Abstract
This paper presents current trends in service design research concerning large scale projects aimed at generating changes at a local scale. The strategy adopted to achieve this, is to co-design solutions including future users in the development process, prototyping and testing system of products and services before their actual implementation. On the basis of experience achieved in the European Project Life 2.0, this paper discusses which methods and competencies are applied in the development of these projects, eliciting the lessons learnt especially from the piloting phase in which the participatory design (PD) approach plays a major role. In the first part, the topic is introduced jointly with the theoretical background where the user center design and participatory design methods are presented; then the Life 2.0 project development is described; finally the experience is discussed from a service design perspective, eliciting guidelines for piloting and prototyping services in a real context of use. The paper concludes reflecting on the designers’ role and competencies needed in this process.
Highlights
In the last five years designers have progressively shifted from testing single elements of a service with single users to developing service prototypes aimed at evaluating an entire customer journey and its possible implementation in a specific context of use (e.g. Dott07, Dott Cornwall, Living Labs atMedea Lab, Nutrire Milano/Feeding Milan)
Designers are dealing more and more with the development of complex systems of products and services (Product Service Systems, PSS), where a multidisciplinary approach and new competencies are needed
In order to better understand this approach we can refer to the concept of infrastructuring, introduced by Star and Ruhleder [1] and adopted at the Medea Lab in Malmö [2], as a way to create the conditions to implement a new socio-technical environment with local stakeholders in the design process
Summary
In the last five years designers have progressively shifted from testing single elements of a service with single users to developing service prototypes aimed at evaluating an entire customer journey and its possible implementation in a specific context of use (e.g. Dott, Dott Cornwall, Living Labs atMedea Lab, Nutrire Milano/Feeding Milan). Designers are dealing more and more with the development of complex systems of products and services (Product Service Systems, PSS), where a multidisciplinary approach and new competencies are needed. In this framework, the positive effects of co-designing and testing a solution during its development, including stakeholders and taking into account the emerging opportunities, are more and more evident. The Swedish research group adopts participatory design (PD) having future users involved right from the first phases of a project This approach requires designers to work with them to identify the emerging needs and to create digital and physical platforms enabling their participation, being open to different project development directions. Infrastructuring refers to the activity of aligning the interests of the users and various actors in the field to create collaborations and possible stable partnerships to pilot a solution, and afterwards to implement it
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