Service Design Q+A Discussion panel

Here are questions that were asked during the Q+A event as well as some that we didn't get around to discuss. Lets start a discussion building on what we've heard, or using these questions as triggers.

• What is the elevator pitch description of service design?  Sarah Hendy

• How does Service Design 'sell' it's worth to business? i.e. have you employed as 'service designers' or under another 'name' or understanding Janine Sisson, Art by Design

• How do you see the service design industry developing - both in Australia and internationally? Patti Hunt, Huddle Design

• Might service design practices help the Australian public become more positive towards Gillard's carbon tax or other policies and legislation designed to address climate change? If so, how? Neal Haslem, Lecturer, RMIT University

• Where lies the next grand challenge for service design, with Megacities or Rural development? And which challenge is it, apart from the obvious sustainability? Stephan Holmlid, Assistant Professor, Linköping University, Sweeden

• What kinds of opportunities do you see for service designers to collaborate on a large scale and solve complex problems? Patti Hunt, Huddle Design

• what is the capacity of service design to be used as a replacement for - not in addition to our existing consumption? Stephen Clune, Centre of Design, RMIT 

• What do you think about openideo and crowdsourcing? Angelina Russo, Associate Professor, RMIT University

• One thing I have been thinking a lot about in Service Design is the material of service design. In product design,  various materials and components can be modelled, prototyped etc. Innovations can come from changing the relation of internal components, or adding components and functionality, and of course integrating elements with aesthetics. But what is the material (or what are the materials) of service design? I'm not sure its an easy question to ask, and I'm not sure that we really understand it fully either. Simon Clatworthy, Oslo School of Architecture, Norway

• What place should service design have in the current design curriculum? Should it be seen as a methodological practice available for every field, or would it be better served (excuse the pun) as new field of its own? Neal Haslem, Lecturer, RMIT University

• Service design methods can sometimes appear to allow designers to understand users better than those users understand themselves. Is this a problematic aspect of the field? and if so, what suggestions might you have for preventing this from happening? Neal Haslem, Lecturer, RMIT University

• The "co"-word receives a great deal of attention, esp in service design (and of course in the cooperative/participative design arena); co-creation, co-design, etc... But, csn there ctually be design at all without a "co" or at least a conception of a "co"? Has there ever been design without a co? Even the hero deisgners, old as new, depend on "the other". So, what does actually this "co" word mean? Stephan Holmlid, Assistant Professor, Linköping University, Sweeden

• If Service Design practices can optimise (ecological, social or economical) qualities of systems through its practices, is there an associated risk of removing agency from those systems (and the human agents within those systems)? Neal Haslem, Lecturer, RMIT University

• How important to the result is having the final decision-maker and finance-controller on the journey? How have you engaged them successfully if they have seemed 'too busy' or inaccessible? Janine Sisson, Art by Design

• How do you define the length of engagement with the stakeholder group? Janine Sisson, Art by Design

• Service Design methods (like UX methods) mostly focus on the initial development and delivery of the service. Evaluation is based on quantitative things like a/b testing or increases/decreases in enquiries or sign ups for example.  What can Service Design learn from action research - which is based on equitable collaboration AND cycles of iteration and evaluation - about the design, delivery and ongoing evaluation and redesign of services? Penny Hagen, ex Digital Eskimo

• Does Service Design as a field align itself with a realist or an idealist perspective? or if it doesn't, do you have an opinion as to how it should align itself? Neal Haslem, Lecturer, RMIT University

• Service management has a long, robust and well respected history (approx. 30 years). Why is service design so relucant to a) acknowledge this and b) explore synergies between the two approaches - the discussion needs to extend further then Bitner's Service Blueprint. Alison Pendriville, London College of Communication

• How is service design specific to design practitioners? Is there a cross over with business and marketing services? Sarah Hendy

• Don Norman is fond of his idea about tinkerers, as THE innovators, and that tinkering precedes design. Assume that his figure of thought is plausible, and that it is transferrabel to other areas of design than those familiar to Don. Such as service design. Who, then, are the tibkerers in service business and innovation? How do we as designers hook up with them? Should we? How do we identify them, and is there a regularity across service genres? Stephan Holmlid, Assistant Professor, Linköping University, Sweeden

• What market segments will pay for 'Service Design'? Janine Sisson, Art by Design

•Customer (or client/user/participant) Journey's have become synonymous with Service Design in a commercial context. But do our existing methods and tools for representing service design and use appropriately capture the complex impacts and motivations for why and how people use (or do not use) social and community services - particularly where there is a behaviour change imperative (e.g., take up of sustainable practices or engagement in health programmes)? Penny Hagen, ex Digital Eskimo

• Co-creation and co-design (in both design and delivery) are central to service design. However Service Design methods (like UX methods) mostly focus on the initial development and delivery of the service. 'Live prototyping'  is the release of a rudimentary seed prototype that is then evolved in situ.  Can we extend our Service Design methods to better support ongoing iterations and evaluations in situ? E.g., moving beyond experience prototyping to live prototypes that can be evolved with the community... And is this appropriate? Penny Hagen, ex Digital Eskimo