Service Design (SERV)

The service experience is made up of multiple interactions that take place over time between the customer and the service provider. By taking a human-centered or “people first” approach, service designers can detect unmet needs, design better interactions, and stage meaningful and memorable experiences. In this course, students apply social research and creative problem-solving methods to analyze experiences, uncover insights, frame problems, generate ideas and validate solutions.

The ability to effectively visualize and communicate systems, insights, ideas and concepts is a critical skill for service designers. Students explore and effectively apply the principles of graphic and information design in order to create compelling narratives, information graphics and layouts that best communicate a service design project process and deliverables.

Service design can be used as a powerful tool to understand and tackle many of the complex social and environmental problems facing organizations, communities and societies today. Working closely with client organizations, students apply a wide range of collaborative design and creative problem-solving methods to investigate societal challenges, analyze existing solutions, develop solutions that improve quality of life, and create implementation roadmaps.

An essential part of defining and designing services is the conceptualization, development and simulation of a service concept and its ecology, including all touch points engaged with when using the service. Experience prototypes are used for rapid ideation of services by simulating the experience the customer has. Students learn to develop low, medium and high-fidelity experience prototypes. Scenarios are explored where new service concepts are ideated and simulated, describing and configuring the experiences of the user, onstage and offstage.

Service organizations utilize information technology and information systems to support business processes, increase service productivity, improve service quality, forge stronger relationships and create differentiation. In this course, students explore core concepts in services marketing and business-driven information systems. Furthermore, students help service organizations measure, monitor and improve performance by identifying critical success factors, determining key performance indicators and designing three types of management dashboards..

Service designers have the potential to be excellent entrepreneurs; social research, creative problem-solving and collaborative design skills are invaluable in any startup. Students create innovative service concepts and business plans that exploit white spaces in service sectors of their choice during this course. Students also verify the viability, desirability and feasibility of proposed concepts with the help of service blueprints, business models, financial forecasts, prototypes and implementation roadmaps.

Students work on solving service design problems developing innovative services, products and experiences within physical and virtual environments. The concept of service design is developed and explored using comprehensive design processes. Specific techniques, guidelines and examples are used to emphasize the practical aspects of service design where students are required to design in a way that is both user centric and market oriented. Students must consider the social, technological and economic considerations when designing services where they research lifestyle and the context of use of the service.

Internships offer students valuable opportunities to work in a professional environment and gain firsthand experience to help them prepare for careers. In an approved internship setting, a student typically spends one quarter working with an on-site professional supervisor and a faculty internship supervisor to achieve specific goals and objectives related to the program of study.

Services are essential to everyday life and comprise an overwhelming component of the world's economies. In this course, students study the principles and complexities of service design and how they are applied to create a better quality of life for users and enhanced profitability for providers.

Exploring systemic approaches to service design, students dive into the origins and history of economic environments. Through examining innovative practices, students hone their visualization skills, learn to adapt to an ever-changing market and discover their roles within the service industry.

From the perspective of research-for-design, students explore theories and methods of data creation, collection, analysis and synthesis. Students utilize a combination of approaches and tools to conduct relevant and useful research. Students also contribute to the design process of goods and/or service systems in which value, stakeholders and processes are given appropriate levels of importance.

Storyboards, maps and models distill the complexity of service systems, allowing audiences to understand and make data-focused decisions regarding service solutions. Students research their intended audience and employ visualization techniques to illustrate and simplify complex service systems.

When it comes to business, leaders must explore new opportunities and weigh the risks and benefits of a service. Through prototyping, students explore new ideas, assess their risks and develop methods to reduce uncertainty for stakeholders. Students identify opportunities and solutions through experimentation and immersive pilots of service designs.

Displaying evidence of a cohesive and intentional design is key to earning stakeholders’ trust. Students asses the value of their projects and learn the tools to demonstrate the necessity of their ideas. By measuring and evaluating the performance of their designs, students provide evidence of an organized, efficient program using visual data as well as hard and soft metrics.

Through substantial research and systemic literature review, students identify and effectively communicate the viability of a meaningful and ethical research topic. Students refine their methodology and synthesize results into a robust service design document.

Organizations become change makers through innovative practices and adaptive management ingenuity. Students examine the systemic movements of economics, while also researching progressive methods of marketing to promote their designs to a wider audience. Learning the fundamentals of innovation, students focus on social climate, consumer interaction patterns and profitable opportunities to expand business models.

Through analysis and exploration of an existing service, students demonstrate their knowledge in the field of service design. By documenting their process and presenting a formal presentation, students display evidence of effective communication within complex markets, and develop innovative ideas to further enhance their services for economic and social application.

An organization is only as strong as the design of its services. Students analyze the roles that branding and marketing play in creating value for their service designs. Stressing the importance of self-promotion, students learn how to configure the monetary values of their designs and communicate their projects to a marketable audience.

Project planning, assessment and accountability are all key aspects in implementing a successful and dynamic service design. Students take action and oversee their design plans from start to finish, ensuring that challenges are identified and resolved throughout the process. By acknowledging systemic changes and adapting resources to facilitate implementation, students manage their designs with stakeholders’ objectives in mind.

Students in this course undertake a field assignment under the supervision of a faculty member.

Students in this course undertake a teaching assignment under the supervision of a faculty member.

Building on primary and secondary research, students prepare a consistent documentation structure for the creation of an original thesis. Students document their validation structure and process results through the presentation of a completed artifact. This culminating thesis demonstrates advanced professional competence and provides a meaningful academic contribution to the service design community.