I teach a course focused on”service design” which brings a multidisciplinary team of professionals and students together to learn about design principles that can be applied to the service industry to create meaningful experiences grounded in system thinking. This class has a three-tiered structure. In each session, students learn about an industry and the major shifts that are happening in that sector. This class introduces key themes that can be applied to service design initiatives to nudge the designer to create value by designing socially responsible and sustainable services. Most importantly students learn about design thinking methodologies, service blueprinting, empathy mapping, etc. All these methods can be utilized while designing end-to-end services. This class is part collaboration, part lectures, and discussions, and part workshopping. There are two class projects; one is focused on problem-solving and students pick a problem that is facing the economy or sector of their interest and using the class material around service design methodology, they analyze the existing problem and ways to solve the issue or prevent it. The final project is an individual project that encourages the students to design an innovative solution and service to add value in the area and industry of their interest.
Selected Student projects:
Clare Elliott | Designed a business model for crowdsourcing app that navigates the visitors to the local attractions of a new city.
Don Lail | "Games as service" _ designed a strategic plan to provide early access to early adopters in the video game market and capture their feedback.
Erica Lester | Designed a service that minimizes the material waste in food delivery systems like, Blue Apron by incorporating games and crafts in the packaging.
Layla MacRory | Re-designed the DMV ticketing experience and incorporated different services like gaming and coffee shops into the DMV experience.
Molly Reddy | Designed an app for the disconnected youth to connect them to and prepare them for their next job.