The True Benefits of Designing Design Methods

The ongoing transition within tech industry towards holistic service journey orchestration pushes user experience design (UXD) closer to service design (SD). At the same time, new digital channels for traditional services pushes SD closer to UXD. The increasing interplay between UXD and SD can cause confusion about their relationship, boundaries, and responsibilities. Little research has examined perceptions of these aspects in industry and academia. We surveyed 197 UXD and SD practitioners and academics about their understanding of the overlaps and boundaries between the two design practices. Our findings reveal several conflicting views around the scope of UXD and SD work, the subsumptive relation between UXD and SD, and the theoretical roots and methods each draws upon. We suggest constructive ways for the two design practices to complement each other. Our study shows that UX work is changing, and understanding this change is important to maintain the relevance of UX research.

This paper portrays cross-organizational collaboration in service networks as a new challenging context for service design. The paper reflects on the role of cross-organizational service networks in a Finnish municipality-initiated research and development project. The project sought to develop new practices for supporting independent living for the elderly involving diverse organizations across public, private and third sectors. The intent was to apply collaborative and customer-centred service development. For this paper, interviews were reviewed from 16 project participants to find out how they perceived cross-organizational collaboration and the role of service design in this project. From these findings, we identified barriers to collaborations that originated in tensions between different organizations and structural and situational barriers that sometimes could be traced to specific mindsets on an organizational level. Based on the insights from these interviews, we explain how service desi...

Children's usage of online services expands as they transition into adolescence. However, many are unaware or ill-equipped about how their informational privacy is compromised through continuous tracking and data collection online. This paper explores how to enable early adolescents be more aware of informational privacy online and make informed decisions, taking a research-through-design approach. Based on technology probes with adolescents, the four-stage framework was developed and a smartphone-embedded book was chosen as a medium for defamiliarization yet relatability. Through the iterative design and testing with early adolescents, we investigated the novelty of blended interaction between physical and digital, and the effectiveness of various narratives based on the four stage framework. We found the importance for privacy educational materials to incorporate multiple levels of information complexity and discuss how to achieve that.