think carrie, think!

So, it seems wordle.net has been gaining popularity as I’ve been making my way through my design blogs this past month. I’ll join in on this game!

My blog, wordle-d:

Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. Although the ‘relaxing’ threw me off at first.

My thesis paper, wordle-d:

Okay so fine, I talk about service… a lot. Everywhere. But this is a pretty accurate description of my thesis paper, if you cut it up into words.

On other thesis paper news, I will be speaking at the 6th Design and Emotion Conference this October in Hong Kong. I will be presenting a shortened version of my thesis paper, highlighting the main strengths that classical music has to offer in helping strengthen the field of service design. While the idea of spending 14 hours alone on a plane doesn’t particularly make me jump for joy, I’m really excited at the opportunity to present some more of my theoretical work at a public venue. All of the talks I’ve given so far have really been more practical in nature, and this should be a good mix-up for me. Thank you to the School of Design and Nokia for making this happen.

Anyway, all this visualization of my thoughts and writings has got me thinking. While I hope that I can put my service design knowledge to good use at Nokia, I am really excited to be dabbling in areas that are outside my ’service design’ zone. I am definitely interested in mobile device concepts and the idea of mobility itself, in sustainability and ethical dilemmas, and in the globalization of products and services. I wish I could write more about these but I don’t know enough about it yet to contribute anything really meaningful. So hopefully as I step out and expand more of my design knowledge, I’ll be able to write more about the connection of service design to these various issues.

What a great field we designers are in today. We seem to like to use all facets of human knoweldge and capabilities: from century old psychology, to new theoretical ideas, to the more practical applications, to the use of kindergarten tools (pipe cleaners, markers, and playdough!), to using space-age innovative mindsets… all this knowledge and open-mindedness inform designs and ideas that have the possibility of affecting millions of experiences people have around the world each day. Oh, and as an added bonus, whatever we make or think of is usually pretty easy on the eyes (and brain) too. Pretty neat.

I seem to have nothing but updates to post lately. That’s what happens when you get out of school and relax for a month. I have had plenty of things to blog about other than updates, but when I have free to time to write, somehow it seems more enjoyable to spend it outside, in the sun, roasting marshmallows, rather than sitting in front of my computer blogging…

Anyway, I suppose this update is a pretty big one. I got a job! I recently accepted an offer with Nokia as an Interaction Designer in their new design office in San Francisco. I am really excited to be joining the group and the company and can’t wait to see what sorts of work, challenges, and excitement will come in being part of a brand new office.

I will be starting at Nokia in mid-September. To all my friends: please come visit me now that I’ll be out of Pittsburgh! ;)

(P.S. If anyone is interested, I was interviewed by Jeff Howard regarding my Master’s thesis project. Read it here.)

I’ve graduated! Two years of projects, classes, clients, tiredness, fun, and general smartness have resulted in another giant piece of paper:

I’ll be working a little bit this summer with UPMC doing some entrepreneurial design. But so far all I’ve been doing is relaxing, relaxing, and… more relaxing (and submitting a paper to Design and Emotion). I can’t really complain. This new vacation period has been pretty awesome.

Now, off to relax a bit more. ;)

Just a short update… I asked my mentor from this summer, Susan Spraragen (who is currently in Paris presenting our work on service blueprinting) what her service design one-liner would be. Here’s what she contributed:

Service design is about creating and taking decisive and deliberate actions that will promote, support, and sustain positive service experiences in order to strengthen provider-customer relationships.

I like the decisive and deliberate part. And especially the part about sustaining positive service experiences. Too often designers are asked to provide quick, band-aid solutions that may help in the short run; not provide solutions that will work in the long run.

The issue of sustainability is an interesting one. We’ve been discussing it a lot in my Designing for Management and Organizational Change class, in terms of how one would go about teaching/changing/designing an organization so that they can grow and succeed on their own without clinging on to a consultant.

This lead me to think about the issue of sustainability in service design. Especially in regards to my thesis project: how can I design a solution that will allow Children’s Hospital to continue thinking about sustaining the values (family-centered care, control, support) that I’m trying to enforce? Is a well-designed service or system enough to have a service provider convinced to keep practicing good service design? Or is there something more to getting someone clinched to always bettering their service offerings?

Jeff tagged me on this interesting activity… to keep it brief, Marc Fonteijn from 31Volts is starting an experiment to gather thoughts on how people would explain service design using only one line. The point is not necessarily to define service design , but provide examples that could shed light on what service design does. Marc’s one line was this:

When you have 2 coffee shops right next to each other, that each sell the same exact same coffee at the exact same price; Service Design is what makes you walk into the one and not the other.

And Jeff’s was this:

Service designers work with companies and governments to orchestrate their encounters with people.

There are so, so many service design one liners I could think of. But to continue, here’s one of mine:

Service design is not only what makes customers want to take part in a service, but it’s what makes them want to share the great moments they’ve had from a service with their friends and family (and the world, for us bloggers).

I guess there are two major parts to my one liner. First, the “want” part. Great services are those that you are a part of, not simply out of necessity, but out of desire. You know, the services you wouldn’t mind paying a little more for, just because it’s worth it. Second, the “sharing” bit. I suppose this part was partially inspired by my thesis project work at Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital. One of my major goals for the project is to design the service in such a way that, in light of their child being sick, the parents will still want to share the great time they had at the hospital. Great services are those that customers will advocate in the end. This advocating bit is also the last phase in Shelley Evenson’s model of the cycle of experience; she calls it “reverberating”, and I think that’s a pretty good word for it. I’ve tried some services just because so many people have talked about all the good things about them… that reverberation of positive words is something service providers aim for.

My one liner of course doesn’t really fully explain what service design is, but I find myself using it a lot when describing what I do to people who don’t have a design background.

I’m curious to see the results of this experiment. The people I want to tag don’t blog, but I’ll contact them and see if I can post their service design one liners here soon ;)