The development of services only rarely involves the formal inclusion of designers. This research
is concerned with how design practice should be managed for service sectors. The social,
economic and technological changes in the 21st century have driven service managers to search
for more innovative means of bringing a deeper understanding of customer experience into service
systems. This move in the business world, together with a rising awareness of the power of design
thinking, has created new opportunities for both designers and managers to explore new types of
cooperation in service innovation. For designers, it is crucial to combine their creative thinking with
the existing knowledge in service science, management and engineering, in order to create a new type
of design practice that embraces human experience within service management.
The main challenge for current service design practice is the lack of established conceptual
frameworks to guide their practices in service design. This paper describes the development of an
exploratory research, which aims to fill this gap in knowledge. Due to the predominant visual
nature of design, collaborations between design and business focus largely upon branding, product
innovation, communication and spatial design. Design research on complex systems, such as
services, is still rare. Although modern service has been studied by science, management and
engineering, there is little practical guidance or understanding from a design perspective.
This paper will provide a research agenda for investigating the emerging field of service design
and suggests questions which research should answer to better understand the design practices
within the context of service innovation. In this research, design process is viewed as one of the
many parallel processes that operate within an organization. Theories in service studies in other
disciplines, especially management, are referred to. The aim is to explore and map out the
differences between the theories and the practices in service design, on the basis of both literature
reviews and empirical data collected from service design practitioners. As one of the research
outputs, a conceptual framework will be proposed. This framework will indicate further
opportunities of creating tools or methods that enable service designers to understand their
practices under the wider context of service economy in a holistic view.
Review 1
Abstract: ( x )accepted* ( )unaccepted
*but only if revised to evidence understanding of context, etc. See comments.
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Research question ( x )Significant ( )Insignificant Comments:
The abstract questions the ways in which design practice should be managed for service sectors and proposes to ‘map’ current theories and practices in the field. Thereby developing a conceptual framework for further development.
Hypothesis ( x )Interesting ( )Uninteresting
Comments:
Proposes the lack of design research on complex systems.
Elaboration upon what is meant by a research agenda is needed plus the kinds of questions you might be asking as supplements to the main research question.
Research result ( )Significant ( x )Insignificant
Comments:
It is difficult to tell from this abstract what the research result is as the proposal is for a scoping study and does not elaborate in any depth what a ‘conceptual framework’ might be for service design.
Context of research ( x )Clear ( )Unclear
Reference to existing knowledge ( )Sufficient ( x )Insufficient
Method of research ( )Appropriate ( x)Inappropriate
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Additional comments:
This is a much-needed area of research especially as service design increasingly becomes a necessity in development of a global economy. As the author suggests, little has been done in this area to date.
However, this proposal is for the most part descriptive and could be better substantiated to provide evidence of a rigorous approach to the subject. For example, some reference to current studies and studios working in the field (especially those high profiled in US and UK (Engine, live|work and others) would make this a much stronger proposal. See for example, the work undertaken at the Design Council:
www.designcouncil.org.uk/en/About-Design/Design-Disciplines/Service-desi...
Who are the main players at the moment in this field (Brigit Mager, Richard Buchanan, etc.) Where is the academic research positioned and what are the key events/texts we have seen thus far? See CMU’s recent Emergence conference: www.design.cmu.edu/emergence/2007/
Which theories in service studies is the author looking at and how will their proposed framework contribute or expand upon what is currently in practice?
This proposal has a great deal of potential, but for someone who sits outside the field, it needs to provide more detail and evidence as to an existing knowledge base, what aspects of design research are under consideration (e.g. communication design, product design, etc), what current innovations are being used by industry and how will the proposed framework build on this? How the author proposes to go about developing a framework needs further explanation.
*If the author revisits the abstract and begins to address some of the issues raised, this could be a much stronger and relevant proposal.