One of the novel aspects of Service Design is co-creation. Co-creation means working together with people of diverse backgrounds in the design of a service. It’s about drawing the best from everybody involved for the benefit of the service.
Who can be involved in co-creation?
The most standard co-creation exercises will involve members from different departments, for example design, development, and marketing. Co-creation is also very useful when conducted between service creators and sample users. Forbes even talks about the benefit of co-creation between corporate and social sectors.How can we work today?
These tools are all about brainstorming in different ways to stimulate different kinds of thinking in order to find the best solutions. Some of these tools include role playing, affinity diagrams, motivational matrixes, storytelling, and character profiles. You can read more about them in the infographic below.Service Design Co-creation Tools
- Role playing
- Sample users walk through the service, or an example of the service. This is a way to get a more in-depth look at the user journey. It also can show designers possible pains that they might not have thought about otherwise.
- Affinity Diagram
- This tool involves writing the goal or a problem statement on a piece of paper or a sticky-note. Then members of the design team write down their ideas on more notes and organize them around the goal, looking for correlations.
- Motivation Matrix
- In the matrix, you insert each information about each stakeholder: what they give and get from the service. With the matrix, you also see the relationships between each stakeholder and what they give and get from each other.
- Storytelling
- This activity is less about preparation and more about gathering input from the rest of the team. One person will tell the story of how they see the service. Then other members of the team have the opportunity to fill in any blanks.
- Character Profiles
- Profiles are built around fictitious characters. Images and text work together to build their profile. This helps the team imagine how each character moves through the service and visualizes what problems they might have.
