for policy making in the public sector involves two groups. The first group is made up of policy makers and the second constitutes of – mainly – professional designers. Although the reasons for



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introducing design vary, for example in the UK where design was linked to a reformist agenda in policy making. We also observe that the motivations for designers and policy makers to engage with each other are sometimes different. These differences can be a source of conflict but they also generate synergies. The differences we notice are as follows. Policy makers tend to explore service design methods as part of wider efforts to innovate in the public sector. For them, design offers an alternative way to approach challenges and to build new skills. They also tend to have practical outcomes in mind. Examples are: fostering new public-private relationships; increasing employment satisfaction for policy makers; engaging with citizens in policy making; driving technological innovation; or supporting efforts for public organizations to reduce costs. Undoubtedly, there are also some who are looking to exploit the methods for their own political gains: to position themselves as innovative and future-oriented while eager to work closely with the public. But in our experience, these are in the minority. Explorations of service design methods can result in cultural tensions with the traditional public policy-making context. The language and practice of prototyping and experimentation, for example, can be off-putting for policy makers because it usually requires incomplete ideas and solutions to be shared with external stakeholders, creating a new dynamic for policy teams to manage. For designers prototyping and experimentation means gaining feedback to improve ideas as they develop. But for policy makers experimentation can suggest risk taking, which might influence their willingness to engage with design approaches. It is in part a communication issue between those using service design methods and standard policy methods, as both communities would doubtless agree with using early experiments to improve outcomes. But there is work ahead for service designers to communicate the value of their skill set and methods effectively to policy makers. Designers approach design challenges in the public sector and more specifically in policy with different expectations and motivations. Designers’ desire to create a discreet ‘thing’ or output can lead to frustration in the expansive context of policy making. To some extent, the design community has staked a claim in policy making before enough work has taken place to understand the real impacts; this might be viewed as a desire to prove the validity of design rather than improving policy making. Although in our experience, most public sector designers and policy makers are drawn to their roles because of a genuine desire to do public service. To make things more complicated, there is no uniform profile for ‘the designer’ in the public sector. Originally, this group comprised professional designers, especially service designers, interaction designers and user researchers. Today, it includes professional designers from a range of design disciplines, just as much as self-taught public servants and social innovators. The rising influence of management consultants is also noticeable. Several independent design studios like Adaptive Path, Fjord and Lunar have been absorbed by international management consultancy giants like Accenture, Deloitte, Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey. These consultancies are increasingly taking on briefs from governments.

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We have already noted that many professional service designers are unfamiliar with the policy making process. This can result in an underestimation of the extent of change and organizational knowledge required to develop new policies. The ability for service designers to recognize and respond to the context and values of the policy maker contributes significantly to the success of their partnership. Despite some of the early teething problems we are seeing more and more service designers who succeed in introducing concepts and methods to policy makers. They are part of a group that is raising awareness of the role of services in the public sector from the initial stages of policy making through to policy implementation. Their work also highlights new possibilities for service design and service designers within the public sector.

13.6 The need for service designers to understand policy-making processes It is obvious by now that we think it crucial to have an understanding of policy making when engaging in service design in government. Operating in a space that is highly framed by political and legal frameworks requires some means for navigation. A basic understanding of the policy cycle, for example, is useful. The important thing for designers to remember is that when they grasp the design challenges of the field they are acting within, they are in a position to explain what aspects, methods and principles of design are already at work and which are not. There are two particularly important arguments for policy understanding to be relevant to designers: First, policies constitute the framework for all subsequent services, meaning the design of services begins with policy making, and design work at the service delivery level is inextricably linked to policy (Junginger 2012). Design work on the service level also generates valuable insights for policy particularly about real citizen needs and how policies work in practice. Second, as discussed in the introduction, policy development has recently come under criticism for being ill equipped to meet today’s policy challenges. This has resulted in a search for new tools and outside expertise in the policy-making community. Thus service design is also linked to policy because policy makers are an increasingly important client group. For the service designer this poses a challenge and a new area to build skills. If service designers focus only on frontline services, their work risks being overly discreet by failing to address the systemic issues and the policy context which sit behind services. But to engage with policy making requires service designers to develop the ability to look more holistically at services, by seeing them as part of a continuum that focuses on citizen needs but also looks inside governments at how policy is developed. Current policy-making processes offer relatively few openings to bring insights from service delivery into the early stages of policy development,



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meaning that glitches or problems are usually revealed when a policy is being implemented. Being able to argue for the relevance and role of design in policy opens the door for many designers to work more closely with top levels of government. There are additional challenges for service designers in a policy context that we want to discuss in more detail.

13.7 Challenges for service designers in policy making We have identified a number of considerations and challenges from our policy work for service designers to help them adjust expectations as they enter into this new environment: MM

A demand for proof and evidence: policy makers are often interested in design approaches but require evidence of impact. This is a key area for development in service design. But using design is also an opportunity to expand the form and types of evidence policy makers use, such as ethnographic research.

MM

Political context: there are challenges with aligning design initiatives to political timescales; in reality some policy decisions are made very quickly, allowing little room for experimentation. This can be addressed in part by designers building relationships across organizations, but service designers also require knowledge of political processes to understand the external impacts that can affect their projects.

MM

Resistance to cultural change: engagement with citizens at the policy front end can be perceived as risky and policy makers often try to manage expectations by controlling who, how and what is ‘consulted’. Providing opportunities for policy makers to engage directly with external stakeholders is a good way to overcome this challenge.

MM

Lack of familiarity with design: absence of design thinking and design expertise within the policy-making community can result in misunderstandings or lack of interest in design. This adds to the responsibility of service designers working on public policy to clearly communicate the value of design in relevant language and to build design awareness and capability in policymaking teams.

MM

Confidence of policy makers to try new methods: approaches from design such as ‘customer journeys’, ‘prototyped experiences’ or ‘narrative creation’ are powerful when enacted but it can be challenging for policy makers to envisage and commission design when both the way of working and the service are still being developed in a policy context. The opportunity for the

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service designer is to involve policy makers in the processes of service design, to enrich the policy makers’ toolkit with skills from design. These challenges are important considerations: if addressed service designers have more potential to work on significant policy challenges, which is rewarding for the service designer and the policy maker. Even when designers successfully navigate these challenges and after they succeed in developing new design capabilities within government institutions, there is one further question for them: what are the ethics for service designers working in policy making?

13.8 New ethical questions for service design The growing links between policy and service design pose new ethical questions for service designers. Staying within the traditional realm of service design does not make the service designer neutral in an otherwise political context. The service designer has a range of ethical questions to consider: MM

Service design brings a new power dynamic into policy making: when citizens, policy makers and public managers are working together, the classical foundations of civil society are being are altered (cf: Havel 2000). Democratic states have been built on the notion of checks and balances and the separation of powers. Do service design methods undermine or alter these foundations? In our view, further collaborative work is a positive evolution for government. But what precisely are the impacts of more collaborative working?

MM

Service design brings material from the lives of real people: great caution and confidentiality must be observed in using material from people’s lives gathered through ethnography to inform wider policy decisions. Service designers may uncover non compliant behaviour, how then do they protect the citizen? How does the service designer understand the spectrum of behaviours in complex public policy systems, and translate the behaviours appropriately?

MM

Service design is often more than interaction, it’s the realization of policies: services provided by public organizations de facto implement policies (Junginger 2012) and therefore remain inseparable from governance as a whole. How does the service designer understand the complex dynamics of policy formulation and change? How do they negotiate the new relationships across government to address these policies when service design work uncovers deeper systemic issues?

MM

Political dimensions of government policies: the political dimensions of design in the public sector are also under-reported but become more obvious



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when designers work with policy makers. Many left-leaning designers work in the public sector because they believe design can improve citizens’ experience. But the design approach also appeals to governments to the right of the political spectrum because of its promise to streamline services and save money. Forays into design and policy cannot be separated from political questions. Can and should design approaches be made available to non-democratic governments? It is doubtful that we will arrive at any singular response to these issues. But it is clear that more service designers will face similar questions as they engage with public services, work with political parties and support policy making. In each case, designers have to become aware of the environment in which they are working. What matters and what we want to draw attention towards is that service designers genuinely deliberate and come to terms with these ethical questions.

13.9 Conclusion The value of service design is evolving; we are witnessing a shift from understanding services as transactions to grasping services as central to achieving desirable policy outcomes. In this chapter we discussed the growing interest in service design from policy makers. We looked at trends across three national contexts, Australia, the UK and Germany, and drew conclusions from these countries regarding the changing dynamic between service designers and policy makers. We argued that the tools of service design are powerful for policy making but further work needs to be done to see more examples of service design applied to policy. We discussed challenges service designers face in policy making contexts. These issues are not unrelated to design in the private sector and thus not unfamiliar to experienced service designers. The complexities and constraints in the public sector present the service designer with a new context to apply their expertise and the task of service designers working in the public sector is to view their work in a policy context. This is a step beyond the original role of service design in the public sector, which concerned itself predominantly with improving frontline services and the interactions citizens have with public services, rather than addressing the strategic questions that concern policy makers. Service designers need to get better at sharing which methods and tools work best with policy teams and examples of their project frameworks, to show how design and policy projects have been structured and to enable others to learn from early projects. We drew attention to the policy maker and the recognition of the cultural realities they face in applying service design. Policy teams need the space and licence to experiment with different tools alongside their current processes, which is undoubtedly a challenge in high-pressure environments. Although much has happened recently to introduce new service design methods to policy teams,

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creating wider culture change remains challenging. Ongoing support to embed new methods is also needed. While there are of course differences between the service designer and the policy maker, our work suggests to us that there is also a wealth of opportunity to shape and design preferred futures enabled by government when the two communities work together.

Notes 1

For a critique of consultation and other participatory approaches in the public sector see Arnstein (1969), The Citizen Participation Ladder.

2

These categories reflect the groupings of different method cards (cf: Design School Kolding; IDEO, Edenspiekerman) and mirror the organization of methods in books like 101 Design Methods, Design Research Methods, etc.

3

http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/resources/report/11-lessons-managing-design-globalbrands (accessed October 2016).

4

http://design.gov.au (accessed May 2016).

5

https://www.dto.gov.au/about (accessed 5 February 2016).

6

One of the authors, Terrey, teaches programmes within the Executive Master of Public Administration Degree, offered by the Australian and New Zealand School of Government, which includes units in Designing Public Policies and Programs with an introduction to co-design and design methods. The Institute of Governance and Policy Analysis, part of University of Canberra, offers programmes in public policy design with units in co-design and design thinking.

7

Cabinet Office, Social Investment and Finance Team and Design Council, Designing Social Finance. http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/resources/report/social-finance-ukdesigning-experience-ventures (accessed May 2016).

8

A recent interview with the German Philosopher Robert Lepenies illustrates the scepticisim and mistrust many Germans have for behavioural research and nudging. It remains curious why human-centred design does not figure into this research. http://www.deutschlandradiokultur.de/arbeitsgruppe-wirksam-regieren-dendeutschen-einen-stups.1008.de.html?dram:article_id=347199 (accessed October 2016).

9

Among these foundations are the Mercator Foundation, the Stiftung für Wissenschaft und Politik (Foundation for Science and Politics) and the German Marshall Fund.

References Andrews, M., Pritchett, L. and Woolcock, M. (2012), ‘Escaping Capability Traps through Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA)’, Working Paper, Center for Global Development. Bason, C. (2014), Design for Policy. Aldershot: Gower.



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Body, J. and Forrester, S. (2014), ‘Synthesizing Policy and Practice: The Case of Co-designing Better Outcomes for Vulnerable Families’, in C. Bason (ed.), Design for Policy. Aldershot: Gower. Brandt, E., Binder, T. and Sanders, E. B. (2013), ‘Tools and Techniques: Ways to Engage Telling, Making and Enacting’, in J. Simonsen and T. Robertson (eds), International Handbook of Participatory Design, 145–80. London and New York: Routledge. Buchanan, R. (2006), ‘Human Dignity and Human Rights: Thoughts on the Principles of Human-centered Design’, In M. Bierut, W. Drenttel and S. Heller (eds), Looking Closer: Five Critical Writings in Graphic Design, 140–4. New York: Allsworth Press. Cameron, C. D, Harris, L. T. and Payne, B. K. (2015), ‘The Emotional Cost of Humanity: Anticipated Exhaustion Motivates Dehumanization of Stigmatized Targets’, Social Psychological and Personality Science 7 (2): 105. Eppel, E., Turner, D. and Wolf, A. (2011), ‘Experimentation and Learning in Policy Implementation: Implications for Public Management’, Institute of Policy Studies, Working Paper 11/04, June. Evans, M. (2013), Improving Services with Families: ‘A Perfect Project in an Imperfect system’, Report for the ACT Government Institute of Governance and Policy Analysis, University of Canberra. Havel, V. (2000), ‘Civil Society and its New Enemies’. Available online: http://www.projectsyndicate.org/commentary/civil-society-and-its-new-enemies (accessed September 2013). Her Majesty’s Government (2012), ‘Civil Service Reform Plan’. Available online: www. civilservice.gov.uk/reform0 (accessed April 2016) Junginger, S. (2012), ‘Matters of Design in Policy-Making and Policy Implementation’, Annual Review of Policy Design 1 (1) (2013). Available online: http://ojs.unbc.ca/index. php/design/article/view/%20542/475 (accessed October 2016). Junginger, S. (2014), ‘Towards Policy-Making as Designing’, in C. Bason, (ed.), Design for Policy Aldershot: Gower, Design for Social Responsibility Series. Kimbell, L. (2015), Applying Design Approaches to Policy Making: Discovering Policy Lab. Brighton: University of Brighton. Maude, F. (2014), ‘A Changing Game’ in A New Policy Toolkit, RSA Journal 4. Moore, M. H. (2013), Recognizing Public Value. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Terrey, N. (2012), Managing by Design: A Case Study of the Australian Taxation Office. Doctoral Thesis, University of Canberra. Faculty of Business, Management and Law, June. Wilson, S. and Zamberlan, L. (2015), ‘Design for an Unknown Future: Amplified Roles for Collaboration, New Design Knowledge, and Creativity’, Design Issues 31 (2): 3–15

Projects referred to Cabinet Office, Social Investment & Finance Team and Design Council, Designing Social Finance. Available online: http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/resources/report/socialfinance-uk-designing-experience-ventures (accessed May 2016). Cabinet Office, Social Investment & Finance Team and Point People/ Snook, Designing Social Investment. Available online: http://www.bigsocietycapital.com/sites/default/ files/attachments/DesigningSocialInvestment_PrototypingTesting_Report.pdf (accessed May 2016). Gov2020 – A Journey into the Future of Government, The Government Thought Leadership Series, Deloitte, February 2015, prepared for the government summit 2015.

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Service Delivery Trend Outlook – The Potential Future of Government Customer Service Delivery, The Government Thought Leadership Series, Deloitte, February 2015. Design Council, Reducing Violence and Aggression in Accident and Emergency. Available online: http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/projects/reducing-violence-and-aggression-ae (accessed November 2015).

PART FOUR

Designing for service, shifting economies, emerging markets I

n this final section, four chapters present new areas for service design to engage in contexts that are relatively new and potentially contentious, such as those related to sustainability in manufacturing; the rapid adoption and uptake of technology in new automated service systems and the rise of the digital workforce; the generation of big data and the implications for individuals and organizations and the challenges surrounding designing for new collaborative services. Each one of these areas raises questions on service design’s role in conceptualizing services in these shifting economies and situates service design at different levels within and beyond an organization’s boundaries as its practices formulate ways to concretize often abstract and ethically charged situations. Starting with the increasing need for manufacturers to address the resource management of materials and end-of-life issues in products, Bhamra, Walters and Moultrie offer ways for manufacturing companies to become more sustainable through product service systems with the support of service design. To shift from

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designing material products to one that applies new needs and socio-material value, through the reorganization of existing products into technological systems that do not lead to levels of product ownership, the authors suggest a three-tier model to enable manufacturers to refocus their business from just selling products to new service business models. In the second chapter Blomberg and Stucky raise concerns over the rapid rise in digital platforms, providing us with an extensive range of services, and ask us to look at the intangible, hidden aspects of this new economy through the example of the driverless car. Here they highlight concerns over the need for service designers to grasp both the technological implications of what they are working with and the ethical and political question that also arise from this new digital workforce and the arrival of the second economy. Here the attributes of service design, for making visible often hidden processes and data flows and its ability to materialize everyday experiences, offers ways in which service design may contribute to this new arena. Similarly, Prendiville, Gwilt and Mitchell offer a way for service design to engage with big data and how design practices can be applied as a sensemaking activity to assist in the conceptualization of the invisible nature of big data services, both on an individual and organizational level. With big data the authors offer three ways in which service design can aid sensemaking as an explorative and service conceptualization process through translation, visualization and personalization. Seravalli and Agger-Eriksen explore collaborative services, as they raise particular questions around the collaboration between the designer and stakeholders. Identifying the huge variety of collaborative services, and illustrated by the recent criticism of Airbnb, the authors focus on the need for there to be a better way ‘to articulate what kind of sharing and collaboration is at play in these services, and how to design for them’. Taking the example of ‘Fabriken’, a makerspace, the authors look at both the concept of commons as ‘a means of supporting collaborative organizational forms for the generation, access and maintenance of shared resource’ together with the notion of infrastructuring, a participatory means of capturing different views and engaging with people in complex systems, communities and publics. Through the concept of commons and the participatory processes of infrastructuring, the authors suggest the need for service designers to be reflexive of their role and the other actors’ agenda when designing in and for collaboration.

14 The potential of service design as a route to product service systems Tracy Bhamra, Andrew T. Walters and James Moultrie

14.1 Introduction Design practitioners and academics have become increasingly interested in how firms might deliver higher value to customers by designing products with additional services, in many cases demonstrating the effectiveness of applying a design-led approach to complex problem solving. The success of the application of these approaches has led to the growth of specialist service design agencies (e.g. Engine) and new teams within giant multinationals (e.g. Virgin Atlantic). Service design appears to have captured the imagination of governments, leading to the creation of design-led policy teams (e.g. Policy Lab in UK and MindLab in Denmark); has been the focus of EU-funded research programmes (e.g. SPIDER, a collaboration between design researchers at Cardiff Metropolitan University and Cardiff Council to address large social problems using service design); and has been the focus of regional governments in addressing innovation within the manufacturing sectors (e.g. Welsh government’s Service Design Programme). In parallel to the growth of service design there has been a growth in the application of user-centred design (UCD) more broadly. UCD necessarily offers consumers increasing levels of sophistication and designed outputs that better meet their needs and values. Sometimes described as ‘experience design’, the principles of such an approach are rooted in delivering intuitive engagement that appeals to a user’s values (Hassenzahl et al. 2013). This chapter is concerned with the transformational potential

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that services might have for manufacturing companies by providing an opportunity to add value to new and existing business offerings (Manzini and Vezzoli 2003). The chapter outlines an approach that manufacturing companies can take using a service design focus, where the shift from a product to a service focus in manufacturing is discussed. The chapter examines the enhancement of competiveness within the manufacturing sector that a new approach to delivering value to customers can bring, in particular highlighting the potential benefits of service design as an approach leading toward the development of product service systems (PSS) and in particular those that have the potential to help manufacturing firms move towards sustainability.

14.1.1 Product service systems Goedkoop et al. (1999: 3) provided the first definition of PSS as ‘a marketable set of products and services capable of jointly fulfilling a user’s need’. Others have since added to this and presented PSS as an ‘innovation strategy’ (Manzini and Vezzoli 2003) with emphasis on the power PSS has to shift the focus of a business from producing and selling physical goods to developing and offering services. Mont (2002) identified that PSS is not only a mix of products and services that are required to fulfil the user’s needs, but also requires infrastructure and networks supporting the products and services to help create and deliver the value from the system. In the context of manufacturing companies, PSS is generally concerned with a move towards offering greater integration between physical product offerings and associated services (Baines and Lightfoot 2013). That is, PSS attempts to ensure that value creation not only focuses on producing and selling physical products but also on producing and selling a mix of products and services to satisfy the needs of users (Tukker and Tischner 2006a). There is great interest in how companies orient themselves to achieve such a mix, because there is general agreement that service innovation can add value to manufacturing businesses (Polaine, Løvlie and Reason 2013). It is because of this transition that PSS is recognized as having the potential to be a sustainable solution to satisfy many of our current and possibly future needs. According to Roy (2000: 293), ‘The key to sustainable product-service systems is that they are designed and marketed to provide customers with a particular result or function – clean clothes, mobility, warmth, etc. – without them necessarily having to own or buy physical products, such a washing machine, a car or fuel, in order to get that result’. However, the implementation of formal systems for adding additional value to manufacturing companies through the development of PSS has only recently begun to receive attention in the literature. Typically, companies in the manufacturing sector have relied upon marketing teams to develop their service offerings independently from product development activities. Thus, this is likely where, we suggest, service design can bring value to manufacturing companies. Examples of this can be found at both ends of the spectrum – from a company such as Nuaire, an SME from South Wales, that designs and makes ventilation systems (Thursten and Mudie 2013) to



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a global firm such as Phillips with an in-house team of service designers (Hartevelt 2010). Both understood the need for specific skills in service design and have seen the impact within their business. In both cases, service design is considered in unison with product design, not as an afterthought.

14.1.2 Why is PSS increasingly important for manufacturing companies? As manufacturing companies now search for new ways to create value for customers, it has been recognized that traditional approaches to value creation (focusing on manufacturing and selling physical products) used by both large and small manufacturing companies often disconnect them from customers (Sutanto et al. 2015). Therefore, companies are looking for ways to offer high value solutions that can satisfy flexible demands and put the company in a more competitive position (Tukker and Tischner 2006b). The additional value associated with PSS derives from the increasing value expectations of consumers. Boztepe (2007) describes the value of experience as a reflection on interaction. That this reflection encompasses all of the aspects of interaction might lead one to conclude that manufacturers have a vested interest in controlling the service elements of that interaction as much as physical attributes. That is, in order for consumers to consider product use as a valuable experience, the service elements must also meet their expectations. Thus, competitive advantage can be achieved through a match between consumer values and a unified PSS interaction experience. It is important to note that these increases in value expectations are not simply limited to the functional attributes of a product and the personal benefits of associated services. Political awareness of consumers and the wider drivers around sustainability and corporate social responsibility mean that these concerns are also part of the value judgement and thus part of the experience of interaction. There are concerns that the increasing consumption of resources means that manufacturing, as a whole, is unsustainable in the long term from an environmental perspective, particularly in the light of consumption of non-renewable resources. The growth of manufacturing output coupled with the over-consumption of resources will lead to difficulties in supply chains in future as key resources become more scarce and therefore more expensive. Taking a PSS perspective provides an opportunity to reduce overall resource use in the system. In addition, the traditional linear business model adopted by manufacturing, one where products are designed, manufactured and sold to an end customer, has resulted in an unsustainable amount of waste at the point where customers no longer want to keep or need the purchased product. As these resources have value both economically and environmentally, discussions have been held on how to harness that value. One approach is to recover value from waste products through reuse, recycling or remanufacturing of products or materials, but still there are large inefficiencies and wastes occurring and the extraction of value

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FIGURE 14.1  A service design model for manufacturing from waste has been undertaken through technological solutions. A PSS perspective instead suggests that taking a step back and considering changes to the way in which revenue is realized by a business, moving away from a linear business model, potentially opens up many more possibilities that can significantly reduce these inherent inefficiencies. However, PSS being more sustainable than traditional business models, understanding ‘sustainable’ as having the potential to create economic, environmental and social value, is not a default feature in this type of system (Tukker and Tischner 2006b). It is recognized that PSS has the potential to create sustainable solutions but the systems have to be designed with that purpose (Mont 2002; Tukker and Tischner 2006a). In this chapter we propose a simple service design model for manufacturing when moving toward PSS, that comprises three distinct, but inter-related approaches, as illustrated in Figure 14.1. This model is a simplified description of how a manufacturing company might move from consideration of serviceability in the design process through to the integration of PSS. The sections below describe how a company might engage with each level of the model, in anticipation of a discussion on how service design might be applied in each stage.



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14.2 Serviceability: Designing for service and extending life For many companies, the perception of ‘service’ as a phenomenon is to address ‘serviceability’. In other words, often the first step that a firm might take towards considering a service-based offering is to address aspects of product service and repair. For consumer goods, issues of service and repair often come after an unplanned failure. Product failure or downtime could be merely frustrating (e.g. a child’s toy), may be significantly inconvenient (e.g. a toilet cistern) or majorly disruptive (e.g. a boiler during a cold winter). In the latter cases, where failure can be critical, even life-threatening, it is not uncommon to have a regular maintenance regime to support overall serviceability. It is possible to design simple products to be serviced or maintained by a low-skilled person, but for more complex products, it is often more normal for such maintenance to be provided by a technical specialist. If the long-term

Table 14.1  Design principles for serviceability Potential failure modes

Key to enabling successful serviceability is to understand which parts might fail and how frequently.

Accessibility

It is important to understand the components and features that will, or might, require some form of service interaction.

Modularity

Where appropriate, modular product structures can enable whole ‘chunks’ to be simply removed and replaced.

Minimize tool sets

By minimizing the tool set, it is possible to reduce overall repair time and complexity.

Classify parts – replace, repair or renew

Each part should be carefully classified as being either possible to repair, likely to be replaced, or requiring regular renewal.

Standardization and interchangeability

Service and repair is simpler when parts are used which are common across different products, families of products or even industries.

Diagnostics

It is increasingly possible to incorporate diagnostic systems into products, which can provide early warning of potential failures.

Labelling and information

Providing customers with clear information can be a good route to aiding servicing. All parts that might be replaceable could be clearly labelled with a code to enable easy sourcing.

Spares and replacements

It is important to determine the basis for provision of spare and replacement parts for service. This is an opportunity for revenue, especially when downtime is an issue to customers.

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ability to service a product is critical, then these design decisions should be placed at the forefront of the designers’ minds. Some simple principles, distilled from the authors’ extensive experiences in design for manufacture practice, which might help achieve this are described below. Underpinning all of these is clarity on the design rationale behind serviceability. For example, in the design of lenses for the movie industry, most lenses are designed as unique items, each optimized mechanically in its own right. The result is that each separate lens has a distinct service approach and operators need to be trained for each product. In the development of a new series of prime (fixed focal length) lenses (Series 4 Cooke Prime Lenses), to which one of the authors of this article contributed, the designers optimized instead at a product family level. Here, each separate lens followed exactly the same assembly and disassembly logic. The result was that a service technician could be trained in thirty minutes how to strip down and clean the lens. Once trained, the technician could work on any lens in the system. This was only achievable by placing service requirements at the heart of the design process. The design tactics described above are one route by which product-based firms might take a more proactive perspective on serviceability, as a step towards a more holistic service design approach. However, this is just a first step in the transition towards becoming a service-oriented business, as described below.

14.3 Services beyond the product The model described in Figure 14.1 demonstrates a second level of sophistication ‘Services beyond the product’. This describes those companies that have gone beyond considering how their product experience can be improved through serviceability. That is, they also consider the development of additional, revenue-generating service activities that support their product offering. In order to explore how service design can contribute to the capability of companies to achieve this second level, in this section we present the experiences of a company that engaged in Cardiff Metropolitan University’s Service Design Programme.1 The programme aimed to ‘upskill’ manufacturers in the application of service design and presents evidence of the potential that service design has as a route to increased competitive advantage through the creation of PSS. The basis of the programme was to make companies aware of the benefits of service design and to help overcome the perceived primary barrier to implementation: availability of sufficiently knowledgeable or skilled resources. The intention was that the awareness raising and guidance would create knowledgeable firms, able to deploy a portfolio of user-research tools to gain a broad understanding of user needs. Such understanding would then be used to reveal new service-led business opportunities that supported existing and new product offerings. For example, the introduction of service design to Hydro Industries, a water management company, encouraged them to look beyond technical improvements



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to instigate growth, and to concentrate on developing service aspects for their business. Using a design approach, the company explored new rental models for their equipment and remote monitoring service provision. These new solutions addressed the discovered consumer needs of intermittent requirements for the product (hence a reluctance to invest in purchase) and on-site technical ability to service the product (hence the identification for the development of remote monitoring services). These user needs were discovered through the implementation of a service design approach: identifying stakeholders, searching for dissatisfaction in their current experiences of interaction, and using this dissatisfaction as prompts for conceptualizing solutions. The resulting ‘services’ actually required a mix of both physical product and service development (physical developments required included adaptations to the product to create a transportable item, and adaptations to allow remote monitoring). These new services grew to generate the majority of the company’s revenue, contributing to a 500 per cent increase in turnover over a three-year period, and an increase in staff numbers from eight to thirty.

14.4 Service as a business model This level represents a move towards product service systems. Considering a new business model where a service, rather than a product, is at its heart can be challenging for manufacturing companies but it has the opportunity to create significant value. The argument for the use of service design is that it promotes a refocusing away from just selling products to selling valuable experiences. As mentioned previously, this approach has the opportunity to result in more flexibility in the design and thus new opportunities for monetization, potentially while manufacturing less and consuming fewer resources. Through an integrated approach, placing the emphasis in the business on services can enable a decoupling in product-oriented manufacturing companies whose current model encourages consumption of more resources for economic gain at the point of sale for individual product ownership. The addition of a service component aims to enable a shift from producing and selling physical products to ‘co-creating value’ with customers in the form of a mix of products and services to meet customers’ needs. To create viable product service systems of these types, firms must develop a business strategy based on continuous life-cycle improvement, taking into account both product and service life cycles in unison. PSS can address customer needs through focusing on functions that can lead to customer satisfaction; in addition, if designed correctly, they can also have reduced environmental and social impacts. The design must focus on functions, rather than specific technologies or product features, enabling the company to move its focus away from the need to produce a physical product to be owned by the user. Instead, value can be provided through a mix of products and services. In turn, this utility focus enables the providers to meet values

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(knowledge, information, time saving, convenience, comfort, information) to which the market has attached great importance over ownership of physical product. The change in the role of the designer from the design of material products to using new needs and sociocultural values to reorganize existing products and technological systems enables opportunities for new and resilient offerings that meet customer needs, without a pressing need for product purchase and ownership. PSS uses a set of products and services with joint capabilities of meeting users’ needs. This primary property of PSS makes the material component of PSS inseparable from its immaterial one. From the customer point of view, what seems to be defining competitiveness is the ability of PSS fulfilling their needs in an integrated and customized way where a unique relationship exists between the provider and the client. From the business point of view competitiveness is defined by the firm’s ability to create worthwhile value for stakeholders through efficient resource consumption. Value is determined by user experiences and perceptions and the providers’ quality of services and/or product offering during value co-creation process. A whole system design approach is important to consider the user, stakeholders, context and other factors influencing the system or its parts thereof, in delivering customer satisfaction. A service differentiation strategy for manufacturing companies means value is now defined in less tangible terms and more in intangible and dynamic services produced and consumed simultaneously. This strategy makes services the core offering supported by enabling products rather than being add-ons to products, as was the case in traditional product orientation strategies. Service design makes a useful proposition to achieving this goal as the user-centred approach requires these developments to be co-created with stakeholders, ensuring that the resulting PSS meets their requirements fully and delivers the value they require.

14.5 Rising to the challenge In this chapter we propose service design as a potentially effective way for manufacturers to create PSS due to its root in understanding the values of potential customers. Esslinger (2011) presents the role of designers as a connector between new technologies, customer needs and sustainable solutions. Further, Manzini and Vezzoli (2003) call on designers to be more strategic and design systems with the ability to integrate products, services and communication in a sustainable way, thus meeting the functional, experience and political values of consumers and other stakeholders. Service design aims to enable firms to develop long-term relationships with their customers, and therefore it can be argued that it has the potential to help companies better understand and meet customer needs. Service design as a way to move toward the development of PSS is particularly accessible to product-focused companies. This is because it follows an iterative process with some similarities to the new product development (NPD) process, but



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with the added benefit of formally attempting to empathize with users’ experiences at the points of interaction. That is, it can begin with readily identifiable stakeholders (i.e. existing customers), engagement can be focused on experience with an existing product, and the results of the process can be used to conceptualize new solutions regarding both tangible and intangible elements of interaction. The sections above demonstrate how design can have an impact on companies operating at each level of the model presented in Figure 14.1. In summary, in product serviceability, design has an impact on serviceability by encouraging the consideration of service options during the design process. The design stage presents an opportunity to start thinking about the intangible elements of product experience, and further, to identify which elements of the intangible experience can be used to generate revenue. In Services Beyond the Product, design offers a way to enquire about the current experiences of engagement, offers opportunities to conceptualize new offerings, has techniques for prototyping such opportunities, and an iterative development approach akin to the NPD process. Finally, in the service business model, design’s user-centred approach can help companies to move away from being product-centric to experience-centric, and thus develop the most appropriate mix of products and services. This chapter has conceptualized a model for the use of service design to achieve PSS to be relevant to manufacturing companies. In addition, the levels of the model have been exemplified through the experiences of real companies. However, a widely accepted and formalized process for integrated service design, appropriate to the contemporary operating environment, is yet to emerge. While it is clear that companies can derive benefits from various levels of engagement with user-centred service design, there is limited discussion within the service design community on the balance between results and investment in design research or the opportunities to meet future commercial challenges. Perhaps this is because the practice has tended to borrow heavily from previous work in product or software design rather than develop its own methods and processes. Thus there is a need not only to attempt to develop new material that helps organizations better understand the value of service design, but also to make service design more valuable by designing new processes that integrate products and service in a way that is appropriate to broader production challenges. The challenge for service design as a discipline now, is to demonstrate to manufacturers (particularly SME manufacturers) that the skills of designers are appropriate to them in overcoming the barriers to sustainable PSS development. Many barriers and difficulties have been identified to the deployment these kinds of system. Mont (2002) for example identifies: organizational resistance; problems with balancing environmental goals with customer satisfaction; prevention of diversification; public acceptance; relationships with other stakeholders; and a lack of identifiable demand for these systems. These challenges are not limited to those firms with large organizational structures. SME businesses also have a lot to gain from adopting a PSS strategy but they face significant barriers with regards to staff skills, capability and resources. However, in economic terms the potential benefits are new market opportunities, increased competitiveness, more efficient operations and strong innovation focus.

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In this context, the next research challenge for service design researchers is to develop methodologies that support firms which currently compete on a goodsdominant basis to understand the need for service design and to make the transition towards a PSS strategy.

Note 1

PDR, an international centre for design research based at Cardiff Metropolitan University, ran the Welsh Government funded Service Design Programme from 2010 to 2013. The programme worked with ninety small- to medium-sized enterprises to stimulate economic growth with the advanced materials and manufacturing sectors of Wales.

References Baines, T. and Lightfoot, H. (2013), Made to Serve: How Manufacturers can Compete through Servitization and Product Service Systems. London: Wiley. Boztepe, S. (2007), ‘User Value: Competing Theories and Models’, International Journal of Design 1 (2): 55–63. Esslinger, H. (2011), ‘Sustainable Design: Beyond the Innovation-Driven Business Model’, Journal of Product Innovation Management 28: 401–4. Goedkoop, M., Van Halen, C., Te Riele, H. and Rommens, P. (1999), Products Service Systems, Ecological and Economic Basics. Report Commissioned by Dutch Ministries of Environment (VROM) and Economic Affairs (EZ). available online: http://teclim.ufba.br/jsf/indicadores/holan%20Product%20Service%20Systems%20 main%20report.pdf (accessed 14 March 2012). Hartevelt, H. (2010), Service design at Phillips Design. Online presentation available online: https://vimeo.com/11273181 (accessed 2 June 2016). Hassenzahl, M., Eckoldt, K., Diefenbach, S., Laschke, M., Lenz, E. and Joonhwan, K. (2013), ‘Designing Moments of Meaning and Pleasure. Experiece Design and Happiness’, International Journal of Design 7 (3): 21–31. Manzini, E. and Vezzoli, C. (2003), ‘A Strategic Design Approach to Develop Sustainable Product Service Systems: examples taken from the “Environmentally Friendly Innovation” Italian Prize’, Journal of Cleaner Production 11 (8): 851–7. Mont, O. (2002), ‘Drivers and Barriers for Shifting towards more Service-oriented Businesses: Analysis of the PSS Field and Contributions from Sweden’, The Journal of Sustainable Product Design 2: 89–103. Polaine, A., Løvlie, L. and Reason, B. (2013), Service Design. From Insight to Implementation. New York: Rosenfeld. Roy, R. (2000), ‘Sustainable Product-service Systems’, Futures 32: 289–99. Sutanto, A., Yuliandra, B., Tjahjono, B. and Hadiguna, R. A. (2015), ‘Product-service System Design Concept Development Based on Product and Service Integration’, Journal of Design Research 13 (1): 1–19. Thursten, P. and Mudie, A. (2013), ‘From Products to Services’, Service Design Network Conference, 19–20 November, Cardiff, UK



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Tukker, A. (2004), ‘Eight Types of Product-service System: Eight Ways to Sustainability? Experiences from SusProNet’, Business Strategy and the Environment 13: 246–60. Tukker, A. and Tischner, U. (2006a), ‘Product-services as a Research Field: Past, Present and Future. Reflections from a Decade of Research’, Journal of Cleaner Production 14 (17): 1552–6. Tukker, A. and Tischner, U. (2006b), New Business for Old Europe: Product-Service Development, Competitiveness and Sustainability. London, Greenleaf Publishing.

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15 Service design and the emergence of a second economy Jeanette Blomberg and Susan Stucky

15.1 Introduction Services enabled by digital technologies are promoting the expansion of the service economy, the diversity and variety of services, and the nearly ubiquitous access to services. Services delivered through digital platforms and accessed via digital devices create dependencies on technology and change divisions of labour among service providers and recipients and among the human and non-human actors involved in the service exchange. Contributing to the growth in new services is the arrival of the ‘Internet of Things’ where sensors send and receive information connecting people, places and things to the internet and to each other. Every day we learn of new apps that analyse data to report on such things as buying habits, blood sugar levels, traffic congestion, voting patterns, driving habits, available parking spaces, cheap airline tickets, and the list goes on. Often unbeknown to service recipients, these digitized processes execute functions such as calculating, processing, sorting and routing that trigger further actions. Many of these ‘smart’ functions until recently were performed by a skilled human workforce – but efficiencies in cost and improvements in quality and reliability have meant that data-driven algorithms are displacing people at an ever-growing rate. Worker dislocation as the result of automation and advances in technology is not new, but service designers now must address the fact that the recent rise in services involves the emergence of new divisions of labour among humans and machines facilitated by a ‘hidden’, digital algorithmic workforce (Arthur 2011; Zysman 2006). This chapter explores new opportunities for service design to guide this transformation by helping to define the components and interconnections of these digitally enabled services and the new economic, political and social relationships they afford.

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The chapter proceeds as follows. The first section, ‘The digital workforce’, places the digital workforce in the context of the long-standing human experience with technology and automation. The second section, ‘The autonomous car’, provides an example of a site for the design of digitally enabled services. The third section, ‘Knowablity, visibility and materiality of the second economy’, brings into play three general criteria for service design to consider as it ventures purposefully into the digital economy, and the final section, ‘Designing digitally enabled services’, reflects on implications of these transformations for service design.

15.2 The digital workforce The choices we make, or fail to make, about which tasks we hand off to machines shapes our lives and the place we make for ourselves in the world. (Carr 2013) Ever since humans created the first tools for hunting and gathering, technology has been enlisted to assist in the performance of the work people do to make a living and create a meaningful life. Bows and arrows and spears made hunting more efficient, and baskets and grinding tools were the labour-saving devices of their time. However, today many of our assistive technologies are out of view, operating behind the scene, and their inscrutability only adds to their invisibility. The more sophisticated these digital technologies become, the more difficult it is to understand the complex algorithms that manipulate and analyse data in order to help guide human actions, whether this involves where to stay for a night’s lodging, what medications to take, or how to park your car. Digital technologies do not just provide a substitute for work once done by people – they refigure the division of labour between humans and machines. For example, technologies that assist in parking a car require that drivers develop new skills in reading onboard monitors, ready to take over as needed. Over time some drivers will lose the skill of unassisted parking, leaving them ‘helpless’ if in the future they are obliged to drive an older model vehicle, as happened when automatic transmissions were introduced and standard-shift cars became increasingly un-drivable by those who had never learned to drive one. Many have written about the psychological perils of turning over such tasks as flying airplanes or operating high-risk facilities to digital technologies, noting how people can become complacent or put too much trust in information produced by digital sensors and complex algorithms, doubting their own experience and expertise (Woods 1996; Parasuraman et al. 2008). As we continue to embed digital technologies in an ever-increasing range of tasks and activities, we run the risk of not only deskilling, but of relying on algorithms that we have little involvement in designing and no ability to scrutinize, critique, or change. Involving service design in more aspects of this very large, but unseen, digital workforce will require that service designers understand more, possibly much more, about software (not to mention hardware and data analytics) than is typically now the



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case. To quote Marc Andreessen, ‘Software is eating the world’ (2011) and service design must take notice. Our capacity to shape new service worlds (Bryson et al. 2004) requires that we develop more nuanced and informed understandings of how algorithms work and the data transformations they are based upon.

15.3 The autonomous car The emergence of what variously is called the automated car, the driverless car, the self-driving car, or the robotic car provides an opportunity to explore issues and concerns brought about by the growth in the digital workforce. The ‘autonomous car’ (including cars not yet fully autonomous) already is becoming an area for service innovation where automobiles sold today offer self-parking services, collision avoidance services, and the long-standing ‘time for service’ alerts. But going forward, the services that might be added or replaced with advances in car technology or, more radically, ‘automated travel’ open up significant areas where service design can have an impact. A wide array of companies is investing in autonomous car design beyond automotive companies, including technology companies such as Alibaba, Baidu, Google, Apple and Tata Consultancy. The involvement of technology companies is hastening the expansion of the automobile’s digital workforce with the ability of these companies to act with immediacy, potentially putting humans and the autonomous car on a collision course, both figuratively and literally. As declared in a recent article in the New York Times titled ‘Google’s Driverless Cars Run Into Problem: Cars With Drivers’ ‘Researchers in the fledgling field of autonomous vehicles say that one of the biggest challenges facing automated cars is blending them into a world in which humans don’t behave by the book’ (Richtel and Dougherty 2015). As with other digitally enabled services, integration between the things humans do and those performed by machines will be critical to the success of these new services. In addition to shaping our everyday experience of driving, the autonomous car is also having an impact on jobs as automated vehicles deliver services once performed by people. As happened with airline pilots and train engineers previously, fewer drivers will be needed in industries such as trucking, taxi and bus services, and including the ‘independent’ drivers for Uber, Lyft and the like. The autonomous car also is highly disruptive for the services provided by the insurance industry and public policy and regulatory agencies. In part because of the prevalence of cars in everyday life, the autonomous car provides a novel space that is attracting much commentary, but more importantly is providing ample opportunity for service design to claim its seat at the table of the digital economy. That said, design challenges abound, including ethical ones, that must be addressed and that we explore in the sections that follow.

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15.4 Knowability, visibility and materiality of the second economy As noted in the introduction, digitally enabled services involve ‘hidden’ machine-tomachine interactions that aggregate and analyse data from diverse sources; they connect frequency data with geospatial displays, route users through task flows, and perform behind-the-scene calculations. These digitized processes make possible such things as the optimal routing of package delivery, real time notification of power outages, flight reservation confirmation and seat assignments, notification of vehicles approaching from the rear, and more. Service recipients have gotten used to incorporating the outcomes of these digital processes into the things they do, even if they are unaware of how the service experience is being shaped by what is happening behind the scene. The challenges of making ‘hidden’ digital services visible and knowable manifest with growing frequency these days. Recently, for example, citizens in the USA were warned that Google’s algorithms could shift voting preferences of undecided voters (Epstein 2015). Our new research leaves little doubt about whether Google has the ability to control voters. In laboratory and online experiments conducted in the United States, we were able to boost the proportion of people who favored any candidate by between 37 and 63 percent after just one search session. The impact of viewing biased rankings repeatedly over a period of weeks or months would undoubtedly be larger. Influencing voter preferences for candidates may not be the intended use of Google search, but this study suggests that service designers need to consider how service outcomes can reach far beyond the immediate service on offer, with the possibility of intentional (or unintentional) manipulation of invisible algorithms designed to produce specific outcomes. This brings to the fore the spectre of the inscrutability of digital manipulations that produce specific outcomes. In many cases this may not pose a problem, but in others knowledge of how behind-the-scene choices are made becomes an imperative for service designers. Finally, while it is easy to think of the digital domain as immaterial, digital services, like other services, are materially constituted through the interactions among service entities whether they are bodies, artefacts or algorithms. This necessitates opening the aperture of observation beyond digital and non-digital dichotomy to consider how service designers scope their investigations to include the work and outputs of the digital workforce. The space of possibilities is dauntingly large and accordingly, we suggest three general areas to consider in the design of digitally enabled services: their knowability, visibility, and materiality. These three dimensions intersect with ongoing concerns within service design of agency, service ecosystems, innovation, and relations among service entities – which we comment upon as appropriate.



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15.4.1 Knowability The argument often is made that people don’t really want to know the details of the calculations that go on out of their view. They are only concerned with the quality of the recommendations they receive for films, books or dating partners, or the timeliness of airline seat assignments, theatre tickets, or even crash avoidance manoeuvres. Service designers too, in focusing on the service experience, often only interact with the digital workforce through the user interface, for example, focusing on designing the ‘driving’ experience for occupants of autonomous vehicles or considering such things as how the service experience is affected by the time needed to come up with a movie recommendation. However, the emergence of a digital workforce raises questions about digital agency that go beyond how changes to divisions of labour between human and non-human actors are having an impact on the service experience. When should our algorithms be given the authority to act on our behalf and when should they be able to do so autonomously? What aspects of these digitally enabled services do people need or want to know? And when and how should people become knowledgeable about the ‘hidden’ services performed by a digital workforce? Answers to these questions implicate public policies, regulations and laws that grant agency to people and organizations. These questions are not new with the advent of these digitally enabled services. They are asked in the non-digital realm all the time. For example, in the USA, HIPPA regulations (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) require that patients know what happens with their medical data – who can see it, who can access it, and what can be done with it. Patients sign a document on each medical visit in effect authorizing the collection of their data, with the understanding that its use is constrained in various ways. Consider another example, the use of Microsoft’s Word where the technology acts on our behalf to keep formatting consistent or offer spelling corrections. In this sense, it is acting autonomously although human users retain the authority (if not always the competence) to override the system. In a somewhat different way, the publishers of this book authorize a certain format for our text, which is then enforced through digital templates. The source of authorization is the human actors responsible for the look of the publication, but the digital template autonomously enforces the formatting rules. These are relatively easy cases, where we can sort out who or what is acting on our behalf and how to appeal the outcomes if they are in dispute. But this is not always the case. A recent example makes this point. The Financial Times (3 April 2015) published a story of a woman who had been in a car accident in which the airbags deployed. Moments later she received a call from her insurer. ‘It was surreal,’ she says. ‘I was all shaken up, had just been hit in the face and could not understand how on earth my insurer knew what was going on’ (Sharman 2015). It is fair to conclude that the service experience provided to the driver of the car was not wholly expected, nor

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completely embraced. In the end, it turned out there was the proverbial black box placed inside her car that detected the strength of the accident, and autonomously sent the location and the force of the impact to the insurer who called an ambulance. In the future the ambulance may be called autonomously as well, without the need for the insurer to place a call. The driver in this case had little ability to know who defined the technical specifications that resulted in a message sent to her insurer or for that matter who designed the algorithms and implemented them and who had the authority or expertise to inspect and modify them. It is hard to say what considerations were given to the design of the driver experience, but this example highlights the importance of addressing how the actions of the digital workforce impinge upon the service experience. Additionally, there are moral and philosophical implications to how we understand digital agency as it relates, for example, to the simple act of driving a car. Human drivers are given the authority to drive a car by taking written and behind-the-wheel driving tests. In return they receive a driving licence issued by an authorized agency. Beginning not so many years ago, driver autonomy began to be shared with the car’s technology, starting with systems that automatically adjusted the car’s braking and steering, and more recently providing assistance in parking. The algorithms that enable the car to act autonomously are being incorporated into the design of automobiles at an ever-increasing rate and they are for the most part inscrutable to anyone but those who invented and/or programmed them. The design of the autonomous car is outpacing policies and laws that regulate what actions cars can take on our behalf. Carmakers are beginning to ask questions about whether autonomous vehicles should use algorithms to make ethical decisions that human drivers make today (Lin 2013). In theory, algorithms could review alternative crash outcomes and then rank them, for example, to avoid hitting a bus full of school children above a man driving alone. Hodder (2009: 1) notes: The ethical issue with algorithms and information systems generally is that they make choices about what information to use, or display or hide, and this makes them very powerful. These choices are never made in a vacuum and reflect both the conscious and subconscious assumptions and ideas of their creators. Realizing the centrality of agency – what is authorized and by whom and how that turns into autonomous action on the part of the digital workforce – can begin to guide service designers to ask questions about what should be knowable to service recipients and the wider service ecosystem and how to make the information accessible. Furthermore, the prospect of unintended outcomes brought about by the actions of an invisible digital workforce brings to the fore the possibility that service recipients, designers and engineers will not be fully able to understand and anticipate the impact of algorithmic outcomes. This raises a number of questions for service design regarding where and when in the service design process should considerations of agency, authorization and



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autonomy enter the picture and who needs to participate in these design choices. While there is not space in this chapter to consider the possibilities, much has already been written about the importance of ‘stakeholder’ participation in design decisions and about strategies for directly involving ‘users’ and others affected by design choices (c.f. Simonsen and Robertson 2012). It is not possible to programmatically advice how best ensure that individual, societal and business concerns are addressed in the design of algorithmic agents and their inclusion in the delivery of services. Instead our intent is to raise ethical and customer experience issues associated with making ‘hidden’ digital services knowable and understandable to a range of stakeholders.

15.4.2 Visibility As noted earlier, while the workings of the digital workforce are largely invisible, service design arguably has a responsibility to make visible certain aspects of those workings to service recipients and to consider alternatives for how to make them visible. For example, in the realm of the financial services industry, algorithms churn out credit scores autonomously that are used in the process of offering or denying credit to consumers. However, many people did not understand what was behind the decision to offer or deny them credit. This led to greater scrutiny in the USA of the credit score algorithms. Credit agencies were ruling on the credit-worthiness of consumers based on these `invisible’ analyses without sufficient authority or transparency. As the matter came to the attention of the regulators, legislation was enacted to give consumers the right to see their credit score free of charge and to question the data upon which it was calculated. These new regulations increased visibility into the activities of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the authorizing authority, as well as other parties who used this information to determine a consumer’s access to credit. Visibility meant, in this case, allowing individuals free access to their credit score once a year so they had the opportunity to question the assessments. There are many other examples of systems making recommendations that have an impact on the conduct of human affairs. For example, some companies are considering the use of LinkedIn postings (Boyd et al. 2014) or Twitter data (Badenes et al. 2014; Gou et al. 2014) to decide whom to hire. Hiring managers and job candidates alike are likely unable to decipher precisely what data are being used and how they are being analysed to suggest a good fit between job and applicant. Similarly, insurance companies are using driving patterns based on the numerous sensors found in today’s cars to determine the rates to charge customers and, in the future, law enforcement might assess responsibility for automobile accidents based on car sensor data. These digital assistants are changing the work of insurance agents and police alike and raise questions for designers about the options that are available for making drivers aware that their cars are communicating with insurance agencies or police departments. At what points might drivers be made aware of this service – when the car is purchased,

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when the insurance is renewed, or when an actual interaction between the car and insurance company occurs? The growing connectedness among service entities that in part is enabled by digital technologies compounds the difficulty of understanding what is taking place out of our view and out of our control. The autonomous car exchanges data and relays information through its sensors and embedded software, providing access to the latest traffic reports to suggest alternative routes, sensing the distance to nearby cars to avoid collisions, or recording road conditions to adjust the braking system. The autonomous car is envisioned to stop on its own, determine its own speed, pass other cars, take an alternative route if traffic has slowed, turn on the windscreen wipers, and even wake its passengers in time to prepare for arrival. For the car to provide the service of driving from point A to point B carrying people and goods, a vast number of entities will be called upon to engage with each other and the world around. As Arthur (2011: 2) notes, the growth in these technology-enabled services means that processes that were once visible and enacted by people are now ‘being executed electronically … in an unseen domain that is strictly digital’. The practices of participatory design can aid in making design decisions about how the workings of the digital workforce might be made more visible. However, as we have noted, gaining visibility into the workings of the digital workforce is not altogether straightforward. A recent example (Romain and Griffin 2015) provides a first-hand account of how the detailed understanding of the technical system (in their case a computer vision tool to assess the layout of shelves in retail stores) was needed by the design researchers to participate fully in the design of this shelf-stocking service for retail clerks and store managers. Without this detailed technical knowledge their ability to participate in the design of the ‘system throughout the pipeline’ (ibid.: 43) would have been limited. Ultimately service designers must consider how much they need to understand about the work being done by the digital workforce to have a voice in design choices that ultimately impact the service experience.

15.4.3 Materiality Digitally enabled services are materially constituted through interactions among service entities whether they are bodies, artefacts or algorithms. The performativity of services means that these entities together conspire to deliver service outcomes (Orlikowski and Scott 2015). Recognizing the materiality of everyday experiences is not new, as Barad (1998), Latour (2005), Mackenzie (2006) and Suchman (2007) have pointed out. However, as argued by Orlikowski and Scott (ibid.: 205), ‘Effective understanding of digital services and their consequences will require conceptual tools that take materiality seriously in studies of service innovation.’ While the algorithms that constitute digital services are often invisible to service recipients, the data they manipulate is produced through the materially constituted actions of people and things, whether that is the force applied to an automobile’s



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brakes, the flow of vehicles on a motorway, or the keystrokes used to compose this chapter. That said, the way data are aggregated and analysed creates levels of abstraction sometimes far removed from the actions that produced the data (Striphas 2010). Sometimes a false sense of objectivity is suggested in how rankings and recommendations are presented without clear views onto the transformations that take place between data and outcomes. The materiality of the interactions among service entities necessitates opening the aperture of observation to include the production of these digital traces and how they are manipulated to produce outcomes.

15.5 Designing digitally enabled services There are several challenges for service designers as they establish their role in defining the digital workforce and its relation to new service offerings. Service designers must recognize that part of the story of the recent rise in services involves the emergence of new divisions of labour between humans and an emerging digital workforce, some of which dislocate workers and redefine human relations. Service design must actively participate in designing new business models and the socio-material assemblages that enable them – claiming its place in shaping this redistribution of labour, assets and value. In participating in designing new business models, service design must concern itself with where technology fits into new divisions of labour among actors, including the algorithms that work behind the scene. There are many opportunities for service design to contribute to innovation in digitized services and to define the new relationships they afford – including the design of data producing activities, algorithms and analytics that create new information, techniques to visualize data and make them actionable, ‘thin client’ user interfaces that expose the work of the machine-to-machine interactions, and even the digital devices that provide ubiquitous access to services. An understanding of technology is critical to designers’ ability to grasp the social, legal and economic implications of technology-enabled services (van Dijck 2010). Service design must expand its focus beyond the ‘service experience’ to include these technologyconnected design activities. Becoming engaged in these less familiar areas will provide opportunities for innovation beyond those currently available to service design. But in so doing service designers must address when and how to make the actions of the digital workforce knowable and visible, while at the same time acknowledging the materiality of these out-of-sight and often inscrutable algorithmic activities. This raises the questions of how and how far should service design go into the workings and outputs of the digital workforce? Finally, service design must move quickly and decisively into these new terrains or risk being overshadowed and dislocated by those with business or engineering expertise who are delivering on the service design promise.

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References Andreessen, M. (2011), ‘Why Software is Eating the World’, Wall Street Journal. Available online: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1000142405311190348090457651225091562 9460 (accessed 2 September 2015). Arthur, W. B. (2011), ‘The Second Economy’, McKinsey Quarterly 4: 90–9. Badenes, H., Bengualid, M. N., Chen, J., Gou, L., Haber, E., Mahmud, J. and Zhou, M. X. (2014), ‘System U: Automatically Deriving Personality Traits from Social Media for People Recommendation’, in Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems, 373–4. ACM. Barad, K. (1998), Getting Real: Technoscientific Practices and the Materialization of Reality, Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 10 (2): 88–128. Boyd, D., Levy, K. and Marwick, A. (2014), ‘The Networked Nature of Algorithmic Discrimination’. Available online: http://www.danah.org/papers/2014/ DataDiscrimination.pdf (accessed 31 August 2015) Bryson, J. R., Daniels, P. W. and Warf, B. (2004), Service Worlds: People, Organizations, and Technologies. London: Routledge. Carr, N. (2013), ‘All Can Be Lost: The Risk of Putting Our Knowledge in the Hands of Machines’, The Atlantic. Available online: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ archive/2013/11/the-great-forgetting/309516/ (accessed 10 September 2015). Carr, N. (2014), The Glass Cage: Automation and Us. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Dijck, J. van (2010), ‘Search Engines and the Production of Academic Knowledge’, International Journal of Cultural Studies 13 (6): 574–92. Epstein, R. (2015), ‘How Google Could Rig the 2016 Election’, Politico Magazine. Available online: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/how-google-could-rig-the2016-election-121548) (accessed 4 November 2015). Gou, L., Zhou, M. X. and Yang, H. (2014), ‘Knowme and Shareme: Understanding Automatically Discovered Personality Traits from Social Media and User Sharing Preferences’, In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 955–64. ACM, April. Hodder, M. (2009), ‘Why Amazon Didn’t Just Have a Glitch’, TechCrunch Blog. Available online: http://techcrunch.com/2009/04/14/guest-post-why-amazon-didnt-just-have-aglitch/ (accessed 31 August 2015). Latour, B. (2005), Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lin, P. (2013), ‘The Ethics of Saving Lives with Autonomous Cars Is Far Murkier Than You Think’, Wired Magazine. Available online: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4ab2cc1eb752-11e4-981d-00144feab7de.html#slide0 (accessed 31 August 2015). Mackenzie, A. (2006), Cutting Code: Software and Sociality. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Orlikowski, W. and Scott, S. V. (2015), ‘The Algorithm and the Crowd: Considering the Materiality of Service Innovation’, MIS Quarterly, Special Issue: Service Innovation and the Digital Age 39 (1): 201–16. Parasuraman, R., Sheridan, T. B. and Wickens, C. D. (2008), ‘Situation Awareness, Mental workload, and Trust in Automation: Viable, Empirically Supported Cognitive Engineering Constructs’, Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making 2 (2): 140–60. Richtel, M. and Dougherty, C. (2015), ‘Google’s Driverless Cars Run into Problem: Cars with Drivers’, New York Times (1 September 2015). Romain, T. and Griffin, M. (2015), ‘Knee Deep in the Weeds – Getting Your Hands Dirty



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in a Technology Organization’, in Proceedings of EPIC (Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference) 2015, 36–45. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell. Sharman, A. (2015), ‘Connected Cars: Tyred and Wired’, Financial Times (3 April). Simonsen, J., and Robertson, T. (eds) (2012), International Handbook of Participatory Design. London: Routledge. Striphas, T. (2010), ‘How to Have Culture in an Algorithmic Age’, The Late Age of Print Blog. Available online: http://www. thelateageofprint.org/2010/06/14/how-to-haveculture-in-an- algorithmic-age/ (accessed June 2014). Suchman, L. A. (2007), Human–Machine Reconfigurations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woods, D. (1996), ‘Decomposing Automation: Apparent Simplicity, Real Complexity’, in R. Parasuraman and M. Mouloua (eds), Automation and Human Performance: Theory and Application, 3–17. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Zysman, J. (2006), ‘The 4th Service Transformation: The Algorithmic Revolution’, Communications of the ACM 49 (7).

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16 Making sense of data through service design– opportunities and reflections Alison Prendiville, Ian Gwilt and Val Mitchell

16.1 Introduction This chapter sets out to look at the opportunities for service design to intersect with the rise in the use of and access to large-scale digital data sets. The work starts with definitions of Big Data and presents different interpretations of the term and the human-scaled challenges surrounding its use as our daily activities are increasingly facilitated by digital services. The collecting of data from social interactions, shopping, work practices, banking, healthcare and transportation information and the potential opportunities to exploit these data sets are beginning to permeate and shape social, economic and political arenas at local, national and international levels. Consequently, there is much attention given to extending the pervasive collection of data through our ever-growing service interactions. Whether through aggregating data for governments and commercial organizations to aid decision making or for drilling down to create profiles of individuals, large-scale data sets (LSDS) are now core to service delivery, development and innovation. As an emerging area the discussions on service design’s role within Big Data have been limited, with little attention given to the opportunities and challenges that they offer organizations for service innovation. As a first step to opening up this area of service design’s role in Big Data, this chapter presents service design as a sensemaking activity that through processes of translation, visualization and persuasion offers a range of opportunities for organizations to turn the abstract and intangible nature of Big Data into human-centred services with social and economic value; thus transforming highly technical forms into something that can be understood and consumed by broader communities. The chapter also presents how

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through these processes service design might respond to and engage with sources of publicly available data as a catalyst to configuring new service design models.

16.2 Notions of data As terms such as ‘Big Data’, ‘Large Scale Data Sets (LSDS)’ and the dimensionally opposite ‘Quantified Self’ become routine, issues around how we engage with these terms and the underlying data as citizens, through the consumption and generation of data, and as designers, through the provision of service design models, becomes an increasingly important topic of discussion. Undoubtedly the rise in publicly accessible databases and the increasingly commonplace collection of personal information offers new opportunities, but equally we need to be aware of the accompanying cultural, ethical and operational implications associated with this phenomenon. Confusingly, the term Big Data means different things to different people and has a variety of technologically, economically and socially framed definitions as presented in the UK government’s Digital Catapult and research bodies such as the RCUK and EPSRC as well as interpretations by commercial companies. However, from a user perspective Big Data is often described by the increasingly large and complex data sets generated by our interaction with digital technologies; through the goods and services we purchase, the communication platforms we use, and choices we make in our everyday lives. Barlett (2012) distinguishes between the different types of Big Data that we interact with. In this model the first common type of collected data relates to subscription records from online and offline spaces that capture our personal information from for example, reward cards, and online shopping accounts or from our use of services such as energy and telecommunications that directly identify us through bank details, telephone number and home address etc. The second category records everyday interactions where data is generated by such things as time spent on the internet browsing, purchasing histories, healthcare uses, and location-based mobile services, to create ‘behavioural data’ which is anonymized and aggregated when stored and analysed. According to Thatcher (2014: 1767) all digital data is Big Data as ‘what constitutes a large data set is relative and constantly changing with technological advances’ (Farmer and Pozdnoukhov 2012 in Thatcher). From a technical perspective Horvath (2010: 15) sees Big Data not from an ever-increasing quantity measurement, but more significantly through a combination of ‘high volume (increasing amounts of data), high velocity (speed of data in and out) and or high variety (range of data types and sources) that requires new forms of analysis’. The term ‘Linked Data’ is also used to describe the increasingly commonplace practice of combining different data sets to form multidimensional data constructs that can be used to look for and establish patterns of behaviour. Kosinski, Stillwell and Graepel (2013: 5802) show how this takes place ‘between data that are actually recorded and information that can be statistically predicted from such records’. They

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demonstrate through the example of ‘Facebook Likes’ how relatively ‘basic digital records of human behaviour can be used to automatically and accurately estimate a wide range of personal attributes that people would typically assume to be private, such as sexual orientation and intelligence’. For the authors, this data inference presents dangers if situations arise ‘in which such predictions, even if incorrect, pose a threat to an individual’s well being, freedom or even life’. Furthermore, not having control over which attributes are being revealed from our ever-increasing digital interactions can further undermine issues of trust and privacy (p: 5805). Similarly, some critics are worried about the implicit notions of truth that are increasingly being ascribed from the analysis of Big Data, and question the implicit trust in this analysis or the meaning that can be extracted by identifying emergent patterns from within these data constructs. The premise is that if we have enough data to sample, and the tools to construct and interpret the emergent patterns that occur by creating multidimensional links between data sets, then we no longer need to theorize as to the meaning of these patterns, simple correlation is enough (MayerSchönberger and Cukier 2013: 70–2). It may be relatively easy to map out, measure and quantify regional crime statistics, for example, but perhaps more difficult to address the underlying causal issues (Graham 2012). The concept of the Quantified Self refers to the often self-initiated collection of data about our daily lives and routines. Typically, this is achieved through the use of wearable technologies that can collect and record a range of biometric data that can then be analysed in terms of understanding behaviours and lifestyle choices. However, as Lupton (2015) suggests, this practice, which may initially be undertaken voluntarily and privately, has the potential to become mandated, and shared with other parties who have a vested interest in this data. One rapidly developing area where this is occurring, and which we will discuss in more detail later on in the chapter, is the use of collected personal biometric feedback within the healthcare sector to help assign care and the provision of services. The monitoring of personal behaviours and choices within physical spaces both private and public and the use of computer-enhanced products has also been greatly facilitated with the arrival of digital sensing technologies, and access to this type of data is also beginning to be used to shape a variety of service provisions, as we discuss in the following sections. Sitting somewhere between the notions of Big Data and the Quantified Self, open data suggests that recent moves towards the sharing of large-scale public data sets (healthcare statistics, demographics, use of social services etc.) can be used to empower citizens and disarm (at least in the public sector) the issues around top-down ownership, access to, and use of information. The concept of open data is based on the releasing of government or public institutional information into the public domain. As Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier (2013: 116) state, the main difference between state collected data sets and commercially collected data is that government data was fundamentally collected for the benefit of citizens, however the releasing of this data into the public realm allows for both the public and private sector to make use of this data in a variety of different ways.

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Shabolt et al. (2012) discuss the potential for the increasingly accessibility to Open Public Data sources to be combined with the concepts of Linked Data and the semantic web, wherein connections can be made between data by analysing subject and content. For example, NHS England has established a National Information Board to help manage and effectively utilize a range of data sets as part of its five-year planning and recognizes the need for transparency and data connectivity as a key strategy to improve services and improve the experience of service users (NHS England 2014).

16.3 Sensemaking: Translation, visualization and personalization Service design in both Big Data and personal data offers methods and practices for sensemaking, a term introduced by Weick (1985, 1993, 1995) in organizational sociology ‘to refer to how we structure the unknown, so as to be able to act in it’ (Ancona 2011: 3). For Ancona referring to Weick’s work, ‘this involves constructing plausible understanding – a map of a shifting world: testing this map with others through data collection, action and conversation; and then reframing or abandoning, the map depending on how credible it is’. The act of mapping provides ‘hope, confidence, and the means to move from anxiety to action’ (Ancona 2011: 6; Weick 2001). Co-designing is a sensemaking activity that can assist in exploring many of the contentious issues that surround personal data: ownership, access and value and more abstract notions of trust and subjectivity. Visualizing data, mapping out the relationships and the data flows between individuals and organizations and exploring issues of trust and privacy through co-designing are all sensemaking activities that fit within Weick’s (1995) frame. In these service design practices people navigate the unknown (and the abstract), with sensemaking activities described by Ancona (2011) as ‘needing to be plausible rather than completely accurate’. Translation, visualization and personalization activities allow us to make sense of data and are developing roles for service design models in respect of the opportunities and challenges of increasingly pervasive digital information constructs.

16.3.1 Translation As we have already noted financial and telecommunication industries among others, both public and private, have always been keen to collect and use data to assist in economic policy and service provision decisions. Nevertheless, there are significant differences between being able to access Big Data, making data publicly available, and sharing it in a way that people can make sense of. The importance of translating data from the conventional formats and codes of statistical lists, spread-sheets and graphs to allow a broader section of the community the ability to read digital data is beginning to happen, and the practice of data visualization design is a burgeoning

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industry. However, translation requires more than a change in format. If service designers are to successfully engage with digital data then a detailed understanding of the value, structures and relationships of specific data sets is required in terms of establishing technical, sociocultural and personal relevance (Illinsky and Steele 2011: 16). This multidimensional understanding is critical if we want to convey not just statistical values but relationships between items and across linked data sets in a way that is appropriate to a variety of consumers and their differing needs. Moreover, when and where we are exposed to new data constructs is equally important in establishing how data is understood and valued. Perceptions of authority and veracity in data sources, the relevance of data to inform how, where and when we make decisions in our lives, and the control we might have over the collection and use of the data are, for many people, areas of uncertainty. This means that data analysis and the meaningful translation of data is fast becoming a necessary skill for the service design community. This need for meaningful interpretation is evident with the concept of geospatial Big Data, as according to Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier (2013: 86) ‘nature, objects and people constitute information’. Today’s Big Data mapping is historically linked to the nineteenth century’s state apparatuses appetite for ‘framing’ the ‘public’ and the ‘population’ as spatialized objects of observation, mapping and administration (Pickles 2004: 127): Mapping, social statistics, public health, moral education and the institutions of urban planning and administration were from the beginning thoroughly spatialized practices of identity construction and social engineering. Mapping and statistics made citizens visible in particular ways, rendering them subjects to public administration. (Pickles 2004: 131) The huge amount of data generated today makes knowledge of location essential for linking dispersed data sets whether on spending habits or producing a ‘teenage pregnancy map of England and Wales’ (Guardian, 26 March 2012) or the crime maps mentioned earlier. Yet although these geospatial data sets may be designed to aid in decision making with census data used ‘to design government programs, to market goods to particular populations or identify particular social problems’ it is also necessary to appreciate their limitations (Busch 2014). For the authors LSDS used in public and private policy making reflects the statistician Donald Cambell’s statement (in Porter 2012: 225, cited in Busch 2014): The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor. In contrast to the mapping and abstraction of LSDS Ordnance Survey’s (OS) Geovation Challenge is an example of how service design methods and practices support the

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development of location-based services using OS’s open data set with a focus on place and place making (Prendiville 2015). As an early adopter of open data, since 2009 Ordnance Survey, the UK government’s mapping agency has been running an innovation challenge based on its open data products, to address social, environmental and economic challenges through the application of geospatial information. Themes are set on issues such as ‘How can we help British business improve environmental performance?’ (2014) through to ‘How can we enable people in Britain to live in better places?’ (2015). These challenges crowd-source solutions, through the Geovation site, from start-ups, industry specialists and third sector bodies with the twelve best ideas that most accurately mirror the criteria of the challenge and the utilization of geographic data, shortlisted for a weekend long service design workshop. This co-design workshop in service design ‘magnifies unique features such as intangibility, experience, temporality and more importantly co-production’ (Akama, Prendiville 2013) translating the data and making it reified and human-centred. Thus the service design process moves what are initially technically driven and abstracted geodata ideas to locally situated, human-scale service offerings.

16.3.2 Visualization Information designers have been joined by the discipline of data visualizers as professionals working alongside or as data analysers to respond to the need for the representation of digital data in a timely manner, and in a comprehensible and appropriate format. A host of data visualization techniques and forms exist, from conventional charts and graphs to diagrams and illustrations, interactive screen-based visualizations mobile apps, and animated information graphics. More experimental techniques such as data sonification, where data is represented in an audio form, and the reimaging of digital data as a physical object using contemporary making techniques such as 3D printing and rapid prototyping are also beginning to appear (Gwilt 2013). Collectively these techniques attempt to re-present the codified data of the digital into more human-centred forms that can be used and understood by individuals and communities. This human-centred way of thinking aligns with the core philosophies of service design and a desire to understand behaviours and people. The importance of data accessibility, engendered through how we deploy these design typologies, should not be underestimated if we are to empower citizens by providing knowledge and insight into digital data (Ware 2004; Yau 2013). Prefiguring the rise in Big Data, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe publicly released a series of publications under the heading of ‘Making Data Meaningful’ (2009). These publications were aimed at demystifying the world of data and improving statistical literacy. As Kennedy (2015) suggests, the cultural plurality of data visualizations required speaks to the specificity needed for data to reach a variety of audiences, and to the fact that we respond to data both cognitively and emotionally.

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Big Data not only presents technical challenges for organizations but also managerial ones. McAfee and Brynjolfsson (2012) identify the impact of Big Data on decision making especially when data is scarce, complex or expensive to obtain. In order to utilize Big Data, organizational issues also need to be addressed and the authors identify five key managerial challenges for a new managerial culture to embrace: leadership, talent management (the availability of data scientists), technology, decision making and company culture (p. 67). Visualization is also presented by Eppler and Platts (2009) as a means to improve the strategic planning process in organizations by ‘addressing many of the cognitive, social and emotional challenges’ but these problems would also resonate with the embedding of Big Data in effective organizational decision-making processes. Expanding this visual organizational engagement, Burgi and Roos (2003: 69) propose an approach which is ‘a multi-modal imagery of strategy, which brings together verbal/narrative, visual/imagistic, and kinaesthetic/haptic nodes to significantly enrich people’s understanding of their organization and its strategy’ and here again we present the opportunity for service designers to work within companies to visually create and engage through co-design methods the organizational and communication structures needed to bring together the stakeholders required to enable service innovation with Big Data.

16.3.3 Personalization We have discussed how important it might be from a service design perspective to understand how to translate and visualize data but another aspect, which the digital makes easy, is the potential for people to adapt, contribute to, and personalize data. This presents interesting challenges and opportunities for new service design models. How we tell stories, make data personally relevant and allow people to tailor their experience of data is crucial to creating meaningful interactions with data. In Smolan and Erwitt’s The Human Face of Big Data (2012), Greene (p. 44) writes how the self-tracking and the more radical Quantified Self movement is offering opportunities for finding better treatments for diseases and even predicting illness before symptoms become obvious. She recognizes how this ‘explosion in self-tracking would not be possible without the massive digitization of personal data’. However, van Berkel at al. (2015) point to the technical challenges and problems with sustaining interest in the collection of personal data over a long period of time. Greene also acknowledges that these activities are unlikely to become widely accepted by the general public unless people know that the data is safe (p. 44). Lupton (2012) offers a more critical perspective on the mobile wireless computer technologies and social media applications using Web 2.0 platforms for health promotion to support people to achieve their goals in preventing ill health and promoting healthy behaviours at the population level. This notion of the potentially always digitally connected person raises questions on how these technologies ‘may operate to construct various forms of subjectivities and embodiments, and what the moral and ethical ramifications of using them may

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be’ (p. 232). Further she questions how moral meaning and representation will be drawn of the ideal subject formed from the use of such technologies in the interest of promoting health. Evidence of this connection between self-monitoring, moral judgement and health can be seen regularly in the media but also present in local government discussions as exemplified in ‘A Dose of Localism: The Role of Councils in Public Health’, produced by the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) and Westminster Council (Thraves 2012). Here it is suggested that through the increasing use of smart card technology, where access to leisure centres is captured, data welfare measures linked to behaviours that promote public health, such as exercise packages, can be ‘prescribed to a resident, housing and council tax benefit payments could be varied to reward or incentivise residents’ (‘A Dose of Localism’ 2012: 6). Evidence of the personalization of Big Data, in a private company, through co-creation can also be found in the vehicle navigation company TomTom who have been utilizing Big Data to support service innovation for over ten years. On a typical day they receive over 5 billion anonymous GPS data points from their route navigation devices and apps in use around the world (van Rijmenam 2013). The company also utilizes crowdsourced data from their MapShare community which allows drivers to register changes to, for example, speed limits, traffic directions and street names. Big Data allows TomTom to more accurately calculate journey times (based on how fast vehicles actually travel on a specific road). TomTom provides via its website a clear value proposition to its customers regarding the sharing of data and how it will be used to enhance service quality. They provide clear reassurances that the data will be anonymized and that drivers can opt in and out of data sharing (via the navigation device itself). In addition, Big Data from TomTom has begun to be used to enhance the design of services beyond the company. For example, TomTom reports how sharing traffic data with a local authority facilitated the location of a new hospital by informing understanding of how many households could reach a particular location within a desired time window. TomTom expects future Big Data sets from intelligent vehicles to include camera imagery and radar data enabling, for example, sharing of real time data on free parking spaces or closed shops with other service users (Bell 2015).

16.3.4 How does the interaction between service design and data affect stakeholders? In considering service design’s contribution to interactions with Big Data it is helpful to identify the broad categories of key stakeholders needed to create services that utilize Big Data: MM

data providers – individuals and communities who provide data either consciously or unconsciously by their activities.

MM

data collectors – e.g. credit card companies, search engine providers, car manufacturers etc. who provide services that create data.

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MM

data specialists – who can analyse the data and translate into a meaningful form (technical).

MM

service providers – those seeking to provide innovative services that utilize Big Data.

MM

managers and innovation planners – those that understand Big Data and realize its potential.

MM

service designers – those seeking to generate compelling value propositions and experiences to customers and establish the relational and contextual nature of the service.

MM

data consumers – customers who use and adapt data depending on need.

The ideas discussed above reveal the difference between individually collected data and ‘closed’ organizational or state-generated data where as citizens, the amount of control, access and influence on the generation and use of data varies greatly. Foulonneau et al. (2014) suggests service providers can use data in three ways: ‘where the service is based on data; where the service uses data as a resource; and where the service is validated or enriched by the data but the data is not directly used or visible in the service’ (Foulonneau and Slim 2013). From a service design perspective both Big Data and personal data sources offer the opportunity to design sensemaking activities from within a traditional service design paradigm that uses big and personal data – as touch points – to using the interaction with Big Data and personal data as a catalyst for establishing new types of service models. Service design thinking provides us with the opportunity to reconnect the abstracted and monetized applications of data with more human-centred uses by problematizing the underlying binary constructs between material and digital interaction, person and systematized values and needs. Indeed, this reconnection between people and abstracted services is recognized as a key tenet of service design (Polaine et al. 2013) and the types of interaction between service design and Big Data can impact many of the stakeholders involved in the service provision chain.

16.4 Conclusion Though much discussed, Big Data and the personal collection of data is often abstract, difficult to comprehend and decontextualize. Finding a way to read and respond to data in a meaningful way is the challenge if these information resources are to realize the potential to empower individuals and communities. Service design provides the opportunity to more explicitly co-create value propositions for all stakeholders within service eco systems but equally, consideration as to how service providers and their customers can be trained and supported with their interactions with Big Data is critical (Foulonneau et al. 2014).

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As we have mentioned, Big Data is becoming recognized as a value driver by many industries including the energy sector and therefore key to service innovation (Beckman 2015). For example, the value to the consumer of installing renewable energy and energy storage systems within the home can be increased when Big Data is used to empower the consumer to be an effective manager of their home energy system. In the TomTom example, the co-creation of value is straightforward: data from the driver’s navigation system is combined with that from many others to provide real time data on traffic, resulting in a more accurate service. Where data is sold to third parties or used less directly the value of sharing data is much less transparent. How our data will be used now and in the future is often buried in complex terms and conditions signed up to in exchange for, for example, free Wi-Fi or the benefits of social networking. Concerns about privacy are frequently mooted in the press but often not well articulated relating to unknowns about the potentially detrimental use of our data in the future. ‘The basic concept of service is the co-creation of value by actors combining and exchanging resources within value constellations’ (Kimbell 2014). However, within Big Data ecosystems the value to the individual that passively contributes with data is not always clear, particularly when data is the ‘by product’ or ‘exhaust’ of an unrelated activity. Attractive consumer-orientated service propositions in such sectors need to make transparent the value of sharing personal data in order for concerns about privacy and sharing to diminish in particular when a direct relationship between the data shared and the service offering is not immediately apparent. At a basic level service design can provide organizations with the tools to design, for example, service terms and conditions that make the sharing of data more transparent to the customer but also ensure that customers are made aware of the value they receive in return. More critically it can also provide the tools needed to enable organizational stakeholders to collaboratively explore and make sense of Big Data sets organizationally and envisage future Big Data service opportunities from a human-centred perspective making sure that issues of privacy, value and trust are explicitly considered and designed for throughout the process. However, for this to become widespread the service design community needs to adapt and evolve its tools and methods to enable designers to know what to pay attention to when designing with Big Data and how to facilitate sensemaking and service co-creation within multidisciplinary teams that are likely to include stakeholders new to service design. Clearly there are a number of different roles and interests to be considered in building an effective interface between service design and Big Data in what is a constantly evolving and dynamic environment. The relationship between service design and digital data both large and small is still in its infancy, but without question how service design models continue to develop strategies for responsibly working with, sharing, responding to, and even generating data will play an important part shaping the service design identity of the future.

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References Akama, Y. and Prendiville, A. (2013), ‘Embodying, Enacting and Entangling Design: A Phenomenological View to Co-designing Services’, Swedish Design Research Journal 1 (13): 29–40. Ancona, D. (2011), ‘Sensemaking: Framing and Acting in the Unknown’, in S. A. Snook, R. Khurana and N. Nohria (eds), The Handbook for Teaching Leadership: Knowing, Doing, and Being, 3–19. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Barlett, J. (2012), The Data Dialogue. DEMOS. Available online: www.demos.co.uk (accessed 22 March 2014). Beckman, K. (2015), ‘E.ON CEO: Future Energy World is Based on Renewables and Customer Solutions’ Energy Post March 2015. Available online: http://reneweconomy. com.au/2015/e-on-ceo-future-energy-world-is-based-on-renewables-and-customersolutions-95964 (accessed 1 July 2015). Bell, L. (2015), ‘TomTom: Big Data will fuel self-driving car innovation’. Available online: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/feature/2407985/tomtom-big-data-will-fuel-selfdriving-car-innovation (accessed 12 May 2015). Berkel, N., Luo, C., Ferreira, D., Goncalves, J. and Kostakos, V. (2015), ‘The Curse of Quantified-Self: An Endless Quest for Answers’, Adjunct Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp’15), 973–78. Available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2800835.2800946 (accessed 5 May 2016). Bürgi, P. and Roos, J. (2003), ‘Images of Strategy’, European Management Journal 21 (1): 69–78. Busch L (2014), ‘A Dozen Ways to Get Lost in Translation: Inherent Challenges in LargeScale Data Sets’, International Journal of Communication 8: 1727–44. Eppler M. and Platts K. (2009), ‘Visual Strategising. The Systematic Use of Visualisation in the Strategic-Planning Process’, Long Range Planning 42: 42–74. Foulonneau, M. and Slim, T. (2013), ‘Service innovation: The hidden value of open data’. Available online: https://www.w3.org/2013/share-psi/workshop/krems/papers/ ServiceInnovation-theHiddenValueOfOpenData (accessed 5 May 2016). Foulonneau, M., Slim, T., Vidou, G. and Martin, S. (2014), ‘Open Data in Service Design’, The Electronic Journal of e-Government (EJEG) 12 (2): 95–207. Graham, M. (2012), ‘Big Data and the end of theory?’ Available online: http://www. theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/mar/09/big-data-theory (accessed 30 June 2015). Gwilt, I. (2013), ‘Data-Objects: Sharing the Attributes and Properties of Digital and Material Culture to Creatively Interpret Complex Information’, in D. Harrision (ed.), Digital Media and Technologies for Virtual Artistic Spaces, 14–26. Pennsylvania: IGI Global. Horvath, I. (2012), ‘Beyond Advanced Meachatronics: New Design Challenges of Socialcyber Systems’ (draft paper). Proceedings of the ACM Workshop on Mechangronic Design. Austria: Linz. Illinsky, N. and Steele, J. (2011), Designing Data Visualisations. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media Inc. Kennedy H. (2015), ‘Seeing Data: Visualisation design should consider how we respond to statistics emotionally as well as rationally’. Available online: http://blogs.lse. ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2015/07/22/seeing-data-how-people-engage-with-datavisualisations/#author (accessed 27 July 2015) Kimbell, L. (2014), Service Innovation Handbook. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers. Kosinski M, Stillwell D. and Graepel T., (2013), ‘Private Traits and Attributes are Predicted

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from Digital Records of Human Behaviour’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Available online: http://www.pnas.org/ content/110/15/5802.full (accessed 4 May 2013). Lupton, D. (2012), ‘M-health and Health Promotion: The Digital Cyborg and Surveillance Society’, Social Theory and Health 10 (3): 299–44. Lupton, D. (2014), ‘Self-Tracking Modes: Reflexive Self-Monitoring and Data Practices’. Available online: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2483549 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ ssrn.2483549 (both accessed 19 August 2014). Mayer-Schönberger, V. and Cukier, K. (2013), Big Data: A Revolution that will Transform How We Live, Work and Think. London: John Murray. Mazumdar, S., Petrelli, D., Elbedweihy, K., Lanfranchi, V. and Ciravegna, F. (2015), ‘Affective Graphs: The Visual Appeal of Linked Data’, Semantic Web 6 (3): 277–312 McAfee A. and Brynjolfsson, E. (2012), ‘Big Data: The Management Revolution’, Harvard Business Review: 59–69. NHS England (2014), The NHS Five Year Forward View. Available online: http://www. england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/5yfv-web.pdf (accessed 30 June 2015). Pelin, A., Federico, C., Leonardo, G., Omer I., Omer, F. K. and Salih, E. (2013), ‘Big Data as a Source for Designing Services’, in Proceeding of International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR), 2013 conference Japan. Available online: http:// design-cu.jp/iasdr2013/papers/2319-1b.pdf (accessed 30 June 2015). Pickles J., (2004), A History of Spaces. Catographic Reason, Mapping and the Geo-coded World. London: Routledge. Polaine, A., Løvlie, L. and Reason, B. (2013), Service Design: From Sight to Implementation. Brooklyn, NY: Resenfeld Media. Prendiville, A. (2015), ‘A Design Anthropology of Place in Service Design: A Methodological Reflection’, The Design Journal 18 (02): 193–209. Rogers, S. (26.03.2012), ‘The Guardian Teenage Pregnancy of Map of England and Wales’, Guardian. Available online: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2012/ mar/26/office-for-national-statistics-health (accessed 27 March 2013). Shadbolt, N. O’Hara, K., Berners-Lee, T., Gibbins, N., Glaser, H., Hall, W. and Schraefel, M.C. (2012), ‘Linked Open Government Data: Lessons from Data.gov.uk’, Intelligent Systems, IEEE 27 (3): 2–9. Smolan R. and Erwitt J. (2012), The Human Face of Big Data. Against All Odds Productions. Thatcher, J. (2014), ‘Living on Fumes: Digital Footprints, Data Fumes and the limitations of Spatial Big Data’, International Journal of Communication 8: 1765–83. Thraves. L., (2012), A Dose of Localism: The Role of Councils in Public Health, Local Government Information Unit and Westminster Council. UNECE (2009), Making Data Meaningful. Available online: http://www.unece.org/stats/ documents/writing/ (accessed 16 October 2015). Van Rijmenam (2013), ‘TomTom Takes Big Data to the Extreme’, 30 January. Available online: https://datafloq.com/read/tomtom-big-data/515 (accessed 1 July 2015). Ware, C. (2004), Information Visualisation: Perception for Design. San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann. Weick, K. (1995), Sensemaking in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Yau, N. (2013), Data Points: Visualisation that Means Something. Indianapolis, IN: John Wiley & Sons.

17 Beyond collaborative services: Service design for sharing and collaboration as a matter of commons and infrastructuring Anna Seravalli and Mette Agger Eriksen

17.1 Introduction The notion of collaborative service was first used by Jegou and Manzini in 2008 to discuss how services based on a tight collaboration between providers and users and based on the sharing of material resources, knowledge and competences could support the transition towards more environmentally and socially sustainable ways of living. Since then the attention towards services characterized by sharing and collaboration has been growing quite quickly in the (service) design field. Yet, they entail a number of questions in relation to how to design for them, as well as in relation to the collaboration between the designer and various other stakeholders. To navigate this rich complexity, we propose the two notions of commons and infrastructuring, and we do that by reflecting on the case of designing a makerspace, Fabriken, a sharing-based collaborative service. We use the notion of commons as a framework to articulate the organizational forms and decision-making structures of these services as well as highlight some of the challenges they entail. Particularly, we focus on the challenge of openness, and how this might be addressed through the presence of a ‘partner’ – a mediator that supports sharing and collaboration when participation is transient and participants have diverse interests. With infrastructuring, we want to provide instead a particular understanding of how these services may be designed, highlighting how they require the alignment of both

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human and non-human actors, and a long-term effort that goes beyond the ‘designtime’, in the ‘use-time’. Infrastructuring is not solely driven by the designer but yet, the nature of these services requires the careful consideration of the designer’s agenda.

17.2 How service design relates to sharing and collaboration There is a growing number of services based on sharing and collaboration. Such initiatives may be commercial, non-profit or driven by the public sector and entail the sharing of some kind of resource, according to a more or less collaborative organizational arrangement. From time-banks that provide opportunities for communities to share time and skills, to Airbnb that allows to share spare rooms between strangers, these services enable the sharing of physical goods, spaces, competences or time, among people who know each other or who are strangers, on a scale that might vary from a local neighbourhood to the planet. Thus, they present a huge variation in what is shared as well as how it is shared. In some cases, these services are developed with a bottom-up approach, with users having control and possibility to decide over how the sharing is organized and performed. In other cases, the service is managed by a third party (e.g. a company, an NGO or a public organization) setting rules and procedures for how sharing and collaboration can take place. All in all, this entails that the landscape of sharing-based collaborative services presents huge differences when it comes to organizational structures or models, aims and outcomes of these services. The service design field has largely been considering these services as being social innovations, since sharing and collaboration support the generation of social relationships (and thus fostering social sustainability) as well as they may promote a less material-intensive economy (and thus reducing environmental impact) (Jegou and Manzini 2008; Cipolla and Manzini 2009; Manzini and Staszowski 2013; Selloni 2015). However recent developments are revealing that sharing-based collaborative services are not necessarily a matter of social innovation (Malhotra and Van Alstyne 2014) and thus there is a need to further understand and articulate their nature.

17.2.1 Sharing and collaboration beyond social innovation In 2008, Jegou and Manzini in Collaborative Services foresaw many of the sharingbased collaborative services that nowadays are reality (such as neighbourhood workshops to repair bikes, micro-nurseries, co-housing, etc.). They presented them as concrete solutions that ‘through local collaboration, mutual assistance, shared use’ (ibid.: 25) could enhance transitioning towards a more sustainable society.



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This particular take on the potential of sharing-based collaborative services finds support also in other fields (Arvidsson 2013; Bauwens et al. 2012; Benkler 2006; Hardt and Negri 2009). These services ground their viability on shared ownership, social capital and use value rather than private ownership, financial capital and exchange value (Hardt and Negri 2009); thus the rationale of economic sustainability is set alongside social sustainability (Bauwens et al. 2012; Benkler 2006) and ethical concerns (Arvidsson 2013). This entails that these services are looked upon as value production practices in which the primary role of profit is substituted by the centrality of social relationships and the promotion of a less material-intensive economy. At the same time, recent developments around some cases of sharing-based collaborative services are raising a number of concerns.1 In this perspective sharingbased collaborative services do not seem to work towards holistic sustainability but rather the contrary. They appear to be just a matter of resource management activities that monetize spare capacities, where the collaborative aspects become only a marketing strategy (Light and Miskelly 2014) or, even worse, entail the progressive commodification of human relationships and trust (Thrift 2006). Thus, there is the need to find ways to articulate what kind of sharing and collaboration is at play in these services, and how to design for them. In order to discuss these two issues, this chapter uses the case of a sharing-based collaborative service, Fabriken, a makerspace.

17.2.2 Makerspaces as sharing-based collaborative services The notion of makerspace has been emerging in the last years to describe facilities where people engage in different kinds of collaborative production practices by sharing tools, knowledge and skills (Gershenfeld 2005). Makerspaces can present slightly different focuses, organizational forms and names;2 yet what they all have in the common is the fact that they provide a broader access to production means and the possibility for participants to learn from each other by sharing knowledge and collaborating (Gershenfeld 2005; Gauntlett 2011). Makerspaces can be looked upon as sharing-based collaborative services. In these spaces sharing and collaboration can be at play in different ways; in the actual making, with participants sharing tools and collaborating in repairing and constructing things, and even in the running of the premises, with participants being directly involved in the daily organizing and management of the premises (Seravalli 2014).

17.2.2.1 Fabriken, a makerspace To make the later definition more concrete, in the following we describe some of the features of Fabriken, a Swedish makerspace located in Malmö. Such features would be used to discuss how commons and infrastructuring can be at play in the design of sharing-based collaborative services.

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FIGURE 17.1  Timeline and infrastructuring. The timeline shows the main events in the development of Fabriken. It also depicts how the different organizational models followed one another and it shows also the collaborations with the different actors. Fabriken is hosted within a building run by an NGO, both called STPLN. The space is a platform aiming at enabling diverse kinds of grass-roots cultural activities and initiatives, which may range from music concerts to robot building and from drop-in office workspaces to roller-skate training. Fabriken is one of the initiatives hosted in the space and it includes: a wood-working workshop, a textile atelier, a number of stations to work with electronics. Partly intertwining with Fabriken, on a long-term basis STPLN also hosts the initiatives of a do-it-yourself bike repair workshop and an upcycling workshop (more information on this in Seravalli 2014). The NGO has been active in establishing and running STPLN since 2006, with financing from different municipality departments over the years – currently the Cultural Department. In 2009 the NGO initiated collaboration with MEDEA (a research centre at Malmö University) to create the makerspace, Fabriken. The initial plan was that while the NGO would be dealing with the everyday routine of the space, MEDEA co-design researchers would be involved in the setting up of the space, in carrying out diverse activities and in supporting various in-house projects.3 However, this collaboration changed over time as new actors entered the space and in different ways became more or less actively involved in the collaborative running and managing of the premises. As briefly outlined, Fabriken supports different kinds of sharing and collaboration, and it has (so far) been going through three different organizational models to manage



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and perform sharing and collaboration, which we will further explain and elaborate below. Thus, it provides the possibility to both discuss the nature of sharing and collaboration as well as how to co-design for it/in it.

17.3 Commons as a framework for articulating sharing and collaboration To articulate sharing and collaboration in Fabriken, the notion of commons has proved to be very useful. Commons represents a ‘pool of resources or facilities, as well as institutions that involve some aspects of joint ownership or access’ (Ostrom et al. 2002: 18). It thus refers to resources that are shared through the establishment of collaborative organizational forms. We suggest that such a notion can be at play not as a theory to inform the design action but rather as a framework to articulate characteristics and issues in relation to sharing and collaboration.

17.3.1 Commons as a framework Commons can refer both to an intrinsic characteristic of a resource, in which case it is defined as a common-pool resource, or to a specific way of organizing sharing (Ostrom 1990). The ambiguity of the term is related to the fact that study of commons as organizational forms started out from looking at cases where natural resources such as lakes, forests and fisheries (common-pool resources) were managed in a collaborative manner, having the stakeholders accessing and using such a resource and being collectively involved in its management. The notion of commons refers to collaborative organizational forms for the generation, access and maintenance of a shared resource (ibid.), that may be a common-pool resource but even another kind of goods, such as private or public goods (Hess and Ostrom 2007). Particularly the work of Ostrom and her group has been fundamental in giving visibility and legitimacy to commons (Ostrom 1990), and consistently refuting the assumption that sharing managed through collaborative institutions is always doomed to fail (Hardin 1968). Commons studies have been articulating possibilities and limits of sharing and collaboration when it comes to the use and management of different kinds of resources (Rose 1986; Ostrom 1990; Lessig 2002; Benkler 2006; Hess and Ostrom 2007) and with the notion of ‘new commons’ (Hess 2008) they have been also looking at cases of sharing-based collaborative services. By looking at cases where communities have been collaboratively managing resources, sometimes for hundreds of years, Ostrom and her colleagues have identified some recurring characteristics of successful commons (Ostrom 1990, 1999). These include a clear definition of the boundaries of the shared resource as well as of who has the right to access it and under which conditions. Mechanisms for sharing should

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be defined out from the local conditions and by keeping in consideration resources’ characteristics, particularly considering costs related to their maintenance. Another important aspect is the possibility for participants to modify such mechanisms in relation to needs that may emerge from the practice of sharing and collaborating. It is also important that external authorities do not challenge such possibility. Successful commons also present mechanisms to control participants’ behaviour and sanctioning free-riding. Such mechanisms seem to work better when control is accountable to the users and when the sanctioning is gradual. In case tensions or conflicts may emerge, it is particularly important that there is the possibility for participants to have easy access to arenas for discussions. Looking at sharing-based collaborative services from a commons perspective, it means considering to what extent sharing entails a collaborative aspect: for example, in relation to which ways it is possible to access the resource, who is taking care of the maintenance of the resource, who has been defining mechanisms for sharing, who has the possibility to influence such mechanisms etc. These questions allow, in the first place, distinguishing initiatives that are just focusing on resource management or rather actually entailing aspects of collaboration and, in the second place, to articulate such collaborative nature. In this perspective commons studies should be understood as providing a framework for reflecting on sharing and collaboration and discussing different design opportunities, rather than providing an ultimate answer in relation to how to design for sharing and collaboration.

17.3.2 Fabriken as a commons Applying commons as a framework within Fabriken allows to both articulate some of the issues present in that space, as well as opening it up to further questions related to different organizational models for sharing-based collaborative services. When it comes to reflecting on the actual sharing of machines, spaces, competences, after the opening of Fabriken in 2011, it quite quickly demonstrated how ‘resources’ that require high level maintenance imply a number of criticalities that may hinder sharing. Fabriken equipment required an ongoing flow of financial resources and a time investment for maintaining and repairing the machines. The first organizational model entailed that a group of core users was taking care of the machines as well as teaching newcomers about how to use them correctly. However, a criticality appeared in this first organizational model, since it was missing mechanisms for monitoring and sanctioning misuse. This meant having things disappearing from the space and equipment being broken. The main issues were not the damages per se, but the fact that they threatened the trust and commitment of the most engaged participants, who started to lock up things and be more resistant in welcoming new participants to the space. These issues led to the decision by the NGO in 2012, of change the organizational model in the running of Fabriken, by employing a technician who would manage the sharing instead of the users. This was done through sharing the costs and collaborating



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with an interaction design start-up company, which in return could use the premises also for their business activities. This second organizational model, however, also brought up a number of issues related to the different interests of the now two main actors. While the publicly financed NGO-organization was aiming for broadening up participation, the start-up, which was struggling with breaking even, was more interested in offering activities for a specific group of users who could, in the long run, cover some of the costs. This diversity of interests led to a number of conflicts. However, as pointed out by the NGO manager, it was not the conflicts that brought the collaboration and the second organizational model to a termination at the end of 2013. Rather, it was the difficulties in dealing with such a diversity, in setting up a dialogue to try to find alternative ways of organizing that encompass both parties’ interests. This is in line with Ostrom’s (1999) findings about the importance of having arenas to deal with conflicts between participants in the commons. Not having the possibility (and partly also not knowing how) to deal with these conflicts led to a number of tensions that wore out both professional but also personal relationships, with a growing level of distrust and discontent eventually bringing the collaboration to an end (Figure 17.2).

FIGURE 17.2  Fabriken organizational models. The figure illustrates the three organizational models of Fabriken. They depict the different stakeholders involved and how they were relate to each other and to the space. The lines depict what kind of investment they were putting in the space (work, material and financial resources) as well as who was influencing who when it comes to decision making. The thickness of the lines represent the size of the investment / level of influence.

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17.3.3 Dealing with openness, asymmetry and non-consensus in commons This led to the emergence of the third and current organizational model of Fabriken where the NGO has completely control over how the space and equipment are managed and shared. Thus, Fabriken is not any more a commons in a traditional sense: even though participants are still sharing the space, resources and knowledge, they no longer have the possibility to decide over how the sharing and collaboration is organized and managed. From a commons perspective, the major challenge Fabriken has had to face has been openness. Ostrom pointed out how a successful commons presents clear boundaries, both when it comes to the resource being shared as well as the community of participants, which needs to be defined. On the contrary, Fabriken, as well as many other sharingbased collaborative services, strives towards openness as a matter of including new participants as well as having a model that allows for transient participation. This raises the issue of how to quickly involve newcomers in the sharing and facilitating mechanisms of trust building between participants, but also how to quickly respond if a core participant in the commons would leave. Transient participation entails an asymmetric structure, where participants do not all contribute in the same way (Ostrom 2011). In traditional commons a defined and stable community implies that participants have an equal position when it comes to access to, management of and decision making over the commons. Opposite, an open commons entails different levels of engagement and thus asymmetries when it comes to access, management and decision making. Openness entails also that consensus may not always be reached between participants. In Fabriken, striving towards openness entailed also to have differences in relation to how the space was used and, thus, between participants’ interests. The evolutions in the organizational model of Fabriken point towards the fact that a traditional commons model cannot be applied when openness, asymmetry and different interests are at play, as underlined also by Ostrom (2011). Particularly, the way Fabriken, as well as other sharing-based collaborative services, have been responding to the challenges of openness has been by having a partner4 that ensures that sharing and collaboration is possible beyond consensus and with transient participation. In Fabriken such a role has been taken by the NGO, whose way of managing the sharing and collaboration has been changing over time. They have been increasingly holding control over decision making but, at the same time, they have been opening up Fabriken to different kinds of groups and communities. This raises the importance of considering the role of the partner and the way it operates in managing and driving a sharing-based collaborative service.



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17.4 Infrastructuring as a way of understanding co-designing for and in the sharing and collaboration When discussing the role of designers in supporting the emergence of collaborative services, Jegou and Manzini argue that ‘the designer’s role here is to contribute to the development of the promising cases, by designing ‘enabling solutions’ (2008: 38) which may be understood as ‘a system of products, services, communication and whatever is necessary, to improve the accessibility, effectiveness and replicability of a collaborative service’ (Meroni and Sangiorgi 2011: 19–20). Further Meroni and Sangiorgi (2011) recognize that when collaborative solutions are the main emphasis, co-design as a strategic approach is typical too. They state: ‘with this perspective the role of designers is moving towards the one of facilitator of multidisciplinary processes, forging connections among people and organizations, bringing users to the centre of each project and defining the platforms and tools needed to enable and encourage participation’ (2011: 20). Likewise, for example Selloni (2015) also clearly recognizes and in her research explores the role as ‘process facilitator’; however she points out also how the designer needs to engage also with the implementation phase of the service (Selloni 2015). In a similar way Yu and Sangiorgi (2014) argue that ‘co-design activities predominantly happen in the design phase. […] after designers leave the project, people are left in the ground without appropriate knowledge or capabilities to manage the service’ (Yu and Sangiorgi 2014: 201) and they suggest that ‘To overcome this limitation, more sustained and open design strategies to build users’ learning, ownership and capabilities are needed’ (ibid.: 201). All in all, in line with the various authors mentioned above, we too view the role of facilitators and organizers as a core competence of partners engaged in managing platforms for sharing and collaboration. Yet, as the example of Fabriken also reveals, it appears fundamental to move beyond the idea of ‘the’ (service) designer(s) as the main one(s) responsible for designing for the service (Cipolla and Manzini 2009; Yu and Sangiorgi 2014), and rather recognize how the design agency is distributed among diverse stakeholders and how such agency needs to be discussed. To further articulate this issue, we propose an elaboration of the concept and practice of ‘infrastructuring’ to the field of service design.

17.4.1 Overview of infrastructuring The notion of ‘infrastructuring’ has recently been introduced in the service design field (Selloni 2015); however, it is not yet very diffused in service design research and practice. In the following section we outline our understanding of the concept, and argue for how it can be used to articulate and further develop practices of co-designing for sharing and collaboration.

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‘Infrastructuring’ is a concept developed within the field of participatory design (PD) to capture particular views and ways of engaging when designing complex sustainable systems, communities and publics – much like sharing-based collaborative services (e.g. summarized by Karasti 2014). Karasti (2014) discusses how the notion of ‘information infrastructuring’ has been originally introduced within Science and Technology studies, with the aim of shifting the understanding of infrastructures from a matter of ’technology artifacts’ to rather complex, relational, practical and situated arrangements, which entail socio-technical relations and continual alignments of humans and non-humans. As suggested in the PD literature, infrastructuring can thus be understood as a matter of alignments between human and non-human actors that allow for specific action(s) to happen (Björgvinsson et al. 2010; Seravalli 2014). It is important to underline how infrastructuring is not exclusively controlled by the designer, but rather it is a distributed practice that emerges in the interaction between the different involved actors (Hillgren et al. 2011; Seravalli 2014). Infrastructuring is also ongoing, meaning that it does not stop when ‘the project is done’ but rather it continues also during use-time (Karasti and Syrjänen 2004).

17.4.2 Infrastructuring in Fabriken: A distributed agenda but yet a crucial role for the designer Infrastructuring in Fabriken has been a distributed practice among different stakeholders. A core player has been the NGO but also participants, researchers and even machines, money as well as the physical space have been engaged in an ongoing effort for the alignment of different interests. This has resulted in different ways of sharing and collaborating, which, as discussed above, led to the different organizational models. When it comes to the actual design practice, infrastructuring entails the necessity of being able to deal with practical issues, such as financing and mobilization of resources, but also the ability to navigate conflicts and being able to align different interests. It also exemplifies quite clearly what a long-term commitment might entail, with a time horizon that spans over years. It is important also to remind that infrastructuring is something that is not solely controlled by the designer. In order for the changes to be implemented in Fabriken, negotiations and compromises have always been necessary, together with the ability to understand the different agendas at play and being able to propose possible alignments respecting differences and considering the specificities of each actor. In this perspective infrastructuring is emergent and it entails the formulation of tentative and open proposals that can be continually tested and rediscussed. This, we are aware, questions the traditional idea of the ‘smart’ designer coming in and out of projects and quite quickly developing and presenting proposals for solutions, since infrastructuring requires both to develop a deep understanding of



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the specific local conditions (i.e. what kind of commons might be possible), as well as competences of engaging others in mutual learning co-creation/co-designing processes (e.g. Eriksen 2012) including recognizing and being able to deal with other actors’ agendas. The notions of ‘facilitator’ (Jegou and Mazini 2008) and ‘advocate’ (Selloni 2015) have been used to describe designers supporting the emergence of sharing-based collaborative services; however, we argue that these notions do not sufficiently problematize the designer’s agenda and actions in infrastructuring. The different organizational models which have been at play in Fabriken increased the possibility to integrate actors with diverse interests, but, at the same time, they have progressively reduced the possibility for participants to decide over sharing and collaboration. Thus, even though the NGO had to negotiate and compromise with the different actors, its agency still has a crucial role in determining what kind of collaboration and sharing is at play in the space. Thus, even though the agenda is distributed it is still important to reflect on the (service) designer’s own agenda in infrastructuring. What kind of commons designers do infrastructure towards, is a question that needs to be carefully considered, because it determines the nature of sharing-based collaborative services and, thus, their potential as social innovations. The need for further articulating the designer’s agenda and, at the same time, the recognition that the designer does not have full control over infrastructuring represents a tension that requires further research to be articulated and navigated.

17.5 Conclusions Sharing-based collaborative services are spreading and there is a need for the field of service design to both further articulate their nature as well as discuss how it might be possible to co-design in and for sharing and collaboration. This chapter has proposed commons as a framework and the notion of infrastructuring to, respectively, articulate the nature of sharing-based collaborative services as well as what it entails to co-design for and in them. It has been discussing these concepts by relating to a case, Fabriken, a Swedish makerspace, which both exemplifies these concepts as well as sheds light on some issues that still would require further research and discussion. The framework of commons allows to discuss how sharing and collaboration are organized and who has control/is deciding over them. It also opens up the need to further explore the viability of open commons, which are asymmetric and not based on consensus. Which kind of organizational models can be at play for their long-term sustainability? How to discuss and problematize the role of a possible partner mediating sharing and collaboration? With the notion of infrastructuring, the chapter looks at co-design in and for sharing and collaboration as a matter of aligning human and non-human actors. Such alignment depends on the specific interests of the involved actors and thus requires

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the ability of the designer to negotiate and compromise. Infrastructuring is not solely controlled by the designer but at the same time her agenda plays a central in role in determining the nature of sharing-based collaborative services. Thus, questions that require further exploration are: how to recognize and articulate designer’s and other actors’ agendas? How those agendas influence and come into play in infrastructuring? All in all, in relation to developing service design research, and with the concepts of commons and infrastructuring partly discussed through the example of Fabriken, we have found and suggested that there is a need to further carefully articulate and critically reflect upon the agenda of the (service) designer and of other stakeholders involved in the creation and running of sharing-based collaborative services, since that plays a crucial role in determining if and to what extent they represent or not social innovations.

Acknowledgements The findings presented in this chapter have been developed in close collaboration with people and initiatives involved at STPLN during 2010–14 as part of the Malmö Living Lab Fabriken (MEDEA – Collaborative Media Initiative, Malmö University). This chapter has been written within the frame of the JPI Urban Europe project URB@EXP (2014–17) which is exploring urban labs, such as STPLN, as new forms of governance.

Notes 1

Airbnb, for example, has been strongly criticized since it provides opportunity to people to rent property without having to pay taxes. Some cities have been forced to regulate and limit the use of the platform, since property owners started to rent apartments to tourists rather than to local citizens http://www.spiegel.de/ international/business/berlin-to-penalize-short-term-rental-companies-like-airbnb-infall-a-916416.html (accessed 29 October 2016).

2

Beside makerspaces, these facilities may also be referred to as fablabs and hackerspaces. These three denominations entail slightly different focuses and aims for the workshops (as well as organizational forms). Here the notion of makerspace is used as an overarching concept as suggested by Smith et al. (2013).

3

One of the authors has been involved as a co-design researcher within the space since 2010, following and participating in its implementation and running. She assumed various roles and engaged with diverse activities, from organizing the first co-design workshops to being actively involved in the setting up of the makerspace, and from working together with the upcycling workshop to organizing events and other activities. Due to changes in her research financing, since 2013, she has taken a more marginal role mainly following how the space and the hosted initiatives evolved in time.

4

Within commons studies, the notion of partner state has been developed as a way to discuss possible roles of public institutions in supporting citizens in creating and running commons for social value production (Orsi 2009).



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References Arvidsson, A. (2013), ‘The Potential of Consumer Publics’, Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization 13 (2): 367–91. Bauwens, M., Mendoza, N. and Iacomella, F. (2012), ‘Synthetic Overview of the Collaborative Economy’. Available online http://p2pfoundation.net/Synthetic_Overview_ of_the_Collaborative_Economy (accessed 29 April 2016). Benkler, Y. (2006), The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, New Haven: Yale University Press. Björgvinsson, E., Ehn, P. and Hillgren, P-A. (2010), ‘Participatory Design and Democratizing Innovation’ ACM Proceedings of the 11th Biennial Participatory Design Conference 1: 41–50. Cipolla, C. and Manzini, E. (2009), ‘Relational Services’, Knowledge, Technology & Policy 22 (1): 45–50. Eriksen, M. Agger (2012), Material Matters in Co-designing – Formatting & Staging with Participating Materials in Co-design Projects, Events & Situations, PhD dissertation. Malmö: Malmö University Press. Gauntlett, D. (2010), Making is Connecting. Cambridge: Polity. Gershenfeld, N. A. (2005), Fab: The Coming Revolution on your Desktop—From Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication. New York: Basic Books. Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2009), Commonwealth. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Hess, C. (2008), ‘Mapping the New Commons.’ Paper presented at The Twelfth Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons, Cheltenham, UK, 14–18 July. Hess, C. and Ostrom, E. (eds) (2007), Understanding Knowledge as a Commons. Cambridge, Ma: MIT Press. Hillgren, P-A., Seravalli, A. and Emilson, A. (2011), ‘Prototyping and Infrastructuring in Design for Social Innovation’, CoDesign 7 (3–4): 169–83. Lessig, L. (2002), The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World. New York: Random House Digital, Inc. Light, A. and Miskelly, C. (2014), Design for Sharing. Working paper. Available online: http://www.fccrnet.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/design-for-sharing-webversion.pdf (accessed 29 April 2016). Jegou, F. and Manzini, E. (2008), Collaborative Services: Social Innovation and Design for Sustainability. Milano: Poli.design Edizioni. Karasti, H. (2014), ‘Infrastructuring in Participatory Design’, ACM Proceedings of the 13th Participatory Design Conference: Research Papers, 1: 141–50. Karasti, H. and Syrjänen, A. L. (2004), ‘Artful Infrastructuring in Two Cases of Community PD’ ACM Proceedings of the eighth conference on Participatory Design: Artful Integration: Interweaving Media, Materials and Practices, 1: 20–30. Malhotra, A. and Van Alstyne, M. (2014), ‘The dark side of the sharing economy … and how to lighten it’, Communications of the ACM, 57 (11): 24–7. Manzini, E. and Staszowski, E. (2013), Public and Collaborative: Exploring the Intersection of Design, Social Innovation and Public Policy, DESIS Network. Meroni, A. and Sangiorgi, D. (2011), Design for Services Aldershot: Gower. Orsi, C. (2009), ‘Knowledge-based Society, Peer Production and the Common Good’, Capital & Class 33 (1): 31–51. Ostrom, E. (1990), Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. New York: Cambridge University Press. Ostrom, E. (1999), ‘Design Principles and Threats to Sustainable Organizations

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that Manage Commons’. Available online: http://www.fidamerica.cl/actividades/ conferencias/oec/ostroing.html (accessed 29 April 2016). Ostrom, E. (2011), ‘Background on the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework’, Policy Studies Journal 39 (1): 7–27. Ostrom, E., Dietz, T., Dolšak, N., Stern, P.C., Stonich, S. and Weber, E. (eds) (2002), The Drama of the Commons, Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change Washington, DC: National Research Council, National Academy Press. Rose, C. (1986), ‘The Comedy of the Commons: Custom, Commerce, and Inherently Public Property’, The University of Chicago Law Review 53 (3): 711–81. Selloni, D. (2015), ‘Design for Public-interest Services’, PHD dissertation. Milan: Politecnico of Milan. Seravalli, A. (2014), Making Commons (Attempts at Composing Prospects in the Opening of Production), PhD dissertation. Malmö: Malmö University Press. Smith, A., Hielscher, S. D., Soderberg, J., and Oost, E. van (2013), Grassroots Digital Fabrication and Makerspaces: Reconfiguring, Relocating and Recalibrating Innovation?, SPRU Working Paper Series, University of Sussex. Available online: http://sro.sussex. ac.uk/49317/ (accessed 29 April 2016). Thrift, N. (2006), ‘Re-inventing Invention: New Tendencies in Capitalist Commodification’, Economy and Society 35 (02): 279–306. Yu, E. and Sangiorgi, D. (2014), ‘Service Design as an Approach to New Service Development: Reflections and Futures Studies.’ Paper presented at ServDes. 2014, Fourth Service Design and Innovation Conference ‘Service Futures’, Lancaster UK, 9–11 April 2014.

18 Conclusions Daniela Sangiorgi and Alison Prendiville

T

his publication started from an elaboration of the emerging themes of a research network, aiming to map service design research in the UK. We developed this original set of topics with further selected work to help draw a renewed picture of a developing field. We are aware that this landscape is incomplete and we omitted work going on in other areas such as East Asia or America, and that the borders of what can be considered part of service design are not very neat and open to interpretation. The original intent to map ‘key issues and new directions’ of this field, we think has gone a bit further; as the book developed, we felt the necessity to actually use these inputs to try and redefine how we conceive service design. We consider the need for a redefinition, the result of disciplinary discourses and understanding of design and service, that goes beyond the practice of service design and that works as a higher level framework; it is though, also a result of how services manifest and are co-created in contemporary society, touching on very different levels and contexts, leading designing to other spaces and kinds of concerns. In the introduction we suggested four threads as drivers for the evolution of service design: an evolution of the concepts and understanding of both what ‘design’ and ‘service’ are; the call for measuring and evaluating design impact and contribution to service development and implementation; the increasing interest in and application of design skills and approaches by non-designers; and the development of boundary areas that affect the practice of designing for service. These threads are manifest in the conversations each chapter is shaping, and they weave together intertwining perspectives to form a different take on service design that we labelled as ‘designing for service’. In a previous publication by Meroni and Sangiorgi (2011), the developing service design field was mapped starting from examples of design and research projects, identifying four main areas of intervention, suggesting a growing level of complexity in the object of service design work, moving from design for service interactions, to service organizations, service models and service futures. In the publication, the authors elaborated on the term ‘design for services’, referring to services as complex

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and relational entities, which are impossible to predetermine. This already indicated an evolution in the understanding of this practice that started to acknowledge the limitations and different contributions designers could bring or could not bring to service innovation. In the conclusions the book highlighted how the increased potential of interactivity and creativity in contemporary society was bringing to the fore the concept of co-creation, suggesting a shift in considering services as a means to develop a more collaborative and creative society, referring to their potential transformational role and the changing contribution of designers. We think this publication is proposing a step further. The use of the title Designing for Service describes a subtle, but substantial change in conceiving and approaching service design that has some implications. At the core of this change there is the evident call and need for more context awareness and sensitivity, which is represented by the choice of the term ‘designing’ instead of ‘design’. Being ‘designing’, an ongoing activity to which designers can engage with and affect during their interventions, the focus necessarily shifts to the context of where these changes can and are happening, which is no longer exclusively just the user’s space, but also the organizations and their value networks. Also the act of designing is a continuous one, which recalls the existence of pre and post developments designers and design teams need to acknowledge and refer to, not only when negotiating project briefs or developing specific outputs or deliverables. This context sensitivity also suggests a shift from ‘designers’ to ‘designing’ which decentralizes the attention from what designers can do, as individual practitioners, and brings to the fore the collective of people engaged on a daily basis with changing and adapting their performances and exchanges. We find ‘context sensitivity’ to be aligned with the proposals and concepts presented across the book: e.g. with the concept of ‘design legacies’ as well as the one of ‘pre-text’, Sabine Junginger and Stuart Bailey point towards the importance to recognize and engage with pre-existing innovation practices; Jeanette Blomberg and Lucy Kimbell talk about the need to acknowledge different temporalities as part of designing, questioning how ‘we can design for change and for the time when the designer is no longer an active participant in either enacting the service or being accountable for its outcomes’; Daniela Sangiorgi, Alison Prendiville and Jeyon Jung suggest the need to expand service design spaces, considering what happens before, during and after designers’ contribution and to consider the vast array of contextual factors (innovation determinants) that affect innovation development; Stefan Holmlid, Katarina Wetter-Edman and Bo Edvardsson describe designers’ action as the one of helping reconfiguring and integrating resources within and across organizations, abandoning a linear understanding of service development for a more contextual and situated one; in this case ‘design should not be viewed as an activity or a practice only in the development projects, but also as an activity in change and reconfiguration processes leading to service implementation, as well as an on-going activity in service’. Carla Cipolla and Javier Reynoso underline the importance of understanding the cultural dimension, when working with low-income communities, to build on their strength and resources; Anna Serravalli and Mette Agge Eriksen see

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designers contributing to an ongoing process of alignment of different agendas within an organization and use the term ‘infrastructuring’ to describe this. The authors note that for ‘infrastructuring’ to occur it ‘requires both to develop a deep understanding of the specific local conditions (i.e. what kind of commons might be possible), as well as competences of engaging others in mutual learning co-creation/co-designing processes’. Developing a context-aware approach to designing for service is also associated with an appreciation of and sensitivity to more hidden and indirect implications of designing. This is described, for example, in terms of ethics and power dynamics when discussing participation (Chapter 8) as a representational practice that risks becoming tokenistic or manipulative if not accompanied by a certain degree of reflexivity and flexibility; it also refers to Chapter 6 in terms of designers’ broader accountabilities that ‘might include invisible workers, reliance on particular kinds of infrastructuring that enables particular ways of doing things’ instead of others. In the reflection on the second economy (Chapter 15), this is also discussed when highlighting the difficulty of understanding the implications of relying too blindly on hidden digital algorithms, that designers ‘have little involvement in designing and no ability to scrutinize, critique, or change’. Similarly, when exploring implications of designing with big data sets, Chapter 16 sees the importance of problematizing the ‘underlying digital constructs […] making sure that issues of privacy, value and trust are explicitly considered and designed for throughout the process’. On the other side the choice of the singular term ‘service’ is in line with descriptions of service as a business logic, as a way to conceive and design for value co-creation, that goes beyond distinctions between products and services, as market offerings. The term ‘service’ is suggesting a focus and interest in aligning and reconfiguring businesses and their resources, to better support value co-creation, which is an ongoing process. This process of aligning and reconfiguring is increasingly conceived as a transformational one, as the focus is more on the process and learning during designing to allow a sustainable change, than on developing specific outputs. Also, as Chapter 2 observes, this transformational focus implies different kinds of relationships between designers and their client organizations that are necessarily more collaborative and emergent. If we compare this with Organizational Development theories, this focus on an ongoing process of changing, where designers or ‘change agents’ are only one of the different actors engaging in the transformational process, we could refer to the idea of different redesign cycles in an organization (Van Aken 2007). Van Aken (2007) describes a process of ‘planned change’ as characterized by different redesign stages, where a first redesign, mainly driven by change agents, is necessarily followed by a second redesign that ‘can be seen as the collection of the redesigns the direct stakeholders make for their own roles, strategies, and processes’ (p. 76); this process of self-designing is then followed by a third stage called ‘learning to perform’ where the various actors adjust and learn how to operate in the new setting, which might be a long process of bigger and gradually smaller adjustments. It is here where the aimed-for change starts to manifest, in a form which will be different from the

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original planned one; and it is here that designing for service continues and requires some consideration. We agree with Van Aken (2007) that the awareness of this ongoing process moves the attention away from the ‘representations’ of the aimed-for change, to the learning process that underlines the transformation process; and from the single designer to the ‘fellow designers’, actively participating and enacting the change. This redefinition of the perspective on service design acknowledges and integrates previous work already pointing toward this reconsideration of terms and meanings. Lucy Kimbell (2011) introduces the term ‘designing for service’, describing it as ‘an exploratory process that aims to create new kinds of value relation between diverse actors within a socio-material configuration’ (p. 41). In her descriptions, designers adopt a constructivist approach to designing for service, where ‘the distinction between goods and services is not important’ (p. 49). Blomberg and Darrah (2015a, 2015b) remind us of how we are immersed in service worlds and how services are entangled in social life, which limit intentions to delimit and define them as design objects. Similarly, design is described as embedded in a social milieu, which affects the way designers can intervene in service worlds, and calls for openness and modesty in this profession (ibid.). Finally, the idea of a continuum activity of designing as beginning before and continuing during and after the ‘design project’ is informed by later descriptions of participatory design work with terms such as ‘design after design’ or ‘design in use’ (Ehn 2008). With this publication we build also on these perspectives, and we start reflecting on what are the practical implications for the field. One implication is for how research is conducted on and about service design: we acknowledge an interesting shift in perspective from research interested mainly in design tools and methods and designers’ practice and ability to conceive new and better service offerings and experiences, to forms of research that considers and investigates ‘designing’ as a practice for innovation, not only conducted by designers, in service as a mode of approaching innovation that can be supported and developed, and in designing for service as a multidisciplinary and multi-actor effort. Contextualizing research on service design, recognizing the significant differences across different sectors, organizations, design studios or projects, the influence of the wider system and other actors, as well as the daily and minute dynamics and interactions designing implies, can bring research to a different level of depth as well as allowing different kinds of dialogues with other disciplinary studies. In other terms ‘designing for service’ does suggest the work of designers as a conscious participation and collaboration within ongoing efforts for change and transformation or an approach to innovation that can be integrated, developed and embedded within existing communities of practice, whose aim is to co-create solutions that are better able to support people in their life and society as a whole. The question here is how designers can develop further their emphatic approaches to interpret and relate to these complex innovation settings, and work toward more sustainable transformations.

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We are aware that adding further terminologies does not necessarily help communication of what service design is and can do. The title of ‘designing for service’ is instrumental though for a renewed conversation; we are pointing toward a change in the perspective on this practice, the need for a different lens that does represent, in our opinion, a growing of maturity on how the disciplinary area is reflecting and can reflect on its own development and role.

References Blomberg, J. and Darrah, C. (2015a), An Anthropology of Services. Toward a practice approach to Designing Services. San Rafael: Morgan & Claypool Publishers. Blomberg, J. and Darrah, C. (2015b), ‘Towards an Anthropology of Services,’ The Design Journal: An International Journal for All Aspects of Design 18 (2): 171–92. Ehn, P. (2008), ‘Participation in Design Things,’ Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary Conference on Participatory Design, 92–101. Bloomington, USA. Kimbell, L. (2011), ‘Designing for Service as One Way of Designing Services,’ International Journal of Design 5 (2): 41–52. Meroni, A. and Sangiorgi, D. (2011), Design for Services. Aldershot: Gower. Van Aken, J. E. (2007), ‘Design Science and Organization Development Interventions: Aligning Business and Humanistic Values’, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 43 (1): 67–88.

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Index anthropology 22, 82, 107, 151 Base of the Pyramid (BoP) 148–9, 155–60 indigenous services 147–9, 151, 159 low-income communities 147–60 big data 51, 225–35 open Data 227, 230 quantified Self 227 co-creation 99–101, 234 value co-creating system 84–5, 90–1 value co-creation 52, 55, 85–6, 234, 253 co-design 57, 105–8, 117 designer as facilitator 57, 245–7 experience based co-design 12–7 collaborative services 142, 178, 238–9 commons 142, 237–9, 241–7 sharing-based 238–47 design after design 254 design in use 59, 90, 254 design legacies 25, 45, 252 design thinking 33–4, 36, 65, 133, 164, 188, 190, 193 designing 5, 30, 33–40, 45, 88–92, 101–2, 117–18, 125–6, 245, 252–4 designing for service 251–5 digitally enabled services 213–21 digital workforce 214–20 dominant logic goods dominant logic 14, 19 service dominant logic 4, 5, 36, 98, 102 service logic 4, 5, 79, 80, 95–6, 98, 103 healthcare services 118, 120, 127 healthcare quality improvement 121 human-centred design 2, 184–5

infrastructuring 59, 80, 87–9, 118, 120, 125–7, 140, 142, 237–40, 244–8, 253 New Service Development (NSD) 5–8, 19, 20–30, 95–103 non-designers 7–8, 37–8, 44, 117–18, 122, 125, 128 organizational creativity 118, 125–6 design con-text 33–5, 39, 42, 45 design narratives 33–45 design pre-text 34–5, 39, 42, 45, 252 participation 56–8, 60–1, 87–8, 106–14, 138, 254 Participatory Action Research (PAR) 80, 117–18, 121, 127 participatory design 2, 5, 9, 57, 82, 86–7, 106, 110, 117, 121, 140, 220, 246, 254 transient participation 244 power 54, 56–7, 80, 103, 107–9, 111–13, 137, 194, 253 empowerment 50, 57, 103, 109, 118, 120–1, 164–5, 227, 230, 233–4 power structures 7, 57, 109 product-service-system (PSS) 140, 167, 201–10 product serviceability 209 randomized controlled trial (RCT) 119–20, 123–6 reflexivity 106, 109, 253 representation 106–14, 232 representativeness 105–7, 111, 113 visual representation 26, 28, 56, 69 resource integration 55–6, 98–103 configurations of resource integration 95, 98–100, 102–3

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constellations of resource integration 99, 101 second economy 213–21 sense making 147, 149–50, 158–9, 164, 168, 225, 228–34 service 4–5, 36, 52, 88, 95, 97–9, 102–3, 205–6, 234, 251–5 services 2, 4–5, 22, 90, 136, 168–9, 195, 206–7, 252 service design agencies 3, 6, 19, 75–6, 201 service design consulting 65–77 service design in policy making 183–95 policy making 183–96, 229 service innovation 19–24, 30, 102–3, 202, 215, 220, 225, 231, 234, 252 service interactions 2, 225, 251 service encounter 5, 53–5, 79, 82, 84–5, 87–91, 151, 168, 172 service interfaces 2, 21, 168

touch points 3, 21, 53–5, 84–5, 87, 120, 171, 233 service systems 4, 49–55, 57, 58, 60, 61 complex service systems 49–51, 60 service ecosystems 50, 51, 53–5, 58, 60–1, 85, 216 service platform 54, 56, 58, 61, 178 value networks 49, 51, 53, 57, 60, 252 social innovation 9, 121, 134, 135, 139, 142, 147–9, 151, 159, 163–78, 238–9, 247–8 social enterprises 135, 168 social innovation journey 163–78 sociocultural lens 7, 88–9 sociocultural qualities 153–4, 157 socio-material configuration 5, 79, 82, 84, 86–91, 200, 254 system theory 49, 58 Voluntary Community Sector (VCS) 131, 133–45