Design for Service Syllabus
Carnegie Mellon School of Design, Spring 2019
Professor Molly Wright Steenson & TA Ulu Mills
We all have an idea of what a good service is — when everything clicks into place, when you feel a little surprised and delighted because of the thoughtfulness and smoothness. And we know too well what it’s like when a service goes wrong: unempowered agents at the airport when your flight was canceled, waiting forever at the doctor’s office, a website or app being inappropriate or tone deaf in a sensitive situation. Services connect us to our cities and get us acquainted in new places.
But how are services made? This is where service design comes in. Through in-class sessions and a series of design sprints, we will explore the fundamentals of service design in this class, work on stories, journey maps, and blueprints, and prototypes that will bring your service touchpoints into the world. Some great visitors will join us too, in person and virtually, to provide real-world insights about service design. We will have a particular focus on civic design and design with human values in mind.
In this class, you will:
- Understand the fundamental tools and practices of service design
- Develop and present a service design case study in the civic design space
- Learn about service design models
- Work mindfully with teams
- Experiment with service concepts, scenarios, blueprints, maps, and prototypes that you test along the way
- Share the stories about your work through different narratives (presentations, Medium posts, posters, videos)
Values
One of the core themes of this class is using service design in support of civil discourse. With this in mind, the class is designed for you to be mindful and thoughtful about how you work and communicate. Teamwork is hard, design for civic purposes is difficult, communication with people who are different is sometimes trying. By being open, by looking at ways to resolve conflicts, and by looking at a frame broader than ourselves, perhaps we can design services that connect people to their cities—and better connect with one another, too.
Required Reading
If it’s linked from here, you’ll find it here in our Box folder: Course readings will be posted on Box and are available to CMU students and faculty.
- This Medium syllabus and the Course Policies below. I will update this syllabus. You should visit it as you prepare for every class session.
- I highly recommend you buy Lara Penin’s book An Introduction to Service Design: Designing the Invisible.
- Other readings on Box or elsewhere on the Internet, week by week
Lecture slides are also on Box.
Our Schedule
Week 1, January 14: Service design overview
1/14: Introduction and 60-minute service design jam
1/16: Service design overview. In time for this class, please read Penin, Chapter 1 & 2.1–2.4 (pp. 20–59) and Chapter 6.3–6.4 (pp. 150–59)
Week 2, January 21: Collaboration and change
1/21: No class, MLK Holiday
1/23: Cheryl Dahle, Distinguished Adjunct of Professional Practice. In-class workshop [NOTE: due to canceled flight, rescheduled for January 30]
Week 3, January 28: Blueprints | civic design
1/28: We’ll look at service blueprints and other tools of service design. Please read Penin, p. 216–225, and leaf through the Practical Service Blueprinting Guide.
1/30: Cheryl Dahle workshop (rescheduled to here)
Week 4, February 4: Team Adventure!
You will complete the Collab U module on Canvas. Then, you will get together with your team for a breakfast, an experience of your own design, and you’ll build a team manifesto. You’ll tell the story of your experience how you choose (words, photos, drawings, video)—it’s up to you. Embrace the morning. Class will not meet (Molly speaks at Interaction 19) but you should use the two class periods for your adventure and manifesto.
Week 5–6, February 11, 13 & 18: Civic design and case study
M, 2/11: Civic design & service design and sharing your manifestos/stories; 2/13: In-class team work day
- Share your Team Adventure manifesto & experience in class
- Please read Penin, chapters 4–5. We’ll be talking about examples of civic design and you’ll be assigned a case study.
Case study assignment
You’ll be given a service to study and share with the class. On Monday, 2/18, tell us the story about this service. You’ll have seven minutes to describe the following:
- A description of service, who funds it, and what it exchanges. If it’s a different country, what country? Which parts of the government?
- A map of its stakeholders and audiences and the value flow
- A high-level blueprint (showing backstage and frontstage, lines of visibility)
- The challenges it faces & future plans (where apparent)
You will want to create slides to accompany your talk. Everybody should speak in your presentation.
- Watch: If you didn’t get a chance see Bryan Boyer’s lecture in November, watch the video at left. Bryan is a strategic design and principal of Dash Marshall. He was a source of knowledge and inspiration in the design of this service design class.
2/20: Career unclass. Many of you have the Confluence fair on the brain. In this class, we’ll talk about careers in service design (or more broadly, in design). You will define what we discuss and convene your own groups. You might review portfolios, practice your introductions, discuss careers, talk about design pathways for non-designers—it’s up to you.
Sprints: Me -> We -> City
You’ll engage in three service design sprints in this class, in which you’ll do some design research (interviews, story collecting, analysis & pattern finding), brainstorming, some mapping and blueprinting, and some prototyping/testing. We will start many of these exercises as in-class workshops but you may need to meet outside of class to complete your work. Each sprint can build on the successful parts of what precedes it, expanding the scope. You’ll start with designing for an individual, then a more collective “we,” and then finally, the city. There will be additional readings, speakers, and possibly field trips to support you in each sprint, so watch this space. (I’ll alert you in class, too.) Your team will have a Medium page that collects the work you’ve done for each assignment (team collaboration/manifesto, the sprints, and the deliverables of your shares.)
Week 7–8, Sprint 1: Me: Exploring services for personal transformation
2/25, 2/27, 3/4 & 3/6 (class share). Not you—learn about an individual at their level. You’ll generate ideas, and brainstorm service concepts, and expressing your stories as scenarios you’ll share on 3/6. You’ll be producing a lot of sketches but not seeing things through to touchpoint prototypes.
2/25:
Start with individual personal transformation stories. Write and draw on index cards. (10 minutes)
Share with group.
- What are the story arcs that you see in everyone’s story?
- What is similar and different between your patterns?
-> What is a story of personal, individual transformation you can tell together? Draw a scenario.
-> Service brainstorm: each group comes up with 50 (yes! 50) ideas for services around personal transformation, no idea too crazy
2/27:
More stories of personal transformation with outside guests
Boil down service ideas and work on service scenario
Before 3/4:
Develop a service scenario that you sketch out and caption that explains what will happen over the course of interacting with your service for personal transformation. Hand in the synopsis before class & come with it ready, we’ll be using it
3/4 Conceptual Mapping workshop with Prof. Wayne Chung. Prof. Wayne Chung will do a special session on conceptual models—he has a great collection of them—and you’ll consider how you might develop a conceptual model for the scenario you shared in class.
- Wayne mentioned the work of Hugh Dubberly. Hugh created a 147-page collection of design processes, shown as conceptual maps for each one. In case you ever thought there was only one way to design, Hugh Dubberly and “How Do You Design?” will challenge that idea.
3/6: Present 2 diagrams and your scenario to the class (no more than 7 minutes, please, so we can get to everyone). Celebrate!
Week 9, Spring Break! No class this week.
Week 10–12, Sprint 2: We
The “We” sprint
Where the Me sprint was about service concepts for personal transformation, the We sprint will explore how we come together. You will design non-digital experiences in the form of face-to-face gatherings as the primary touchpoint of your service.
That means that your touchpoint prototypes will be of a non-digital service experience, whether for 2 people or 50 people (or anything in between). It is possible that your service will have other digital touchpoints, but your focus here should be on the value exchanges, the way the service unfolds over time, and most importantly, the face-to-face experience of your gathering.
We’ve already seen one example of a service that brings people together on our field trip to the Conflict Lab, a space for mediation that aims to change how people connect with each other (as they mediate divorces, family trusts, or employment disputes). You’ll remember the work that Conflict Lab founder Selina Shultz put into designing her space. What would you need to put into your gathering? How would you set up space? How might this impact how we think of services?
We will have a couple of short readings that will help you to think through this question that you will need to complete.
To complete:
- a high-level service blueprint
- a prototype of a non-digital touchpoint (that you will share through whatever media is necessary to bring it to life: photographs, drawings, video, Keynote/PowerPoint, physical props, in person experiences). You will need to engage in bodystorming, role-playing, and some old-fashioned trying things out to bring your concept to life.
- a group presentation, in which every member speaks and you don’t exceed 7 minutes
(And for those of you who are more digitally engaged, never fear: in the following City sprint, you’ll have a chance to extend your blueprints and design digital and non-digital touchpoints both for your service.)
Week 10: 3/18–20
M: Introduction of the We sprint.
- Brainstorm and discussion: Where do we gather? Why? How do we feel? And why?
- Re-engage and revisit your concepts from the Me sprint. Do you want to carry them forward? What would you like to take ahead?
- HOMEWORK: Read Chapter 1 from The Art of Gathering.
W: Cheryl Dahle is visiting the class. Discussion on conflict mapping and Future of Fish
Week 11: 3/25–27
HOMEWORK FOR MONDAY: review Practical Service Blueprinting guide
M: Blueprinting workshop
W: ConflictU exercise in class and ongoing work on service concepts for planning touchpoint prototype.
Week 12: 4/1–4/3
HOMEWORK: Servicescapes article
M: Touchpoint work
W: Presentations of all groups with outside visitors, max 7 minutes.
Week 13–15, Sprint 3: City
In the City sprint, you’re building on what you’ve learned and explored in your Me and We sprints, as you extend to the scale of a neighborhood in Pittsburgh. This will be your most cohesive sprint, with stakeholder maps, a blueprint, at least one touchpoint prototype, and a story that you’ll tell (a photo/sketched/drawn or video narrative). As you progress, you will move back and forth, zooming in and zooming out of the details of your service. You may wish to go back to the neighborhood you wish to explore.
Please update your Medium page for this sprint by Saturday night each week.
Week 13: Bryan Boyer of Dash Marshall will be with us.
4/8: Pittsburgh issues and haikus. How do you zoom in? How might a haiku help?
4/10: You’ll take your issue (or another Pittsburgh issue) and engage on your own in a stakeholder analysis exercise (click the link for instructions, but loosely):
- Create a list of stakeholder groups.
- Map the list on a grid (horizontal: interest, vertical: power)
- Develop a strategy that starts by asking these questions: How would you engage with these stakeholders? What would you need to ask? Who’s responsible for what, and when? What would be your first and second priority in engaging with these stakeholders?
You can do this exercise on a whiteboard or desk with Post-It notes. Please photograph it and bring it to class on a printout.
Week 14: Explore a neighborhood.
4/15 (to document and share out):
Choose a neighborhood that is not Shadyside or Oakland: you might consider Lawrenceville (Butler), Bloomfield (Liberty Avenue), Allentown (E. Warrington), South Side (Carson Street) … or even Millvale… or whatever you might suggest… and walk a few blocks of the business district. What do you see? What are the doors like? The windows? The awnings? What kind of businesses are there? Where do people come together? Is there a laundromat? A funeral home? Are there teens? Older people? Families? What possibilities are there for people coming together in public space? Are people on their phones? With friends? Is it different at 10 am vs. 5 pm?
[Please note: we want you to take an opportunity to meet a different neighborhood in the city. Squirrel Hill is wonderful, but we’re leaving it off this list because you’re probably familiar with it already.]
You will document your outing on Medium.com. Use photos and video. We’ll do a quick shareback with everyone to hear about your explorations. What did you learn from the issues we discussed with Bryan Boyer and from the outing that you did? What ideas does this give you? Might you want to build on ideas you’d explored in your previous groups (this is allowed)? What new directions might you go to explore a services in a Pittsburgh neighborhood?
4/17: Ideation and brainstorming, group work time. You will use the tools you’ve done in your previous two sprints: brainstorming many ideas and then developing Post-It scenarios to give stories to your ideas. (These short scenarios will the rudiments of your blueprint that you will develop over the next two weeks.) Document and post your brainstorm, concept development, and scenarios to Medium so that they’re there by Saturday, 4/20.
Week 15: Jam time
4/22: Stand-up meeting: where are you headed? One-minute informal share with class. Prototyping jam for your touchpoints: We will bring make-tools to spur your imagination.
4/24: More in-class work. You will want to build out your stakeholder map and your blueprints, and you should use the blueprint to help you determine detail in your service.
Week 15: What’s the story?
4/29: Your service’s story: how will you tell the story of your service and put its touchpoints into a narrative? Let us know what you’re thinking in a quick share-back.
TBD: 5/1: Final in-class session: stories and prototypes OR final presentations, to be decided by class vote. Class to determine whether this is final presentations or if they will take place the following week (5/6 or 5/8).
Assignments and grading
Individual participation: 5%
Team collaboration: 10%
- Your manifesto (from the collaboration week) and your ongoing support of your team and teammates
Civic service case study: 10%
Sprints: 65% total
- Sprint 1: 15%
- Sprint 2: 20%
- Sprint 3: 30%
Final share: 10%
Attendance, tardiness and your presence
This is the CMU School of Design attendance policy. Absences of any kind are strongly discouraged as your learning and work will be adversely affected by the information and activities you miss. Be punctual, arriving just before the class start time so we can begin sessions promptly, and stay for the duration of each class. If you are five minutes late or leave class early you will be marked as absent. Three absences may cause your final grade to drop a letter. Six absences may earn you a failing grade for the course. Please schedule doctor’s appointments, interviews, etc. for times other than class sessions. In the event that you encounter a health or life issue that requires you to miss class (such as a physician providing you with instructions that necessitate your quarantine) please notify me as soon as possible to provide an idea of the severity of your illness/issue and the length of time needed for recovery. Keep in mind, you are responsible for information you miss through absences or lateness. (Note: If your illness/issue requires recovery time that exceeds the absence policy for a passing grade, a leave of absence may need to be considered. If this becomes the case consultation with university resources on how best to support you may be necessary.) Please try to schedule job interviews outside of class time, as they will count against your absences. A final presentation will be scheduled for this course the last week of class. Failure to attend and participate in this session may cause your final grade to drop a letter. Please bring academic timing conflicts to my attention as soon as possible and do not make travel plans before verifying the date of the event with me.
Please be courteous
Be present. Listen. Take part. We will have many outside visitors and lectures. You can use laptops in class but stay off social media while during lectures and presentations, whether by me, the TAs, a visitor, a Skype visitor, or your classmates. Do not do work for other classes while you’re in this class. Similarly, stay off your phone: no texting, Snapchat, etc. We will tell you to put your phone or computer away. When your classmates are presenting, close your computers and listen.
Academic integrity
The point of this class is to develop and situate your own ideas in a broader discourse — and in order to do that properly, you need to cite your work. No form of academic dishonesty will be tolerated. I can’t emphasize this enough: you will fail assignments or possibly the class as a whole. When you use words, images, videos — even ideas and thoughts that are not yours and that you do not credit or properly cite, you are guilty of plagiarism. Do not cut and paste from other sources, even into your own notes, without keeping some system that tells you exactly where your work came from. Do not take the work of other designers or other students and pass it off as your own. When you document your project, when you make presentations, when you put things on slides, you must give credit. CMU’s policies are available here for your review. Please ask me if you have questions.
Take care of yourself
Remember that we — your professors and your classmates alike — want you to succeed and thrive. Stress is real. Emotions are real. Depression is real.
Please take care of yourself. Do your best to maintain a healthy lifestyle this semester by eating well, exercising, avoiding drugs and alcohol, getting enough sleep and taking some time to relax. This will help you achieve your goals and cope with stress. All of us benefit from support during times of struggle. You are not alone. There are many helpful resources available on campus and an important part of the college experience is learning how to ask for help. Asking for support sooner rather than later is often helpful. If you or anyone you know experiences any academic stress, difficult life events, or feelings like anxiety or depression, we strongly encourage you to seek support. Counseling and Psychological Services (CaPS) is here to help: call 412–268–2922 and visit their website at http://www.cmu.edu/counseling/. Consider reaching out to a friend, faculty or family member you trust for help getting connected to the support that can help.
