Terry wrote:
> It seems funny to try to problematise service design.
I'm inclined to agree with both Terry and Nicola.
I also find some of the statements made about this type of design not
unlike what I have called elsewhere a DESIGN LED BUBBLE.
The use of what might be called 'dangling qualifiers' abound
> Service design attempts to offer greater efficiency, profits and
> ease of customer use to such industries through design techniques,
> and recognizes that their users - be they commuters, shoppers or
> hospital patients are now looking for a 'totality' of service of
> very high quality.
I find myself asking 'greater efficiency' than what?. How much more
'profit'? How much 'easier' for customers?
I also find myself crying out for the evidence that shows people are
'now looking for a 'totality' of service of very high quality'.
Claims ahead of evidence are just that! Nothing more.
A practical issues comes to mind. The question of what is designed—
whether it's a document, web site, service, organisation, entire
society, or ecosystem—is a matter of defining the 'problem'
boundaries. I've written about this a bit in my own field of design.
And there is little doubt that a shift in 'problem' boundary always
gives rise to new political, economic, and ethical issues that were
not in the original scope of the design 'problem'. Nonetheless, the
confidence—possibly hubris—of design advocates has led them to go
about enlarging design's 'problem' boundaries. It's like an
intellectual form of imperialism, taking over new territories under
the delusion of what Terry Love rightly describes as 'terra nullius'.
But, improper appropriation of other people's territory aside, there
is an interesting technical question of scale and complexity. Are
there any limits to the scale and complexity of a system that a design
team can take on and 'redesign' or design from scratch? I suspect
there are.
Having said that, I do believe there is much that designers have to
offer to the design of services. Current design methods used in
developing administrative systems are quite limited. A friend and
colleague of mine, Phil Fisher, put the issue rather well. At the time
he was working in a large administrative organisation that many people
have tried and failed to redesign. He described the organisation's
design methods as follows: first you design the data model; next you
design the computer system that will support the data model; next you
design the interfaces where data is input and output from the system;
next you design the forms that people use to provide the data for the
system; and if you are really lucky, you get the chance to design the
people who will fill out the forms. Sound familiar?
The point is that there is no absence of DESIGN in these
organisations, its in every aspect of what they do, its just that each
part of the design defines its 'problem' boundaries in such a way as
to exclude consideration of the effects of that design on the larger
system in which the design has to work. When I started work in this
type of large scale administrative environment, we worked to broaden
the view of the system in which the design was taking places, in other
words, redraw a boundary round the problem space. This was bold and
radical stuff in its day. But on reflection I really wonder how much
of the system that we tried to redesign was really within our power to
redesign. I suspect we grossly overestimated what could be done.
So I return to my question about the limits of design. Are there
limits to what we can do as designers whether we are designing
information systems or services?
David
--
blog: www.communication.org.au/dsblog
web: http://www.communication.org.au
Professor David Sless BA MSc FRSA
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