September 2007
42 posts
Design and Business
Jess McMullin of nForm has some interesting things to say about design and business (and the business of design). I like his Design Maturity Model - although it looks awful (oh the irony).
However, more interesting are his thoughts on facilitation and co-design as a route to developing business strategies. I’m of course inclined to agree, and support, such an approach because its what we...
“Innovation journalism seeks to combine economic, technological, and political...”
– Innovation Journalism - Via: Tekes
Designing Connected Services: Paper
Pdf on designing mobile services, via
“Companies increasingly have to deliver holistic customer experiences where the brand is core and products and services are merely a part of an entire network of rapidly changing customer touch points and devices.
Successful experience design is defined by context-rich and holistic research and design methods, starting already in the very early phases...
Core77 and its surprising number of service design...
‘Industrial Design Supersite’ Core77 seems to have more and more articles on service design and the innovation industry… Here’s some of the best, culled from a quick search:
New one: Innovating Belgiums postal service through design
Old one: While you were out: changes in the global design industry
Challenging one: Is design political?
Drum banging one: Experience...
Useful tips for design facilitation on Alistapart
“A successful work session starts with planning, and planning starts with clear goals and desired outcomes.”
Sarah Nelson then goes on to describe lots of useful tips on managing groups, managing idea generation and so forth. Simple, yet effective tips for all service designers!
A List Apart: Articles: Get Out from Behind the Curtain
The flipside to the service bonanza
The amazing Tim Hunkin says: “There are now far fewer apprenticeships than university places. Mass employment now comes from the service industries – catering and call centres, not from manual work. I find it easy to get help with computer problems, but really hard to find skilled people to help me make things.” Tim’s site is lovely by the way, I found it through Alex’s...
'Designing' friendship services
Interesting post from Nicholas Carr, linking to another article, on the ‘bureaucratization of friendship’ as practiced by social networking sites:
“The hypertext link called “friendship” on social networking sites is very different: public, fluid, and promiscuous, yet oddly bureaucratized. Friendship on these sites focuses a great deal on collecting, managing, and ranking the...
Jeff Howard's quick roundup of service design...
“Here are a few more voices to add to the global service design conversation. Who else is talking about this? What other design blogs should be on my radar?”
Design for Service
“Service Design and why it matters to business”
– Old(ish) article from the Danish Design Centre: link
Helvetica: For when you have no ideas
[I promised I’d dig this up - so here it is. First published in Smiths Magazine, 2005]
Last issue this column promised invective aimed at the Comic Sans typeface. Sorry to disappoint, but I feel the online community offers so much more than could ever be put in this small space: for those of you wishing to continue the War On Letters outside of smiths a good place to start would be...
HyperIsland update
The talk went well, the students enjoyed themselves, as did I. Learnt a lot, in particular, don’t deliver a talk at 9.30 am on a Monday without making sure everyone’s got coffee!
The nice people at HyperIsland also did a quick Q&A with me, that they’ve put on their blog - Read the interview here
The students all completed a ‘gap analysis’ service experience...
“The experience stack is a way of thinking about the different levels at which...”
– The Experience Stack
Great slideshow attached to this link!
“…because the innovation industry’s potential to derail conventional...”
– Great article, with some good links: Innovation Nation
WatchI’m going to HyperIsland, Stockholm on monday to give a talk and run a workshop with MA interaction design students called ‘designing services’ - Have a look through the slide show above. The students will have to create their own powerpoints as part of a task, and I’ll post them here too!
Designing Services » SlideShare
“I wish we knew what we know”
– Howard Platt, When CEO of HP
Via Design Observer
IDEO's big idea...
“IDEO’s Transformation by Design process helps organizations work in new ways through the power of human-centered design. A program of highly collaborative engagements helps organizations to quickly deliver new experiences for their customers and employees, while simultaneously developing the infrastructure and capabilities needed to grow and sustain a culture of innovation. Our proven...
“Service prototyping is a way to transcend these issues while at the same time...”
– Seek the Magic with Service Prototypes
WatchGreat slideshow from the satisfaction guys below
I like their style - “Customer service is the new marketing”. Amen!
Using your customers as your employees!
“Satisfaction Unlimited is a network of customer support bulletin boards where customers can post their own questions, idea, problems, or conversations about a product. They have seeded the network with boards for over 200 companies. If a company whishes, they can claim their company’s board and put their own employees on to moderate the boards.”
Satisfaction | CrunchBase
...
“Design has been receiving increasing attention as an important resource for...”
– Corporate Design Foundation - Service Innovation by Design
Social Innovation at the Young Foundation
“Launchpad is a platform for turning promising ideas into new organisations. Unique in its focus on ideas as opposed to individual entrepreneurs, Launchpad exploits current research and frontline experience with practical work to identify unmet social needs. Today’s society faces many challenges, yet many of these issues have made incremental progress despite ongoing attention from...
Jeff Howard's service design blog
“Design for Service Research, patterns and observation.” This links to the mother lode of papers below…
Design for Service
“This list represents a summary of the past thirty years of service design...”
– Holy Moley! Service Design Research
Service Design Definition
“Service design can be both tangible and intangible, and may involve artifacts just as much as communication. It can also be both commercial and non-commercial. Whatever form it takes, however, it must be strict, consistent and easy to use.”
Not sure about the strict bit!
INDEX:2007 Knowledge
Design Poem
Thus the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees
Via
Services are the new frontier of interaction...
Great, long interview with Dan Saffer, senior interaction designer at Adaptive Path - he says “The point is that most products have to be viewed as part of a broader context: a service. Designers have to pay attention to the environment, the processes around the product, and a new set of users: the employees providing the service. Services aren’t only about end-users: they are co-created by...
“Many people think that the dissatisfaction with services can be explained by the...”
– College of Management Mahidol University :: News and Events
Helvetica: Should it have a point of view?
Went to go and see the premier of a good (but not great) film about Helvetica last night. Although it was great to see many of my design heros on screen, the film seemed to lack a crucial point of view.
Perhaps appropriate given Helvetica’s famed neutrality, but I felt that they’d missed a trick in not using the font as a spring board to a wider discussion. Having grown up reading...