Confessions of a Service Design Researcher

Research is the new design. Tamsin Smith from Engine. This will be interesting!

[Paraphrasing] Research is rigged because of environment or parameters set for research.

Tamsin is giving an interesting talk - last afternoon definitely best part of conference content-wise.

Confession 3: Research is designed. (to build up trust, etc.)

Research is carefully choreographed. Every researcher has a bag of props. (gets out horn and "bullshit detector").

Use LEGO as desktop prototyping tool.

Controlling dynamics doesn't always go as planned.

Research for dining service on ferries ended up with everyone seasick because of storm. And they drink a lot.

We like to use paper rather than digital tools to capture insights -- paper cutouts, sketchbooks, etc.

The secret is in the synthesis. That's the real USP of the service designer.

It's not easy, there's no magic, it's not that clear, but there is a structure and we need to expose this more.

Customer journey map is my desert island tool.

At the back of every notebook I have a customer journey map.

You can use customer journey map to restrospectively map your own projects and learn from failure.

Interesting to see Tamsin Smith use Twitter posts as quotes/citations in her presentation.

Tamsin Smith (@tamsina) showing iPhone app, Beta Ethnography that allows for field upload of tagged material.

Have a digital and analogue backup - I've got through three iPhones.

Confession 5: Design is the new research. [Is this not Donald Schön?]

Part of being a design researcher is about be open and sharing your skills. Building capability.

Co-creation is an ideology, and it needs a leader. The leader should be a designer.