Co-creation in Service Design

March 30, 2009 in people, techniques

Ben Fullerton has an article out in the March/April issue of Interactions magazine on Co-creation in Service Design [PDF 92K]. It focuses on the “Make It Work” project for the Sunderland City Council and live|work’s efforts to collaborate on the design of a program for the long-term unemployed.

Genius design may well work for something that will be built—whether software, hardware, furniture, an environment, or any other tangible form our design might take. But how well does it work when we design for less tangible experiences? If there is nothing that can be seen, touched, or used that clearly embodies the whim of the designer, how does the role of the designer change?

Formerly a designer at live|work, Ben has been active in evangelizing service design here in the States, speaking at the Berkeley iSchool and Adaptive Path, facilitating workshops and recording a podcast with Jennifer Bove.

Update: The link to the article seems to have expired so I’ve archived it as a PDF and updated the post.