Start semester
70 602 Service Design 2: Service Design Futures
Passed foundation level (BA-level) at AHO or equivalent education with 180 ECTS.
Students who have taken Service Design 1 will be preferred, but this is not a requirement for this course.
International 2 year master students must have been approved for service design.
Recommended previous knowledge.
- Service Design concepts and methodologies
- User centred design methodologies
- Qualitative data analysis
- Ideation techniques
- Prototyping
- Concept communication
This course, delivered in 2 blocks, focuses on honing existing Service Design knowledge and competencies through practice by direct access to AHO’s focus areas of research, whilst actively contributing to their development.
In addition, undertaking this form of learning through contributing to research, the students will develop their ability to reflect on their own design practice within the rigorous framework of research practice.
This semester will have a specific focus on research being delivered and development at AHO that focuses predominantly on Public Services. The Norwegian public sector has been quick to embrace the potential of Service Design to drive positive change and innovate within public service provision and AHO has long been a contributor in this change since including service design as a disciplinary field in 2004.
By working within this research context students will practice what they have learnt in Service Design I and/or GK5 and GK6 by applying these design skills through ‘research-through-design’ and participatory action research to ongoing research projects with in-house researchers and practitioners together with external partners. They will also develop their knowledge and gain experience of working in public sector services.
Students will also be introduced to concepts and frameworks on differing approaches to design towards reflection on their own praxis, whilst connecting this to design as an approach to knowledge production.
KNOWLEDGE
- Understand and appropriate research methodologies used within design research projects.
- Gain insight into the different framings and perspectives on approaches to design whilst reflecting on own burgeoning practice.
- Develop an analytical approach and critical perspective on the field of Service Design
- Reflection on what design research and its methodologies mean for service design practice and vice versa
SKILLS
- Ability to read, understand and contribute to design research
- Ability to analyze a service design problem in relation to relevant research theories and models
- The ability to reflect upon the potential of service design within the context of public services.
- Skills of diplomacy
- Working ethically and thoughtfully with marginalized populations
GENERAL COMPETENCE
- Gain an overview of the state of the art of Service Design research
- Promote an active and designerly participation within research projects
- Learn to engage and collaborate with external partners
- Promote critical reflection on the unintended consequences of service design decisions
The course is run differently from Service Design 1. In Service Design 2 students will be working more independently and in close collaboration with service design researchers and practitioners at the school.
The main learning activities will be based upon research projects in collaboration with external partners, where the students will be part of the research team. The course also integrates studio work (group and individual), tutoring and reflective sessions in the classroom, workshops, structured presentations, and discussions with the course participants.
There will also be lectures with invited guests, designers and researchers. These will include sessions specifically designed to give students insight into differing ways to approach designing both in practice and research, whilst space to reflect on their own burgeoning practice. The students are expected to read some curriculum literature.
Candy, S., & Kornet, K. (2019). Turning foresight inside out: An introduction to ethnographic experiential futures. Journal of Futures Studies, 23(3), 3-22.
Neeley, J.P. (2021). Consider everything: Aligning service design practice with our complex reality. Touchpoint: The Service Design Journal. Special Issue: Service Design and Systems Thinking.
Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative everything: design, fiction, and social dreaming. MIT press.
Hirsch, T. (2020, April). Practicing without a license: Design research as psychotherapy. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-11).
Vink, J., Koskela-Huotari, K., Tronvoll, B., Edvardsson, B., & Wetter-Edman, K. (2021). Service ecosystem design: Propositions, process model, and future research agenda. Journal of Service Research, 24(2), 168-186.
Vink, J., & Koskela-Huotari, K. (2021). Social structures as service design materials. International Journal of Design, 15(3), 29-43.
Duan, Z. (2022). Professional Design in between Plural Makings. In Satu Miettinen, Mikkonen Enni, Maria Cecilia Loschiavo dos Santos, and Sarantou Melanie (Eds), Artistic Cartography and Design Explorations to Pluriverse. Taylor and Francis.
Further readings to be confirmed.
| Form of assessment | Grouping | Grading scale | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Portfolio assessment (Vurderingsmappe) | Individual | Pass / fail | Being a practice-driven course, the student’s progression through both projects will be possibly presented by means of: • Group and individual mid-term deliverables • Workshops & interviews • Evidencing material In each module students will have group and individual deliverables that will receive qualitative assessment to identify their strengths and weaknesses. The course will involve the participation in service design projects and the research connected to these. At the beginning of each module, the structure, contents and examination form will be detailed. Each project will have a final presentation and report or equivalent deliverable that will be assessed in pass/fail by an external sensor and the course leader. The details for each project regarding particular deliverables and the evaluation criteria will be described in the brief for each project at the beginning of the module. The students need to pass all modules to pass the course. The pass/fail will be evaluated individually although there will be group assignments. For students who fail the first module, a supplementary delivery can be submitted before the final assessment |
| Workload activity | Comment |
|---|---|
| Attendance | This is an intensive course and it demands consistent and hard work from the participants. Students are required to attend at least 80% of the main course events described in the detailed calendar for each project to pass the course. The course leader will take assistance 15 minutes after the beginning of each session and will inform the students when they are close to failing the course due to attendance. The students are also expected to keep count on their absences. |