Service Design in the Preservation of Intangible Cultural Heritage: A Case Study in the Legend of the Kitchen God

Abstract

With this article, we present the ongoing research project “The preservation and activating the legend of the Kitchen God” and the service design research it is built upon. The Kitchen God Culture embodies the optimistic attitude of life and the goodness of the future of working people of china. Every year, every family in china holds a ceremony to worship the Kitchen God on the twenty-third of the twelfth lunar month in the old days. The Kitchen God is one of god which every Chinese known. But most modern people just know the name and do not know the meaning of the Kitchen God culture. In our project, we used service design methods and digital information technology to activating the Kitchen God Culture, in order to preservative the Intangible Cultural Heritage. The study of the culture service involves Big Data analysis approaches, and the touchpoints are designed within service design thinking and service design frameworks. Two approaches are illustrated in detail to show initial results of the service model. Network analysis based on the collection of online behavioral data and quantitative evaluation of data gathered by sensor showed significant results. Based the new service model, the core spirit of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Kitchen God Culture is delivered to the people in a way that is accepted by modern people. In this way, the activity of the intangible culture is maintained and passed on. The service design includes incorporation of Data Mining technology into culture research. We demonstrate certain advantages of service design thinking and method in the study of Intangible Cultural Heritage, in contrast to conventional studies based on traditional methods.