“Hi, my name is Lisa and I’ve started to study Service Innovation and Design at the Laurea University of Applied Sciences.” Lisa is walking in a lobby and sees other students. “Hi guys, is there anyone who likes yellow color and drinks apple juice?”

“Hi Lisa, we’re also students in SID program and we’re happy to support you and collaborate with you. And btw I like yellow color.”

“Oh, that sounds wonderful. Thank you so much.”

“No, problem, we’ll be here for you.”

Check what happens to Lisa next

 

Storytelling identifies key stakeholders, their needs and the big idea. Our team’s story was about Studying in Laurea UAS. It’s an inspiring way to familiarize with your stakeholders emotions. And the most important we had so much fun in our group during the process!

As Chris Rockwell says in his article “The Mathematics of Brand Satisfaction” (Lockwood 2010) that what matters is the interplay between expectations and experience. He suggests the designer to use experimental research methods to identify emotional drivers for consumers. Great design itself doesn’t ensure the effectiveness of a brand, he states. He encourages designers to research current experiences and customer aspirations to identify emotive drivers for customers.

Dr. Katja Tschimmel, a German-Portuguese designer and lecturer from Mindshake organized an inspiring workshop for SID students in Laurea. During the two days session she guided some useful tools and methods to use in creative processes. Also in her article (Tschimmel 2012) she mentioned some tools to observe user’s life such as Service Safari (going out to explore service experiences), shadowing user’s life and Self-documentation (the user observes himself and register the observations). I found these methods and tools valuable and inspirational and listed some down here.

Tools for observing and getting empathy

• Personas and Empathy Map
  • Personas is a tool based on fictional characters and shows the target group’s insights of experiences.
  • The Empathy Map is a visual tool to organize the information got from Personas and through observation and interviews.

Tools for Idea Generation and Experimentation

• Brainwriting and Brainsketching
  • Brainstorming is an idea generation session without discussing or thinking the ideas.
  • Brainwriting and Brainsketching, present ideas through drawings.
  • The goal is to produce as much ideas as possible in a short time.

• Visual and Semantic Confrontations
  • Thinking of new combinations is one of the main strategies of Design Thinking.
  • Visual Synectics, Forced Relationship and Semantic Intuition are tools which encourage visual and semantic confrontation.

Tools for Elaboration and Development

• Storyboard
  • A series of images to visualize the process and to test a sequence of users’ interactions.

• Rapid Prototyping
  • To create material to help to facilitate conversations with partners, be tested with users, refined, improved and discussed.

Tools for Communicating and Delivering

• Storytelling
  • Sharing a new concept, product or service within a narrative context. Illustrative and easily memorable because it creates an emotional bond with the audience.
  • Can be combined with Role Play or Storyboard to communicate visually.

• Learning experiences/Test
  • Mock-ups and proofs are useful to get feedback from users and customers.
  • The prototype can be launched to try out and to promote feedback before the final commercial launch.
  • In a Role-play staff members interact with customers testing the dynamic of the new service. It’s filmed for later evaluation and improvement.

 

Written by Laura Järveläinen

 

Sources:

Lockwood, Thomas. (2010) Design Thinking. Integrating Innovation, Customer Experience and Brand Value. New York. ISBN 978-1-58115-668-3.

Tschimmel, Katja. (2012). Design Thinking as an effective Toolkit for Innovation. In: Proceedings of the XXIII ISPIM Conference: Action for Innovation: Innovating from Experience. Barcelona. ISBN 978-952-265-243-0.