Head of Department
Savonia University of Applied Sciences
Kuopio, Finland
1. In your view, how is your research/work related to Service Design?
For the past 10 years I have been working in different social design projects: developing craft production in Lapland, Namibia, Caucasus area with EU and World Bank funding. Lately I have been working to innovate service based products related to tourism industry linking tourism with the creative industries.
My research work took a new direction when I started to work in autumn 2007 in a new research project called “Experiencing Wellbeing – New Service Platforms and Mobile User Interfaces for Leisure” funded by Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation. During this project I have been focusing my research on developing service design methods to be applied with technology-based and service businesses. This research project has been extremely interesting, allowing me to go deeper in the world of service design and opening up soon new possibilities for research as the project progresses.
2. In your view, what is the most/less interesting aspect of Service Design?
I think that the most interesting aspect of Service Design is its user orientation and the possibility to innovate both through the development of new kind of service products and service models; exploring for example how services can be co-produced within the user community. As a researcher and as a designer, I’m enjoying the possibility to develop and reflect on new methods to work with users and to visualize and reflect on the design process itself. This user orientation is a key ingredient for Service Design to deal with relevant contemporary social issues.
3. Can you tell us about a Service Design research project(s) you did or read about?
I’m currently working in a two year research project called “Experiencing Wellbeing – New Service Platforms and Mobile User Interfaces for Leisure”. The aim of the project is to develop service design methods to generate new solutions to enhance wellbeing, developing product applications with companies such as Hudle Oyj, Nokia Oyj, Kunnonpaikka and Kuopio Tourism, and developing Service Design capabilities for the Region. We have developed four product applications and tested prototypes of the services. You can learn more about these cases reading the publication: Designing Services with Innovative Methods. The business cases outcome are still confidential but we have developed new tools and knowledge that revealed to be critical for our Region and SMEs. Our next task is to produce a working book on Service Design in Finnish language to be used by SMEs and public instititions.
4. Are there area(s) that you would like to do or see research on?
I’m working on a research proposal on service design to generate new models for Public Services in our Region. In this research area I would like to co-operate with organizations and researchers that have been already involved in these kind of projects. My main interest is on how to develop new ways to produce services that can benefit the society while enhancing personal wellbeing. For this reason I am interested to connect Service Design with the existing area of Social Design.
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Your suggestions for the blog:
Who would you like to invite in this conversation about Service Design Research?
I would like invite Aare van Oosterom from Designthinkers. I think it’s good to include doers from the field to the academic discussions.
I recommend also to link with REDJOTTER
What is the question do you have about Service Design?
My concern is that we recognize our common roots in Design Research and have enough space for free thinking instead of relying on very specific definitions. How do we manage to maintain this openness?