Design Research for Service Innovation with Geke van Dijk

Today on Radio Johnny Daniel Szuc speaks with Geke van Dijk about her topics at UX Hong Kong 17 & 18 February 2012. Geke specializes, at STBY, in design research for service innovation. She talks about the move from lab based testing to up front research, the service economy, consistent customer journeys as well as the importance of focusing on empathy when designing for other people.

Quotes

“… we needed to go out and visit people in their places … where they were actually making use of the web sites and mobile apps … we noticed the stories we got … were much broader than just online usage … from the stories and tests we could help our clients much more in the early stages with the concept development by moving it earlier in development the process … but how does it fit in the wider customer journey? Working with design teams, we found the consumer insights we created in the research were very interesting… they always said if we would have known this earlier in the process we could have used it in the concept development … it was quite a deliberate move to do the research earlier on in the design process and go out of the lab into the field and have a wider and strategic view with the client teams as well.”

“Co-production at the moment of truth … when the customer meets that organisation … and in service design one of the key constructs is when that moment is co-created … your customers are constructing the service delivery themselves … you can’t really predict how people are using the services … you need to have an integrated network of services … you need [to understand] the way people are using [your products / services] is [not a fixed process].”

“People are in the service economy and they are using multiple channels to get into touch with organisations … but on the inside of the companies (the service providers) that’s still a big struggle … many organisations are still organised as silos … you have the internet dept, call centre, marketing dept … sometimes they are even competitive with the KPI’s between each other… customers want to move seamlessly from one channel to another and have a consistent customer journey.”

Geke specializes in design research for service innovation. She talks about the move from lab based testing to up front research, the service economy, consistent customer journeys as well as the importance of focusing on empathy when designing for other people.

Notes

* Follow Geke on Twitter @hellogeke
* Learn about others who will be presenting at the second UX Hong Kong conference
* Learn about Geke van Dijk
* Learn about the Global Design Research Network (Reach) –
* Learn about the Service Design Network
* Learn about This is Service Design Thinking: Basics – Tools – Cases