Topic outline

  • AMUO-C3006 - Basics of Service Design November-December 2021

    Basics of Service Design (November-December) course will be delivered online. The course material is uploaded regularly before and during the educational process, so please follow this space regularly. 

    AMUO-C3006 - Basics of Service Design (November-December) 

    Responsible teacher: Dr Helena Sustar, Aalto University, Learning Services, helena.sustar@aalto.fi   

    Where: each Thursday from 18:00 to 20:00 via Microsoft Teams (Workshop on Saturday 11.12. 9-13:00)


    Here is the link to the last Course lectures in Microsoft Teams on 22.12.


    Course term: 9 lectures (Lectures 6, 7, 8 are Workshop sessions)

    Workload: 54 h (online lectures, group work and independent study)

    Grading: Pass/Fail

    Course Language: English (Finnish)

    Twitter: #AaltoOpenSD  


    Note! Course grades and certificates 

    The course grades will be published in WebOodi latest 30 days after the last lecture at 

     https://oodi.aalto.fi/ or https://www.aalto.fi/en/aalto-university-open-university/results-certificates-and-transcripts-of-records. 

    For any other questions, get in touch with avoin@aalto.fi.

    Please do not send me emails regarding certificates unless the issues are related to the grade itself.

     

    Course description

    A redesign of sustainability services is a red thread of this service design (SD) course. I selected the sustainability theme due to limited recourses, climate change and urgency to reduce our consumption. This course starts with a discussion of the SD and its possible future developments. Secondly, it presents the essential SD tools and stages of the design process to utilise these tools. Then, the course studies meanings, user experiences and the value of co-creation. Lastly, different SD tools are adopted and tested in the online co-design workshop.

     

    Content and course structure

    The course runs online. The classes are delivered via a weekly two hours lecture, which concludes with a discussion. Each lecture combines two components: theoretical and practical. The theoretical part will familiarise you with relevant SD theory and terminology via lessons, homework and assigned readings. Course participants will employ the practical part via a circular services case analysis, different assignments, exercises, tasks completed individually and in a group, and a one-day practical co-design workshop.

     

    Learning outcomes

    • to understand different service design components and dimensions

    • to get familiar with service design terminology

    • to distinguish the most common service design tools, and when and how to use them

    • to practice how to prototype service design concepts

     

    Assessments

    • Practical assignments: completed every week and submitted on Blogger (each Sunday at 23:00) 

    • Readings: read while also answering related questions, weekly submissions at Blogger (each Sunday at 23:00) 

    • Participation in the SD workshop and completed the final assignment

    Week 1 Put your service design lenses on 

    The lecture introduces products, service(s), service design, and different fields where service design is used in practice. The class answers questions like what service design is and what are the SD principles? The lesson concludes with examples of domains where SD is utilised.

    Week 2 Systemic and holistic understanding of contexts with SD tools 

    The lecture starts with the Double Diamond, the design process, SD related terminology and several elementary SD tools like interviews, circular business model, future scanning tools, Persona, a workshop, customer service journey and Blueprint.

    Week 3 Designing meaningful services     

    The lecture discusses different aspects of meanings in services, the role of meaning, service moments, service experience and reflecting existing services. Finally, the class touches upon the strategic design and sustainable development goals. 

    Week 4 Rethinking value in a changing landscape 

    The class starts with value evolution and new value emerging paradigms in Anthropocene. Furthermore, we discuss collaboration and facilitation in the co-design cases following co-creation, co-production and empathic design explanation. 

    Week 5 Personalised customer experiences                                                  

    A lecture differentiates between meaning and experiences, the anatomy of designing for customer experiences and the typology of experiences. The lesson concludes with six dimensions of experiences and implications in the organisational context.

    Week 6, 7 & 8 Service experimentation workshop 

    We will use results from analysing selected circular services to experiment and develop transformative services that resist unexpected events we are facing.   

    Week 9 Service design learning ecology

    The last lecture concentrates on the final course assignments presentations, feedback and critical discussion of the assignments and the entire course.