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Dear all, I would like to add a few notes to the discussion. They concern research in, and about, design of services, despite the fact that there exists a service design practice. This practice is of course an interesting topic in itself. A colleague professor defined his research, when introducing himself, as the humanistic and social science research of aging and the elderly. I find this way of reasoning to be a humble way of expressing the different ways, reasons and outlets we may have for research. We all can say similar things about our own research, and describe others research in similar manners. It opens up for pluralism without degrading the importance of specificity. Regarding the specific questions David is posing, they will take on different meanings depending on the assumptions a specific area inscribes in them 1. What evidence is being offered to business by Service Designers on the potential for Service Design to offer a return on investment (ROI) One assumption here is that there is need, from business or from service design, for Service Design to offer ROI. Or that there is an (or a set of) agreed upon definition of ROI that stands separate from the theories and practice of Service Design. Equally valid research questions could be - how should ROI-calculus be developed to capture the value added by service design? - how does service design reproduce or reinforce ROI as an important business practice/theory? 3. Are there limits to the complexity of a Service beyond which a designer cannot exercise control This is similar to asking if there is a complexity to an economic system that politics or politicians cannot control. The answer is evident. If we instead introduce assumptions and rephrase the question, we might have something to do actual research on. Assume that services can satisficably be described as the interactions between humans, between humans and machines and between machines and machines. A great deal of these interactions are not complex above computability, meaning that the limits of complexity that might be beyond control could be those involving human to human interaction. In a service these interactions might be complex in the sense that they involve several different actors, with different objectives, agendas, common ground, that are participating in a co-production of value, and a sense-making process, as well as having timing issues between these interactions. A reasonable research question could be: what factors and issues of complexity of human to human communication in services cannot be handled by service design through the capacities of interpreting these communications as either situated actions (Lucy Suchman), or as interactive processes of emergence in discourse (Herbert Clark). Other suggested assumptions could be: - assuming that design is equal to problem solving. This would make it possible to work with research questions, e.g. based on Joachim Funke's characteristics of difficult problems, as applied in the specific domain of services. - assuming that control means that there are human behavior that influences the actions of other human beings within a complex system of situated actions. This would make it possible to do research based on e.g. cognitive systems engineering approaches (e.g Erik Hollnagel). Best regards /Stefan Holmlid | Stefan Holmlid, http://www.ida.liu.se/divisions/hcs/ixs/ | ass professor Interaction and Service Design | Linköpings universitet, +46 13 28 5633