Service Design in Practice

Friday's lecture was given by David Townson, who used to be the programme leader for Innovative Product Design at Dundee and now runs his own consultancy. He gave us an insight into his career, where he started and how he ended up with his own consultancy.

I got the impression that his job requires a lot of thinking, investigation and research. All this knowledge is combined to create services which meet the public's needs, and more importantly that they are effective in doing so. It was interesting to hear about some projects David had worked on including work for Orange, where an online community was set up so colleagues could discuss ideas with one and other. Another example was a community project whereby the public were encouraged to car share. Even though these projects differ they both required thorough investigation in order to develop the best solution.

For the follow up work to this lecture we were asked to think about the different types of 'services that we use.' The list is endless, most people will use everything from public transport, refuse collection to the cantina in DoJ. I suppose it is quite easy to forget that these services have to be designed. Before you even get on a bus you need to know where to go to get it as well as knowing what time it arrives. A ticket has to be purchased on entering the bus, u then take a seat, maybe even ring the bell before you get off. This was all designed with the public in mind.

In order for these services 'to keep you' they have to be effective. Would you continue going to the cantina if it provided a bad service? If the bus timetable wasn't easy to understand people would take other forms of public transport? Even though we need these services, the services need to be well designed or people wouldn't use them.

I think some of the considerations service designers will have to make can be applied to all areas of design. As designers we have to consider who the target audience is and what they need. A brief for a teenage boy would vary from one aimed at middle aged women. It is easy to forget what you want, and how you think a product should be designed. Sometimes we have to take a step back and see the bigger picture.