Top learnings from the Service Design Fringe festival; ‘Designing in Times of Uncertainty’
The theme of 2019’s Service Design Fringe festival was ‘Designing in Times of Uncertainty’. This was a chance to gather together to talk through case studies about what more the field of Service design can do to not only create discourse around this subject but facilitate a more ethical and planet-centric approach to design.
Sustainability itself can be a problematic term. It can seem intangible, full of contradictions and hard to attain. But to make sense of ‘sustainability’ it is important to think of it in terms of systems. Everything is interconnected and by developing an awareness of this complexity we can better understand the bigger picture as well as the unintended consequences of what we ‘design.’ It is a quote by Tim Morton that best articulates this complexity:
“Ecology isn’t just about global warming, recycling, solar power and also not just to do with everyday relationships between humans and non-humans. It has to do with love, loss, despair and compassion. It has to do with depression and psychosis. It has to do with amazement, open-mindedness and wonder. It has to do with doubt, confusion and scepticism. It has to do with concepts of space and time. It has to do with delight, beauty ugliness and disgust, irony and pain. It has to do with consciousness and awareness. It has to do with ideology and critique. It has to do with reading and writing. It has to do with race, class and gender. It has to do with sexuality. It has to do with ideas about self and the weird paradoxes of subjectivity. It has to do with society. It has to do with co-existence.”
The Ecological Thought, Harvard Uni Press, 2010
Designers must develop the skill of foresight. Widening the lens, challenging the brief. Without this, we may end up talking to users but still solving the wrong problems. In regards to ‘Uncertainty’ it is actually something designers pride themselves on the most; the ability to turn the seemingly abstract into something tangible. Whilst we may not all have the ‘Service Design’ title we should all feel able and empowered to take on this holistic mindset and bring an ethical, planet-centric approach to everything we do. Here are some of our favourites from the festival:
1.Value Mapping to link business values with customer values
Finding the business case for Service design can be in the benefits of systems mapping and being able to unify teams. Value mapping is a good way to align business goals with design decisions. We heard from Sparks Grove who spoke about how it has been fundamental in finding the sweet spot between the highest value business opportunity and the highest value customer opportunity. By knowing what this is and clearly communicating to teams, a criteria can be put in place to help us make better decisions. These are the levers that, if identified and adjusted correctly can increase or decrease revenue. This activity, if embraced, is something that could replace operations meetings, working closely with the CFO to elevate these priorities to the surface.
2. The power of speculative design
We heard from Method who used speculative design as a strategic decision-making tool for business. Their exhibition, “The Food Assembly” was built to engage the general public and promote debate around the future of food and our agricultural system. By vividly provoking what could be we are better able to work out what it should be. Choosing between a future where food is grown special UV lamp grow boxes, only available to those who can afford them; or one where we have an abundance of food by eating liquid meals which provides all the nutrients we need whilst restoring equality in the world.
3. How to map environmental impact over time
EY Seren has clients that would like to know how their business can be more eco centric. They have created the Iceberg canvas and adjusted the Service Blueprint by adding an environmental layer. STDBY have also created the ‘Green Lean Canvas’ and Environmental cost canvas. Through mapping these teams are better able to show their clients change over time and build sustainability into projects from the outset.
4. The Trello board resource for #Design+Climate community
A break out group of Service designers based at Snook have built a Trello board that is a compendium of resources for designers wanting to tackle the climate problem. With monthly Meet ups they are setting their intentions of how best to adapt their tools/create new tools and encourage discussion within this field.
5. Sustainable web design
Whilst the internet has brought us great efficiency and increased access to information, it is also unfortunately at the cost of an increasing carbon footprint that quite often goes unnoticed. 1 email is now equal to 4 grams of carbon and with a large attachment this could go up to 50 grams of carbon. Online videos now use 80% of global data, the equivalent of 306 million tonnes of Co2. Data centres now produce 0.3% of the world’s co2 emissions, this may not seem like a lot, but it is also at the cost of creating a vast network of submarine cables also using energy to put in place. Green hosting is one way to tackle this use of energy as well as improving the performance of our sites through optimisation and best practice UI and UX design. There are great backend tools in place to measure our digital impact, see Ecograder and Wholegrain Digital.
6. Get your business hat on, do a mini MBA online
To better support business needs and sit at the table take a mini MBA online. By learning their language you’ll be better equipped to translate what you are seeing and thinking into how the business functions.
7. We need to grow the conditions for service design to take root as a practice in the Third Sector
Too often businesses recruit more people rather addressing the underlying systems and foundations. Just like preparing a garden, you can’t grow a plant in compacted soil. It needs to be turned, nurtured, sometimes a year or two before anything grows. In setting the environment up to win, designers can perform at their best, talking about the process and facilitating complicated design solutions. Rebecca Rowden Birch is Lead Service Designer at Girl Guiding, helping girls find their potential.
8. Service design is grounded in user research
Whether designing products for disadvantaged backgrounds or exploring AI for children with Autism, user research is fundamental in any service design project. Observing people in context to understand how users interact with a service will identify pain points and areas where the service can be improved. Witnessing users’ interactions with a service is key because, as Sparks Grove stated, “what people say doesn’t result in their subsequent behaviour”.
9. Better design practices to improve how people access addiction and mental health services
Addaction is one of the UK’s leading drug, alcohol and mental health charities. They wanted to fix the way users contact them for urgent help, smoothing out any efficiencies that would inevitably cause vulnerable people to give up. From changing the internal booking software system to analysing web chat transcripts, we learnt from @EmmaParnell from Snook about taking on a huge challenge by dealing with it in parts.
10. User-centred design to improve trust and bring tailored financial services to disadvantaged people
The Pakistani government gives quarterly grants to women living in poverty. They face long journeys from rural areas and wait longer hours at atms to withdraw this money. At worst, they are intercepted by ‘middle men’ and have some of their money stolen. Ideate Innovation designed a new system using these insights. From clear instructions delivered via voice recording (as many of these women were illiterate), a new digital interface that clearly showed the money they would receive to formal receipts that inspired trust and created a much needed paper trail. This is the first step in improving the cash withdrawal process.
11. Space technology for environmental sustainability
The Satellite Applications Catapult are transforming the way the world uses satellite technology and data. Their workshop demonstrated real application of their technology to the agriculture industry. Like human fingerprints, plants have a special signature which can be used to assess their health and identity the different types of vegetation in the area. Farmers can use this data to deliver precise amounts of chemicals only where they’re needed and better understanding the layout and composition of land to optimise planting. All this information can be accessed at no cost via the catapults online data tools and has the potential for making new products and services with this technology across sustainable development, intelligent transport, access to space and much more.
Other projects and initiatives to be aware of:
Ryman Eco
A typeface designed to minimise the surface area of each letter, reducing the amount of ink used
Tapon club
‘Tampon Club is a remarkably slick example of community self organisation. Founded and maintained by ‘a shadowy cabal of menstruating women’ — core77
Participatory City
“The time has passed when a few influential people could gather in a room to decide what a city will be. Instead, a city’s future is determined by hundreds of actions taken daily by thousands of people based on what they believe about a city’s future and their role in it.”
You’re Doing Great! enables you to create a community of people who can help you get ideas and make decisions for things when you don’t know what to do about them.
#Up Front
How to change the perception of confidence. It does not have to be the ‘American’, ‘strong’, ‘Trump’ we see today. Confidence can also be quiet and soft.
Founded by Lauren Currie OBE
Deutsche Bahn ‘No Need to Fly’
The German Rail campaign Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg called ‘the future of advertising’
Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism
‘We as the world’s business leaders must take action — and rebuild capitalism that works for everyone.
British Antarctic Survey
Clear information about climate change from scientists studying the environment in the Arctic. Running ‘Evidence Safaris’ to better communicate a subject that still sparks denial and debate.
Half House — Chile
An incremental approach to building post earthquake housing in Chile that would keep the area affordable, allowing families to return to their community and improve their homes as and when they could.
Draw Down
Project Drawdown is a world-class research organization that reviews, analyses, and identifies the most viable global climate solutions, and shares these findings with the world.
Department 22
Department 22 is an innovation agency, forecasting and designing future food systems.
We transform global challenges into business opportunities that customers will love.
Sefyll
Involves people in the running, planning and development of the mental health services they use.
FutureCast
Developing the skill of foresight through quality analysis to enable effective strategic decision making. Develop new ideas, insights and business intelligence from your own data with reports, charts and maps.
Collective Intelligence Design Playbook
Tools, tactics and methods to harness the power of people, data and technology to solve global challenges.
LxDA London
The London chapter of IxDA extends the organisation’s mission to “improve the human condition by advancing the discipline of Interaction Design”, through community, sharing, self-organisation and contribution to the practice and development of Interaction Design.
Service Design Days
Let’s redefine human-brand interactions
The Greater Good Studio
Greater Good Studio is a strategic design firm focused on advancing equity. We do this by creating human-centered programs, tools and experiences, and by teaching design to change makers in organisations and communities.
Tom Toro Illustration
Social commentator, provocative cartoonist and writer — just check him out!
ThomasMatthews
Thomas.Matthews is a team of communication designers based in London. We specialise in design solutions for the built environment and social change, focusing on the delivery of good design that is appropriate, sustainable and beautiful.
Open source graphic design
Expensive software doesn’t have to be a blocker for communicating ideas
Submarine cables map
A free resource that shows where the fibre optic cables that connect our internet are placed below sea level around the world.
Sustainable Development Goals
The Sustainable Development Goals are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. The 17 Goals are all interconnected, and in order to leave no one behind, it is important that we achieve them all by 2030.
Regenerative Design
Bill Reed is an internationally recognised practitioner, lecturer, and leading authority in sustainability and regenerative planning, design and implementation.
Donella Meadows: Thinking in Systems a Primer
Thinking in Systems is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem-solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global.
Yellow Stone Park
Wolves are causing a trophic cascade of ecological change, including helping to increase beaver populations and bring back aspen, and vegetation.
The Wicked Company: Is Problem Solving Evolving?
We live in an era of wicked problems. Can your company keep up? Technology and the evolution of the experience economy have created a reality that most companies can’t just buy or work their way into
