Hi David,
I don't know whether I can answer to your questions, because I don't understand whether those questions are referred to the whole area of service design or to the way service design and designers are suppose to operate.
ON the first question I think the evidences for a ROI are the same product designers can provide, case by case, about the ROI of their activity. There are cases in which the degree of innovation the service is supposed to provide makes an exact calculation quite hard, but this happens also for some products and implies that the business company investing in those products/services assumes a certain risk. Perhaps Sabine has a better answer to this question.
On the second question I would say that the boundary of what is designed when designing a service should be decided case by case and depend on many factors, such as existing infrastructures, organizational conditions, and so on. In a general debate on service design I would say that there are so many things to be designed that the boundaries of service design are too far to be seen. However this does not mean that a designer should design everything in a service.
On the third question: there are certainly limits to the complexity designers can control. The best way to manage this question of complexity is probably to turn it upside down and see what elements of the services can be definitely improved by an appropriate design intervention and work around those elements. IN many cases, for instance, the starting point is the user experience in the service encounter and the designer can work on all the elements that can improve such experience. I think this approach is more manageable for designers, but, as I mentioned in my previous post, it may limit the perspective to the front office of the service, whereas several aspects in the back office should be considered (but not necessarily controlled by the designer).
A last consideration on complexity: I think designers are aware that their contribution is part of a cooperative action, in which other actors, such as organizations, business and users, have control of other aspects of the process. I don't think service design is new way to re-propose the idea of the designer-hero which can change the world. Service design can catalyse organizational change, social innovation or business change, but what happens in the real development process of a service (expecially when we think of value co-production) is out of the designer's control.
I'm sure this does not answer to your question exhaustively, but I hope it adds a brick...
Ciao
nicola
Nicola Morelli, PhD
Associate Professor, School of Architecture and Design
Aalborg University
Ph: +4599409928 Mobile +4531124669
blog: nicomorelli.wordpress.com
wiki: servicedesign.wikispaces.com
skype: nicomorelli
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Sless
Sent: 8. april 2009 07:27
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Service Design
---snip---
I'd like to continue with the three research questions I raised earlier:
1. What evidence is being offered to business by Service Designers on
the potential for Service Design to offer a return on investment (ROI)
2. How do Service Designers go about delimiting or changing the
boundary of the Service they design
3. Are there limits to the complexity of a Service beyond which a
designer cannot exercise control.
Any takers?
David
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web: http://www.communication.org.au
Professor David Sless BA MSc FRSA
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On 08/04/2009, at 10:51 AM, Terence Love wrote:
> Hi Nicola,
>
> You are right about history of service design the UK. Design of
> service
> delivery was taught to youth workers in the 1970s - an explicit
> issue was
> how to design youth service to specific circumstances and specific
> groups of
> young people. In 1960s, restaurant services were already being
> designed in a
> socio-tech manner that integrated the service behaviours of staff to
> customers with a technical support of that service. I remember the
> 300 or so
> seat BHS restaurant in Manchester with its formalized processes
> particularly
> for managing clearing tables (used hidden conveyors behind false walls
> delivering dirty pots to a team of people managing a large dishwasher.
> Earlier still, by 1951 Lyons Tea Houses had a designed an ordering
> service
> that combined a phone-based call centre with perhaps the earliest
> used of a
> computer in services design. That use of a computer in service
> design led
> quickly to a new business venture - LEO computers. Discussion about
> service
> design was commonplace in the 1960s and 1970s following Illich's
> critical
> reviews of several service professions (Medicine, Health, Religion and
> Design - remember 'Tools for Conviviality'?). Much earlier were the
> Victorian guides for etiquette, butlering, diplomacy and nursing,
> and many
> aspects of the Catholic Church's education for religious
> professionals. All
> of these can be seen to be in the service design tradition.
> Cheers,
> Terry
> ____________________
>
> Dr. Terence Love, FRDS, AMIMechE, PMACM
>
> Director Design-focused Research Group, Design Out Crime Research
> Group
> Researcher, Digital Ecosystems and Business Intelligence Institute
> Associate, Planning and Transport Research Centre
> Curtin University, PO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845
> Mob: 0434 975 848, Fax +61(0)8 9305 7629, [log in to unmask]
> Visiting Professor, Member of Scientific Council
> UNIDCOM/ IADE, Lisbon, Portugal
> Honorary Fellow, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise
> Development
> Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
> ____________________
>
> ____________________
>
> Dr. Terence Love, FRDS, AMIMechE, PMACM
>
> Director Design-focused Research Group, Design Out Crime Research
> Group
> Researcher, Digital Ecosystems and Business Intelligence Institute
> Associate, Planning and Transport Research Centre Curtin
> University, PO Box
> U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845
> Mob: 0434 975 848, Fax +61(0)8 9305 7629, [log in to unmask]
> Visiting
> Professor, Member of Scientific Council UNIDCOM/ IADE, Lisbon,
> Portugal
> Honorary Fellow, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise
> Development
> Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
> ____________________
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and
> related
> research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> Nicola
> Morelli
> Sent: Wednesday, 8 April 2009 3:27 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Service Design
>
> HI Sabine, Ken and all the others participating to this interesting
> discussion.
> I agree with Ken that Service Design is not new, and there is a wide
> range
> of studies on this topic, especially in marketing and management;
> one of the
> most relevant reference designers are still using is by Lynn
> Shostack,(1982)
> a marketing paper on service blueprinting. Also the contribution of
> Norman
> and Ramirez and others have been the basis for the discussion on
> service
> design in the design discipline. I've never had a chance to discuss
> this
> with Sabine, but I had several discussions on this literature with
> Daniela,
> who is working with Sabine on this topic. What is new, however is the
> contribution of the design discipline.
> Here, I agree with Sabine, the literature is still quite poor. I've
> worked a
> bit in this area, mainly in the definition of some methodologies
> that cover
> specific aspects of service design, such as time, experience and
> interaction. However I can still see big gaps in the literature and
> large
> areas that are not properly covered.
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