Here is a quote* that I read 2 days ago and have been thinking continuously about ever since:
What’s interesting for the future of service design is the notion of serving, which is dif- ferent from helping or fixing, in designing a holistic service. Rather than developing a static blueprint, the design community can explore how to express the ways in which people experience services emotionally and socially, and how services might adapt as people use them over time.
How does framing design as “service” rather than as “fixing” or “helping” change the way we think about design?
* The quote is from Forlizzi, J. (2010). All look same? A comparison of experience design and service design. interactions. New York: ACM, 60-62.
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February 2, 2012 at 5:22 pm
cmbuggs
This idea of service design (thought I have used different words) touches on something that I have been mulling over—especially with my background in Nonprofit Management. The beautiful thing about volunteering is that there is a twofold payoff for the volunteer. There is an internal self actualization/gratification that comes from serving as well as an external result for that given service. I do not doubt that with service design there will be also a twofold payoff (which I will elaborate on below). This being my belief, I do see this concept of future design as a branch that is contrary to what Mark Weiser’s postulated: that design will fall into the background (or did he say technology)—notwithstanding, I do not see all designs as simply falling into the background being “transparent”.
Looking at the different paradigms shifts of HCI, we have moved from “fixing” to “helping” interchangeably and many have shown that we are now moving more into “experiencing”—which I find similar parallels to service design. The two fold payoff of this fluid style of design will be either (1) fostering a response within whom it is engaged, or (2) providing a responsive engagement toward a goal. As I project, contrary to Weiser, I don’t see these internal and external result as being transparent alone—and I see design particularly this service design as a tool that serves our creativity. With design becoming a foster of creativity I foresee this branch of design as staying very apparent. I am becoming more and more convinced that experience isn’t made to be transparent but responsive (e.g. the dynamic search bar).