Suggestions for an Online Service Prototyping Tool for Co-creation

Abstract

Background In the service prototyping process, an efficient co-creation tool is necessary for stakeholders to easily access service prototyping. However, a system satisfying such needs has not been realized yet. Conventional online prototyping tools have limitations in being applied to service design since they are mostly developed for UX design. Therefore, this study aims to present a prototyping tool which can be used for co-creation without the limitations of time and place. Methods For this study, we investigated the features of 10 online prototyping tools for service design and selected six of them to analyze their features and functions. We also interviewed five professional service designers to identify the requirements concerning service prototyping. Then based on insights gained from the above research, we proposed a service prototyping tool with a co-creation feature which is applicable to mobile application in service design. Results The proposed service prototyping tool has the functions of ‘chatting’, ‘white boarding’ and ‘file sharing’ to provide faster communication and real-time user feedback. The ‘library’ in the tool provides four iconized components such as stakeholders, stakeholders actions, service objects and service scape, all of which are essential for service prototyping. Conclusion This online prototyping tool will facilitate the co-creation of a service concept by providing useful functions so that even stakeholders without professional knowledge of service design will be able to participate in prototyping.