Lab9Kochar


 * //What is the definition of 'service design', and why is it so important?//**

“Today, services represent between 60% and 70% of GDP of most industrialized nations”. This line from the slideshow by Sylvain Cottong demonstrates the reason why service design is so important. Influencing well over half the GDP, the strength of service design and its powerful stance in the marketing world is quite apparent.

Service, while may be thought to only deal with the intangibles, has now over time become an extension to products as well. Therefore, consumers these days base their overall experience on both the product and the services which are attached to it. “The emerging field of service design combines design methods from product design and interaction design for designing the experience of and the interface to services”. While handing a product to a consumer is one thing, providing them with the right interaction system based upon their pre-existing knowledge and background is where service design comes in.

Cell Phones are one of the key examples that come to mind in relation to service design. Nokia, Motorola, LG and Samsung are all cell phone manufacturers that have their own unique interface design. Service design would be the ability of these manufactures to create an interface which is useful, desirable, efficient, effective and valuable. Cell phones would be classified as the “touch points” in relation to service design. Touch points are the tangibles that are dealt with in relation to service design.

Focus on service design is beneficial to all manufacturers, as it reduces costs and promotes individuality. A properly run interface on cell phones will reduce confusion and customer complaints. At the same time, it would increase overall customer satisfaction as they would be able to identify with the interface design. Also, by promoting their own interface design, cell phone manufactures would be able to create their own identity and separate them from other types of service designs.