Service Design Approach Research Articles

Bridging Technology, Design, and Management: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Innovation in the AI Era

Not a single domain of technology, design, or management can fully tackle AI's ethical, practical, and strategic dimension.A service design approach is used to explore the intersection of technology, design, and management for a responsible AI implementation that fosters innovation but is also ethically aligned and strategically integrated.

Value co-creation of carbon-neutral tourism route: a case in Thailand

ABSTRACT This participatory action research initiative was undertaken in Thailand to promote carbon-neutral tourism (CNT). The research involved the engagement of multiple stakeholders in the value chain to co-create a valuable CNT route for Nong Khao sub-district tourism in Kanchanaburi Province. A service design approach was applied in this study, consisting of four phases: building engagement and awareness, exploring customer needs, co-creating a route, and assessing the results. The findings revealed that tourists exhibited a strong preference towards the CNT trip option. The implementation of the activities resulted in an increased net profit margin of 165.31% due to cost reduction, sale-price growth, and larger tourist numbers. The research provides important value co-creation of CNT management guidelines for community tourism.

Inclusive Education as A Wicked Problem: Introducing Systemic and Service Design Approach to Tackle the Challenge

Inclusiveness is a principle of our current school system. Inclusive education should ensure equal learning opportunities for all, avoid stigmatising differences, and accept diversity in pupils. The goals are promising, but the implementation of inclusive education is a wicked problem intertwined with student, teacher, school community and wider societal factors that are difficult to manage and reconcile. Can the goals of inclusive education to be achieved or will inclusiveness of schools lead to a situation where the conditions for learning, school practices and teaching resources are further stretched and learning for all becomes more narrowly focused? This article examines inclusive education as a wicked problem and how this perspective can aid in managing the inclusive education challenge at hand and how systemic design approach and service design can tackle these challenges. There will be provided four practical challenges where the proposed approaches and tools can be especially useful.

Implementation of a digital behavior change intervention (eCHANGE) for weight loss maintenance support: a service design and technology transfer approach.

Obesity is a chronic disease, and while weight loss is achievable, long-term weight loss maintenance is difficult and relapse common for people living with obesity. Aiming to meet the need for innovative approaches, digital behavior change interventions show promise in supporting health behavior change to maintain weight after initial weight loss. Implementation of such interventions should however be part of the design and development processes from project initiation to facilitate uptake and impact. Based on the development and implementation process of eCHANGE, an evidence-informed application-based self-management intervention for weight loss maintenance, this manuscript provides suggestions and guidance into; (1) How a service design approach can be used from initiation to implementation of digital interventions, and (2) How a technology transfer process can accelerate implementation of research-based innovation from idea to market.

Co-designing a collective food service of artisanal gastronomic products with entrepreneurial university students

This paper elucidates a co-design process with entrepreneurial university students to develop a food service that deals with artisanal gastronomic products. Employing the Design Science Research methodology, the study unfolds across three distinct yet interconnected cycles: relevance, design, and rigor. This systematic approach materialized as a tangible collaborative commercial service, considering the concepts of service design and co-design in the construction of the artifact. The result of this process includes the implementation of activities with an interdisciplinary team of researchers, as well as the participation of entrepreneurs in co-design workshops. The solution is a service implemented for collective entrepreneurship for university students working around the contexts of sustainable gastronomy. The obtained findings can promote insights into new service offerings that promote sustainable gastronomy entrepreneurship in academic environments and help qualify students as entrepreneurs through co-design and service design approaches.

Exploring the Potential of Chatbots in Extending Tourists’ Sustainable Travel Practices

Recent advancement in Generative Conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) has opened the possibility of promoting chatbots for nudging. Tourists returning home from destinations that enforce sustainable transport regulations might be nudged to continue traveling sustainably. Through exploratory qualitative research, this study conceptualizes a chatbot to facilitate pro-environmental behavior spillover among domestic tourists in the Gili Islands, Indonesia. The Service Design approach and Grounded Theory were applied throughout the data collection process involving semi-structured in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and field observations. Insights obtained from stakeholders from multidisciplinary backgrounds were used to provide an overview of how the chatbot can be developed and the potential impact it could bring. A theoretical model predicting factors that play important roles in adopting the proposed chatbot and its respective nudges was developed. It informs policymakers and practitioners about the potential use of AI to help transform tourist experiences and shape lasting responsible behaviors.

Exploring the Future of Informed Consent: Applying a Service Design Approach

Informed consent is a cornerstone of ethical human subject research. This practice demonstrates the ethical principle of "respect for persons." Our study was designed to imagine an informed consent future, specifically in a digital health context in which informed consent processes are mediated by sociotechnical systems. Design speed-dating workshops were conducted to explore dimensions of the consent communication design space, including social media, interactive quizzes, chat-bots, annotation tools, and virtual learning sessions. To explore both the user experience and how futuristic consent processes might be facilitated, the workshops involved people eligible to participate in digital health research (N=21) and service providers (N=20), including researchers and IRB members. Our findings offer five principles to improve digital informed consent processes: be concise, promote transparency, value time and effort, cultivate trust, and navigate platform risks.

Creating a Rehabilitation Sports Public Service Information Systems Using Service Design Thinking: Physical Activity Management of the Disabled after Discharge in the Republic of Korea.

The Republic of Korea has established an institutional framework to expedite the provision of rehabilitation sports public services to individuals with disabilities post-hospital discharge (Act on Guarantee of Right to Health and Access to Health Services for People with Disabilities in December 2017). Regrettably, this service remains non-operational to date. This study employs a service design approach to identify and develop essential elements for the effective implementation of public rehabilitation sports services in Korea. Adopting the service design method, including the empathize-define-ideate-prototype phases, co-creation activities were conducted with three teams comprising people with disabilities, caregivers, rehabilitation physicians, specialized sports instructors, facility managers, and government officials, emphasizing equitable distribution. By leveraging the experiences of people with disabilities, these teams collaboratively engaged in creative activities to formulate strategies for delivering prompt and user-friendly rehabilitation sports public services post-hospital discharge. Contributions from each team were meticulously collected and organized, incorporating diverse perspectives into the development of the Korean Rehabilitation Sports Public Service Information System (KRSPSIS). Additionally, we presented a scenario illustrating the practical application of the KRSPSIS. Through this system, we anticipate providing more efficient and convenient rehabilitation sports public services to individuals with disabilities during the critical early stages following hospital discharge.

Enhancing User Experience: Improving the 24-Hour Self-Service Library with a Service Design Approach at Its Core

Enhancing User Experience: Improving the 24-Hour Self-Service Library with a Service Design Approach at Its Core

Designing with Older Adults: How University Health Network's NORC Innovation Centre creating an integrated health and social care community for seniors residing in naturally occurring retirement communities (NORC).

It is well known that, with adequate supports, many seniors desire to age in place in their own homes. NIC’s data shows that in Toronto, 70,000 seniors are living in 495 NORCs with over 53% of these having 2 or more co-morbid conditions. Rising to this challenge, the NIC's vision is to implement a 21st-century model of integrated health and social care in NORC buildings by developing health, social, and digitally-enabled solutions that provide Canadians with new options for aging in place with dignity and choice.
 Phase one, created and refined the NORC Ambassadors program (norcambassadors.ca) – an aging-in-place model based on mutual support, community engagement, and seniors' leadership. It was founded on a multi-year exploration that incorporated senior input, ethnographic observation, documentary stories, literature reviews, journey mapping, and the co-creation of service blueprints. Seniors led the implementation of the Ambassadors program based on participatory decision-making, self-management, agency, and choice. From the 2021 final report, 100% of respondents indicated a desire to continue organizing aging-in-place activities with 78% feeling their awareness of aging-in-place issues improved. Interestingly, 75% reported challenges with improving overall building engagement.
 Based on learnings from phase 1 and guided by IFIC's 9 pillars of integrated care, phase 2 layered in a service design approach to creating an enhanced model of health and social care that increases access to place-based services and support for seniors living in Toronto’s high-rise communities. Phase 2 involves over 100 Senior Advisors, 37 Specialists, national partners, and a growing array of system partners.
 Central to phase 2 work is developing the NIC's Integrated Health and Social Care model. Inviting senior advisors to lead co-design activities ensured that their voice is front and centre in a system for seniors by seniors. Leveraging multi-sector involvement supported the development of one team to enable the provision of services most important to seniors that span the entire continuum of care and determinants of health. NIC's model focuses on two parts of a person's journey – ""I want to stay healthy"" where people can access an array of services that help them stay healthy, and connected, and address social isolation and loneliness. This approach added the introduction of a NORC Animator to the Ambassador model from phase 1. NORC Animators, are on site and function to create relationships with the residents, coordinate group health and social activities, and are a friendly resource for all resident needs. In addition, the NORC Animator can also watch for functional change and; where seniors state that ""I want to get healthier""; support the connection to one-on-one health and social services. 
 This presentation will address the following questions: 1) How does the NIC model compare with other existing models in Ontario 2) What is required to effectively support seniors in participatory design? And how can you sustain involvement? 3) What is most important in designing what support is needed and how it is delivered? 4) What lessons learned have been identified from the early adopter site experiences?

Beyond the survey: Service design approaches to inclusive programme review

The paper outlines the potential of service design as an approach to transformational review of students’ experiences on University degree programmes. The paper presents the Inclusive Programme Review method that has been developed as a human-centered approach to understanding holistic student experience during their programme of study. The focus of the paper is on the divergent stage of gathering insights through collaborative generative sessions between students and programme teams who co-create boundary objects as a means of communication and shared understanding as well as a stimulus for value-add improvements on the degree programme. The paper challenges the dominant methods of transactional student surveys that generate impersonal facts, depriving educators of a deeper understanding of their heterogeneous cohorts. The aim is to explore the potential of service design, in particular through persona co-creation and emotional journey mapping, to stimulate empathy and purposeful student-staff engagement complementing survey results and feedback forms. The paper showcases the utility of these service design methods not only within formal curriculum design, but also in the overall management and practical delivery of degree programmes. The innovative practice presented here celebrates students’ agency and empowerment for change and contribution to their University experience. This practice is outlined step-by-step, and accompanied by reflections and visual representations, so that any educator is able to apply it to their own context.

Managing Human Capital with Employee Clustering Through the Interplay of the Persona Concept

Nowadays, employees are seen as active Human Capital Management (HCM) consumers. Megatrends such as individualization and flexible work impact the workforce, especially generations Y and Z. Finding and retaining talent is a challenge that companies try to address, from employer branding to covering the whole lifespan of the company-employee relationship. Management is likely to know every employee in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); however, larger companies need to categorize their human capital into certain entities. This paper explores the usability of the Persona concept for HCM. Persona is a service design approach widely applied in marketing, and a few research papers have argued that personas may have a role in improved people-oriented HCM. In short, personas aim to create a limited set of archetypes that differ from each other regarding demo- and psychographics. Generally, they are a mix of real-life people and some imaginary attributes. Different personas will likely request different services to feel fully motivated and supported. The core target of this article was to identify the common awareness of personas among HCM experts across industries and countries. Also, the ideation of future use of Personas was studied with marketing experts actively using personas in their professions. The qualitative study based on twelve semi-structured individual interviews was conducted in November-December 2022. The results indicate that the HCM community is well aware of the persona concept, which is widely used. However, the current usage of personas is mainly focused on employer branding and recruitment, and only in a few cases the usage covered the design of internal HCM processes. The study also revealed some limitations for HCM that are not present in the marketing field. Demands for transparency, equality, data privacy, and personal integrity set challenges in clustering the workforce. The results indicate the further need for research on best practices of creating and using Personas in a way that ethically serves the interests of both the company and the employee.

Initiating data-as-a-service adoption in water utilities: A service design approach

Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) can help facilitate the successful adoption of innovative digital solutions by water utilities. However, little is known about the processes used to adopt this model, including the initial challenges and required utility maturity factors. This study engaged diverse stakeholders through a service design approach to support water utilities in evaluating their suitability to adopt DaaS. The findings demonstrate an innovative method by which both DaaS providers and utilities can better analyze their needs and strategic interests, and those of the people they serve. In so doing, they can co-create mutual trust needed to tackle complex water policy challenges.

Design Toolkits for Enhancing Team Engagement: ‘Oden’ and ‘Donburi’: Food-inspired approaches to organisational transformation in Japan

How can an organisation be designed so that individual motivation and ability links with team goals and organisational vision? Achieving this has a significant impact on the performance of the organisation. Can we create tools to help with this goal with a service design approach?

Happy Employees Drive Happy Customers

VodafoneZiggo, a telecommunications organisation based in the Netherlands, has applied service design for many years in order to review and improve service delivery to its customers. In particular, customer journeys and personas have been embraced as useful methods. While these projects initially focused on customer experience, the service design approach is now also being applied to employee experience projects.

Service design for the transformation of healthcare systems: A systematic review of literature.

There is a growing interest in applying the Service Design (SD) approach to innovate and transform healthcare systems. However, comprehensive studies are scarce. This study systematically reviews the literature on SD initiatives towards healthcare system transformation. The research questions are: How has the SD approach been applied to the healthcare sector? To what extent are the SD initiatives contributing to transform the health systems? What are the main challenges faced by SD initiatives to transform the health system? Which are the main stakeholders involved in the process, and how could they change according to the type of initiative? The search was conducted in March 2021 in eight databases and returned 990 articles evaluated through a research protocol, resulting in 47 studies included in this review. These studies were explored through thematic analysis and considering two conceptual models: the SD approach (Patrício et al., 2020) and the ecosystem perspective (Beirão et al., 2017). The findings show that SD initiatives have been implemented at all levels of the ecosystem, but only 49% (47/23 studies) present a transformative character. The SD initiatives challenges were organized into four themes: (1) Planning SD initiatives as a lever in transforming health systems; (2) Using SD tools creatively; (3) Considering the use of new technologies to transform health systems positively, and (4) Facing the challenges of applying the Experience-Based Design and Experience Based in Co-Design approaches in project development. This study is relevant for helping managers and researchers in their efforts to design truly transformative services with a focus on improving health systems and social wellbeing.

Design of Module Type Package Services for Modular Downstream Units and Process Analytic Technology

AbstractModularization of process plants with its standardization activities is one of the current responses to react to dynamic markets, shorter product life cycles, and uncertain supply chains. Standardized solutions for intelligent process equipment assemblies with own automation promise high potential for chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Despite the standardized description of the module type package (MTP) and the corresponding service concept, the implementation of the service logic is left to the manufacturer, which often leads to finding various granular services for different process functions or assemblies. In this contribution, different service design approaches for a generic ‘separate’ service are investigated on the example of a solvent extraction and a distillation column. Additionally, a Raman spectroscope device for process analysis is implemented via MTP with an ‘analyze’ service. Pros and cons of the different service design approaches are discussed in the context of a fast and flexible process development in the laboratory.

Approach towards service design process for heritage preservation and sustainability of Bodo Dokhona

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to understand the perception of the local weavers amongst the Bodos, a tribe of the North-east (NE) India. Towards this a concept of a service pipeline process in the field of heritage attire preservation of Bodo Dokhona was focused that would endorse the local weavers' community for its wellbeing and sustainability.Design/methodology/approachThe design approaches have been framed after interactions with the local weavers through a survey conducted for understanding the issues pertaining to weavers. Towards sustaining the Bodo heritage attire Dokhona, a service design pipeline for better management system was developed in three phases. Interactions with the local weavers through survey and validation for its feasibility were undertaken.FindingsThis research paper focuses on publishing innovative survey research and practice related to cultural heritage management of the Bodo traditional wear Dokhona and sustainability conservation of the pipeline process. Therefore, developing both skill and knowledge for the weavers' community of the region.Social implicationsThe design pipeline approach in this paper has been shared with the local weavers' for easy understanding of the step-by-step process of weaving a Dokhona made of eri silk. A progressive Bodo weaver will gain skill training which would lead to weavers' empowerment.Originality/valueDeveloping and documenting an innovative service design approach. In this context, an insight for women empowerment leading to preservation of Bodo heritage is valued.

A Visual Reasoning-based AR-HUD Service Design Approach for Better Driving Experience

Smart traffic or transportation, as a critical part of realizing the smart city, utilizes various smart product-service systems to support it. Among them, the augmented reality head-up display (AR-HUD) system is a typical smart driving solution, which projects vital information about driving situations with pre-defined AR graphics onto the windshield of vehicles. The AR-HUD service design attracts increasing concerns owing to its enhancement of drivers’ situational awareness without glancing down at the instrument cluster. Nevertheless, current in-car AR-HUDs only stack some simple driving information from sensors, such as the driving speed. It's difficult to meet the demand of drivers since they ignore a higher level of drivers’ situation awareness, i.e., driving situation prediction and recommendation of driving advice. To overcome the challenge, this paper proposes a visual reasoning-based service design approach for advancing AR-HUDs’ digital servitization and better user experience. Additionally, drivers are involved in the service design development in a value co-creation manner through human-computer interaction design. With the combination of experiential driving knowledge and cognitive intelligence computing on the driving scene, the proposed novel service design approach enables AR-HUD to percept driving scenarios and infer good strategies accordingly. Finally, an illustrative example is carried out to validate the feasibility of the proposed AR-HUD service design approach.

Improving the Efficiency of a Public Health Service by Designing Its Innovation Management Structure Based on Data Envelopment Analysis

This paper presents a proposal for Chile's health system innovation structure based on a formal service design approach, including management and process architecture definition. Such structure defines how to allocate innovation resources in the health system to increase its efficiency. It uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) to measure hospitals' efficiency, which also determines the variables that explain such efficiency. Thus, the architecture uses the knowledge about hospitals' efficiency and their determinants to define innovation projects and assign financial resources for them. It also assures their implementation to increase the efficiency of the hospitals. DEA measurements show great improvement potential since only six of 40 hospitals had an efficiency value of 1.0. Some of the projects with the best improvement potential were implemented with very good results, summarized in the paper. The main contribution of this work is to formalize and enlarge the scope of the structural design of health services to generate improved results for users at a lower cost.