conference aftermath

Is it possible to feel disturbed, confused and excited (in a good way) all at the same time? This is the mental state a weekend design conference has put me in, as I consider the ideas and conversations that were exchanged over the past 48 hours. The conference was on service design, an emerging genre that no one seems to be able to, or want to for that matter, define. I'm no stranger to the genre since I collaborated on a service design project back in the spring, although at the time, certain parts of the process felt a bit like event planning. I enjoyed that project, but I believe the bulk of my enjoyment came from designing educational experiences and seeing those come to fruition. Would I have enjoyed the service design experience as much had our 'clients' not been teenagers and the subject matter — teaching teens about careers in the visual arts — been so personally gratifying? I'm not sure. Which takes me back to feeling confused, so let's start there.

I'm confused about who should be practicing service design. Certainly, designers bring an onslaught of skills to the table. Here are several mentioned by conference speakers:

The ability to see the whole picture.
A human-centered approach.
The ability to formulate a message.
The ability to observe.
The ability to visualize solutions.

But is it arrogant to think that we're the only discipline cabable of making decent observations and visualizing change? What about integrated marketing experts, consulting firms and communication specialists? Are the techniques of service design so incredibly novel and unique that no other discipline has knowledge of them? Maybe, for now. At least that's what I've gathered from listening to service design experts the past couple of days. The other disciplines are beginning to catch on and according to at least one of the presenters today, that's a good thing, for positive and somewhat discouraging reasons. It's great because once it does catch on across disciplines, there won't be just a fraction of companies employing the tactic. Customers (us!) will all be served better, products will be designed better, the world will run smoother. This is exciting! Sadly, we need it to catch on among other disciplines because the discipline of design "hasn't been particularly clever in their business practices in the past. If we want the idea of service design to survive, perhaps we should hand it off to another discipline such as marketing." (speaker from Live/Work studio)

But back to this idea of service design in general. Isn't this all just good customer service and competent management and business practice? Those things certainly play a role. But considerations to service design make for a more holistic approach and address things like designing systems where employees are inspired and have a great awareness of the consumer/customer. I think many businesses, especially ones created more recently are perhaps not as in need of service design renovations as older, established businesses who are trudging along, doing things the way they've always been done. There weren't many case studies talked about during the conference, which was unfortunate, but of the few that were, one interesting example was an evaluation of, and recommendations for a hospital's rapid response teams and nursing staff. After thorough observations, the service design team was able to identify and code breakdowns with the hospitals response process. Since the group doing the evaluations were designers, they were able to visualize to the client through incredibly elegant diagrams where these breakdowns occured, along with the frequency and the type of breakdown it was. They will also be able to effectively create visual representations of possible solutions, whether those solutions be new structures within personnel or a prototype for some type of technology that will improve work flow. So why wouldn't a consulting firm identify the problem and then hire a design firm to create the artifacts that communicate the message of the problem to the client? I suppose that could work, but it's always good when the deliverers of a message have done the research themselves. As an information graphics creator, we always gathered our data and did research ourselves which made for much richer content. Ultimately regarding whose role is service design, it was suggested at the conference that collaboration is the answer.

But what about design's connection to art? As someone said yesterday, which was reiterated by the keynote speaker today, "design's link to art is getting more tenuous." I can imagine this is disturbing to some since it is disturbing to me. I went into design because I enjoy making things. Tangible things that other people see and appreciate. Would I be satisfied designing intangible processes that in their most successful rendition are not seen at all? Will I be looked down upon if I want to continue creating things? In our graduate seminar class last week we spoke about a trend in contemporary art where artists employ other artists to create their ideas. Also, that there's a sense of hierarchy and that the artists who still want to paint, sculpt and create tangible things could be considered by some to be lower on the intellectual food chain. Is this the direction design is headed? Will the 'graphic designers' of today become the production artists of tomorrow?

Our keynote speaker said very decidedly that graphic design and industrial design WERE important genres of design in the first half of the 20th century, but taking their place are service and interaction design (among others). I don't deny these are hugely important and fascinating fields. But will a whole generation of designers want to stop creating beautiful and meaningful visuals that can impact people's lives in order to create beautiful, yet unseen, processes and structures that can impact people's lives? The verdict's still out for me.