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SERVICE DESIGN BREAKFASTThe Service Design Breakfast is a series of open talks by leading service design experts hosted by Startup Sauna and the Aalto University.

THE DIARY

This diary is a summary of the seven service design talks that took place in Design Factory and Startup Sauna during the fall quarter.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SD: why should I care? - 2The spirit of SD - 3No guesswork needed - 4Work begins after the launch - 5There is no such a thing as service design - 6Service acceptance boosted by e-learning - 7How to fail in SD - 8

Eva Rio - 279462

Pictures from slides and

SDBreakfast Facebook page

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SERVICE DESIGNWHY SHOULD I CARE?

Risto Sarvas (Futurice / Aalto University)

19.09.2012 - #SDBREAKFAST 1In the first Service Design Breakfast, Risto Sarvas from Futurice and Aalto University gave three main reasons for the need of service design and explained the challenges in designing for the whole society

There are many factors shaping the end result of a physical or digital artifact (e.g. corporate culture, advances in technology...), but design should also take into account the social context. The societal aspect (not as understood by Facebook, but as in a sense of community) is becoming and more relevant and influencing the outcome of the design. Time and place dimensions must also be considered in the design and construction phase of a service.

The world has changed incredibly during the last decades. This has led to the industry to rethink how products and services should be designed. There are three main reasons that make service design a needed science:

1) Software is easier and cheaper to change. Particularly, developer tools and languages have advanced to a great extent. Thus, engineers and designers need to spend less time worrying about technology, and can focus on other areas like user behavior, marketing, communication, logistics, etc. We are moving from waterfall to agile /lean software design.

2) Services are physical. Designing the UI is not enough anymore because people do not only interact with the screen and other factors must be taken into account (walking, talking to others...)

3) A service has multiple channels. For instance, the same newspaper can be access by the same user through many different devices (e.g printed, mobile, tablet, laptop...). For an optimal experience, all the data must be integrated seamlessly across the multiple channels. New ways of accessing the web (cars, fridges...) emerge every day.

In 2000, service design was about engineering usability, not only technology. In 2010, the scope changed to build engaging and long lasting relationships between companies and customers. Now, the future is all about changing society through design.

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3.10.2012 - #SDBREAKFAST 2The second Service Design Breakfast taught us how the feelings and emotions of service designers affect the final outcome of their designs

Service designers create experiences. This experiences create memories and emotions in people, so they come back to the service. To make the experiences complete, designers must take decisions, and for that they need to FEEL something.

There are some process flows and ways of working in service design that are becoming standardized (e.g. needfinding, service touchpoints...). It is in these processes where designers make decisions, and the way they feel in that moment will affect their final outcome. The most common feelings though a service design process are:

1) First crush: designers fall in love with the project2) Excitement: designers fantasize with early stage visualizations and what the final solution might look like3) Frustration: in many occasions designers are not satisfied because they cannot find a perfect solution4) Magic moment: suddenly the designer understands and sees the whole picture, knows what the service is

about and how it should like.5) Boredom: designers have to do mundane tasks after all the exciting phases have been done6) Relief/remorse: after the project is finished, some designers feel relieved (they can jump into new projects) or

remorse (“could I have done better?”)

Service designers are aware of these feelings and they should cope with them to be successful in their projects. For that, Mikko-Pekka gave several tips: respect yourself (take as much time as needed for the design and do not try to finish it in a rush), maintain the blood sugar level (eat well), re-define the project plan (create your own project plan, aside of the company one), and reflect after the project is done (go back and learn from the project and the processes).

THE SPIRIT OFSERVICE DESIGN

Mikko-Pekka Hanski (Idean)

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Karri-Pekka Laakso (Reaktor)

17.10.2012 - #SDBREAKFAST 3In the third Service Design Breakfast, Karri-Pekka Laakso from Reaktor explained how concept design, user interface design, graphic design and implementation must work together to create successful services

According to Karri-Pekka, designers should not be considered as gods who can make miracles with their touch. They like getting things done everyday, so they should be considered as craftsmen that work with tangible things. In the same way that Newton’s method works, designers must look all the time for better approximations to the optimal design, to ensure that tomorrow’s design will be better than today’s one.

In the web, people buy and use things that are easy to understand. In order to succeed with service design projects, designers should follow a bottom-up approach, as opposed to top-down. Building from a bottom-up perspective means starting from the reality, that is, understanding how users will use the service and what their needs are. To tackle this challenge, concept design, user interface design, graphic design and implementation must work together:

Concept design answers the following questions- where does it hurt if you do not have this service?- where is the money?- for whom is it designed?in order to identify the problem. On the other hand,

UI design answers- what do users need?- how to support this need?- how should the service work?in order to solve it.

Graphic design gives the look and feel of the service, answering- how does it look like?- how does it feel? and beatifying and making it appealing so users want to buy and use it.

In the implementation stage, the engine of the service (the code) that makes it work is built.

To create successful services involves going where things happen and where the users are in order to understand and build from the bottom, because some services are really complex and it is challenging to design and construct simple and valuable solutions.

NO GUESSWORKNEEDED

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31.10.2012 - #SDBREAKFAST 4The 4th Service Design Breakfast taught us what happens after the service is launched: how to align service design and business goals, how to measure Key Performance Indicators for the service and analytics for verifying its success and further improvement

WORK BEGINS AFTERTHE LAUNCH

Janne Toivola (Futurice)

Service designers put a lot of effort in the design and implementation phase, but few care about what happens after. Design should be done as analytically as possible. Very often, there is no way to know if a design will work or not, that is why analytics are needed. Although some analytics can already be build into the product, the service should be tested after it is launched in order to get data for analysis. In order to create a service, business model, user needs, features + content, UI+ visual design, and marketing are needed:

Understanding the goals that the designer is trying to accomplish with the product is one of the most relevant points from a business perspective. Goals should be doable, understandable, measurable and beneficial, otherwise there will be nothing to compare and contrast results.

Knowing the user needs allows designers to adequate the content and the delivery channel that suits and supports them. User interface and visual design should guide and help the users in their tasks.

From a marketing point of view, the service should reach the people (though the right channel), engage and activate them (offering value for the user so that he/she will come back), and finally nurture them in the post-service experience (make them recommend the service to their friends).

Validation should be done in all the previous areas. In the business model, making comparison and searching for trends are one of the most effective ways to know if goals have been met. Measuring and validating results concerning user needs consist in answering a simple question: did we reach the users that we intended to reach?For validating the content and features of the service it is necessary to study how people used the service. The effectiveness of UI and visual design can be measured by knowing if people were actually able to use the service from the beginning to the end. For the marketing side of the service, a metric that can be used is to discover where the users came from and compare that to the channels we used for reaching them.

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Anton Schubert (358)

14.11.2012 - #SDBREAKFAST 5In the 5th Service Design Breakfast, Anton Schubert explained how the role of service designer is critical to help companies deliver a a consistent user experience accross the service customer journey

THERE IS NO SUCH ATHING AS SERVICE DESIGN

Organizations isolate themselves into silos. They have different departments (engineering, marketing, finance...) that do not interact nor communicate among them. This is one of the reasons that prevent companies from understanding their customers. Designers (service designers, interaction designers, graphic designers, communication designers...) can fill this gap and enable dialogue between companies and their users. The mission of a designer is to help people and companies like each other.

The customer journey is a tool that helps designers understand the users. It has 6 stages:

- Awareness: how did I hear about the service/product?- Engagement: what makes it great? what value does it have for me?- Purchase: why did I buy/acquire it?- Use: what makes my user experience satisfactory?- Use more: why would I still like to use it 2 years later?- Advocate: why do I tell the product/service is great to my friends?

Companies should join together all the elements of the customer journey and experience to make it work. But companies work in silos, and with different consultants and agencies, so it is impossible to deliver a consistent message and experience to the customer. Designers should be T-shaped people, with a deep core skill and a broad understanding of other fields, including service design. They should develop an empathy for other disciplines by working with them on the wider customer journey in order to deliver consistent experiences and make customers fall in love with companies.

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Jouni Tuominiemi (HiQ)

18.11.2012 - #SDBREAKFAST 6In the 6th Service Design Breakfast we discussed about the integration of service design and e-learning and the acceptance of new services by users and companies.

SERVICE ACCEPTANCEBOOSTED BY E-LEARNING

New technologies have enabled new ways for self-study and the there are many existing tools that can be used for learning (videos, social media, websites...), but the truth is that learning itself happens in the person’s mind. Self-study material with predefined patterns of study used to be the preferred way of learning new things for individual learners, but nowadays, people can chat and discuss with each other, making the learning experience more social.

Learning Management Systems (LMS) can be used by companies and individuals to keep track of their progress. LMS are used to record course enrollments, provide a learning path according to the skills and needs of the learners, and also for later evaluation. With LMS, people and companies can track how fast and well one has learned a certain topic.

Users like to develop themselves and learn new topics that interest them. But they do not want to learn how to use the service that will help them learn new things. If a user needs help in using the e-learning service, then the service has failed. Interactive study material is of great help, but it should not replace the service design. People go through different emotional phases once a service is launched. Usually users are first shocked and then confused. In unsuccessful services, users will experience anger and depression right after denial, but in successful services they will pass through a short phase mild disappointment and then they will face integration and enhanced performance.

One proposed solution for building successful e-learning services is to launch the interactive study material early enough before the service launch and involve people in the early stages of the design, in order to make the first shock moderate and disappointment milder. People should also be motivated not only to start, but also to complete the course. Localization, gaming, competitions, diplomas, learning itself and so on are some of the potential incentives that can be used to motivate individual and companies in e-learning and service adoption.

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Reima Rönnholm (Palmu Inc)

12.12.2012 - #SDBREAKFAST 7In the latest Service Design Breakfast, Reima Rönnholm dove into the importance of testing the design with real customers and learning and understanding the real problem that needs to be solved.

HOW TO FAIL INSERVICE DESIGN

Failing is inevitable, but how to do it right and learn from it? Service design is a complex science, the basic challenge is to design better experiences for customers, which is not always easy. To ease the process, service designers must understand users’ behavior and the context of use. Customers are always part of the service, in fact, services do not exist without customers. Making the intangible concrete, visual and physically available, testing with customers, and involving them in the design help designers find the problem.

Money and effort should not be spend in designing the wrong service and solving the wrong problem. Spending time in analyzing and identifying the problem is worthy: the solution will become straightforward because it is already embedded in the problem. In order to discover the right problem, it is necessary to make mistakes and learn by doing. To succeed and identify the problem to be addressed, designers must starting from the “why”, that is, understanding users’ needs and goals and how our services can help them achieve those goals. Trying is the first step to failure, but also the first step towards learning. Avoiding killing ideas too fast might lead to unexpected findings. In many occasions, organizations are not able to do radical innovations, because they are already experts and have too much knowledge. Here, generalists are ahead of specialists. Designs do not need to be complete, and co-design is the only kind of design there should be in service design. Metrics are needed to measure what are the reasons why services do/do not work and to understand what effects what and how, but also to measure if your service is making a change.

Make change happen is one of the most challenging parts of service design. Designers like getting things done, but it is difficult to get companies to adapt. Service designers enable behavior change and create tools that support that change. Facing failure is hard, but designers must be open to learn from mistakes and find the solutions hidden in failure.