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Framing Education as a Complex Service System: A Structured and Multidimensional Framework Through the Service Design Lens
No full textThis article explores the application of service design principles to higher education, positioning universities as complex service systems that extend beyond the academic realm. The goal is to propose a structured framework highlighting service design\u27s role in enhancing pedagogical practices, optimizing support systems, and fostering collaborations between universities and society. Through a comparative analysis of existing frameworks, the study identifies commonalities and gaps, creating a positioning matrix that visually represents the relationships. The research identifies four key quadrants: (i) Learning Services, (ii) Services for Learning, (iii) Services for Educational Infrastructure, and (iv) Educational Interaction Services. The findings emphasize that recognizing higher education as a complex service system is essential for understanding its broader influence on economic development, innovation, and social justice. We also highlight that the proposed matrix can be a starting point for educators, administrators, policymakers, and service design professionals to apply service design concepts more effectively in educational contexts
Reframing evaluation and “frameworks”: Reflecting, learning and adapting practices of social change
No full textEvaluation is a double-edged sword. For those invested in social change, it is vital to evaluate the process and impact of designing. However, traditional positivist approaches can risk harm by magnifying power through the instruments and mechanisms of evaluation, especially when Global North models are unthinkingly applied in the Global South. What is deemed valuable to know – without asking what matters to whom, how, where and when – is an ethical and political concern as it ignores how people are variously situated. This paper argues for building evaluative capacities otherwise. It shares key insights by tracing how an evaluative “framework” was initially codesigned, then iterated and adapted through a transcultural mentoring program for and with women in Australasia. We refrain from emphasising the “framework” but show how it changed as we changed. In so doing, we show ways to foster ongoing adaptation and reflexivity, to catalyse collective evaluative practices as participatory codesign
The pen is a mighty service design tool
No full textWriting has received limited attention in service design research, practice and education. Meanwhile, writing is intertwined in everything we do. This study advocates for a greater focus on writing, arguing that this will strengthen the field of service design. Also, text is identified as service design material. Creative writing is pinpointed as an area from which service design can learn. The overall study draws on learnings from exploring 40 creative writing methods in 22 sessions with service design students and practitioners. This paper zooms in on four sessions, and explorations of the methods Automatic writing and Shitty first drafts. The sessions indicate how creative writing methods can change people’s perceptions of writing, making them more comfortable with writing. This, I argue is a prerequisite for developing stronger writing skills
Exploring How Fab Lab Machines and Personal Digital Data Inform One Another in Shaping Physicalization Practices
No full textIn an era where personal digital data permeates every aspect of life, fostering critical and creative engagement with its collection, interpretation, and representation has become increasingly essential. Moving beyond the traditional purpose of data physicalization, this paper explores how gestures, materials, and machines involved in physicalising data can actively reshape the understanding and representation of personal digital data and related collection practices. A one-week workshop with tools and techniques commonly employed in fabrication laboratories (fab labs), such as laser cutters and 3D printers, provided the occasion to reflect on how the act of making, as well as the dynamic interactions among data, tools, and materials, can uncover new insights and challenge established notions on the meaning and choice of representation. Based on the work of eleven participants from design and architecture backgrounds, we identify and describe five distinct approaches that highlight the potential of fabrication processes to expand traditional views on data understanding and representation. We observe a dynamic, iterative relationship between the data’s nature and origin and the tools or materials used for representation, with each continuously influencing the other. This interplay not only deepens the meaning embedded in the artifact but also supports the idea that shifting from static to generative and iterative forms of making can foster a critical rethinking of data collection and interpretation practices
Exploring affective dimensions of the ecological crisis in design: a reflective manifesto writing workshop
No full textThis workshop aims to bring together members from the NORDES community interested in work relating to environmental urgency, regenerative practices and the affective dimensions of design. Participants will collectively reflect on the affective dimensions of their design practice when engaging with ecological/sustainability transitions and explore the values in which they root their designerly practice. Through engaging with the relationality between the breadth of angles from which participants might understand the troubling experiences they encounter in this context, this workshop aims to bring participants to draw from their experiences and the epistemologies they work with to craft a Manifesto regarding the affective dimensions of design practice in the context of the ecological transition
Poetic engagements with technology: An alternative design space for embracing vulnerable human nature
No full textIf sensitive and fraught aspects of human experience are to be brought into design, an alternative design space is needed to build human-technology relations beyond problem-solving approaches. This paper describes a series of research through design projects embracing vulnerable human nature, arriving at an articulation of what poetic engagements with technology can be like. Through unfolding a more than decade-long design experimentation, this work aims at reimagining our current technologies and how we engage with them. Each design exploration mediates poetic interaction possibilities through expressiveness, feltness, and mediativeness in designing technology. These poetic qualities encourage people to rediscover their humanity, reconnect to their authentic selves, and reopen social connections
Resisting Rationality and designing for being: in place, in time, and in networks
No full textThis exploratory paper is a critique to rationalistic driven design practices that excludes voices and damages the planet we share with other beings. Rationalism is implicated in the unprecedented climate change the world is suffering, which serves as the backdrop for the paper. The authors propose an alternative approach in a relational design framework of being—in-place, in-time, and in-networks—as a prompt for reflection and opening the views on how design affects its surroundings. Engaging with various scholars, the paper reflects on the necessity for design and designers to slow down, interact, be fully present, engage their senses, respect their surroundings, and strive for understanding. By doing so, we can design for the future within the present, both through and for being
Nurturing technological imagination through material exploration
No full textThis exhibition introduces a tangible, modular toolkit designed for hands-on exploration of both computational and traditional materials, showcasing design possibilities without demanding prior technical skills from participants in co-design processes. Recognizing challenges posed by limited technological experience and age-related changes, we employed a research-through-design approach tailored to older adults and designers working with co-design and co-prototyping. Our toolkit aims to empower diverse participants to discover and modify technological options, fostering their technological imagination in the design process
Participatory storytelling as a relational design practice: The case of the San Vittore Priso
No full textThis paper explores how participatory storytelling functions as a relational design practice within the constraints of a total institution, specifically in the context of San Vittore prison in Milan, Italy. Drawing on two years of fieldwork, we analyze the power dynamics, relational infrastructures, and narrative agency that emerge through Storylab, a participatory storytelling workshop conducted inside the prison. As the workshop cultivates storytelling within a complex relational landscape, we investigate how narratives shape this relational landscape and its inherent power dynamics. We examine the ethical challenges of navigating power asymmetries in total institutions and argue for design research that is situated, responsive, and non-extractive. Our research investigates the potential of participatory storytelling to create lasting narrative infrastructure aimed at community building and developing counter-narratives within constrained institutional settings