Design for Service

Demos and Price Waterhouse Coopers have a report out on public sector codesign efforts in the UK, USA, Europe, Latin America and Asia-Pacific. Making the Most of Collaboration: An International Survey of Public Service Co-design. [PDF 1.1MB]
Key observations:

Public services and governments around the world face pressures from a more demanding public, increasing social complexity and [...]

The March issue of Fast Company has a feature about Alaska Airline’s efforts to redesign its check-in process at the Seattle airport. Despite the earnest “world of tomorrow” vibe in the project name, it’s a pretty good example of service design.

Ed White, [Alaska's VP of corporate real estate] assembled a team of employees from across [...]

The New York Times dining section has an interesting article today on “flavor tripping.” It’s a fantastically pure example of experience design. There’s apparently a West African berry called miracle fruit that alters the body’s sense of taste; making everything taste sweet. People in New York City are paying to attend parties centered around this [...]

Over on the Work Play Experience blog, Adam Lawrence makes a great observation about sequence in service delivery. He recounts an example from his commute. The train attendant walks down the aisle offering coffee to the passengers, but they generally ignore him until it’s too late:

But if you watch the rows behind him, you will [...]

Here’s an interesting example of the honor system applied to payment. Customers add up how much they owe themselves and drop their money into a fare box:

The thought was, someone can pour his own coffee, grab his own bagel, cut it himself, throw the money in, and walk out. We don’t touch 60 per cent [...]

Jason Weisberger reports on an unfortunate attempt at service recovery. Weisberger bought a $5000 camera through Amazon and was disappointed at how the camera was shipped. He complained to the camera store directly and they blew him off. So he gave them negative feedback:

Rude on the phone. Really, Really, poorly packaged. I think they could [...]

Pixar’s Brad Bird shares a nice example of sociopetal design in an interview with McKinsey Quarterly.

Steve Jobs basically designed this building. In the center, he created this big atrium area, which seems initially like a waste of space. The reason he did it was that everybody goes off and works in their individual areas. People [...]

Gerald Buckely writes about his attempts to board an American Airlines flight by scanning a PDF of the boarding pass displayed on his iPhone. I’m amazed they let him try it (Southwest Airlines turned him down) but it worked so there’s the potential for a new co-created touchpoint in airline travel.
[via intuire]

The New York Times has an interview with a social psychologist named Daniel Gilbert who talks about the difference between experiences and products.
Another thing we know from studies is that people tend to take more pleasure in experiences than in things. So if you have “x” amount of dollars to spend on a vacation or [...]

Adam Lawrence reports on a new type of car dealership over on the Work Play Experience blog. Rather than selling cars from a particular manufacturer (Mersedes-Benz, BMW, Volkswagen), they focus on a particular segment of the market:

At familycars.de the concept is far smarter. They sell only family cars — from a bunch of different manufacturers, [...]