Co-creation in Service Design; a master’s study on how to achieve sustainable services

Abstract

n today’s society, services are growing into complex systems that may not always respond to the needs of the people using them. Therefore, the discipline of service design is now often used as a source to find gaps in systems and processes. With the use of different methods to view a service as a whole, from the perspectives of the people using the service, designers have the ability to facilitate the creation of new and improved solutions. However, there are various kinds of services and therefore there is a need to study different approaches of working as a designer.

This paper contributes to that by investigating how to involve people using the service in the design process, in order to create innovative and optimised solutions. The paper is based on the following research question: How to achieve sustainable solutions by co-creation in service design? The research design was the method triangulation, with empirical data from lectures and interviews with three different designers; Anna Kirah, psychologist and design anthropologist, Emilie Strømmen Olsen, service designer at Designit, and Christin Mørch, ux-designer at Altinn. The findings showed how involving the people as co-creators throughout the process will provide a more sustainable solution, since the ideas are generated together with the people that are experts on their fields, and the solutions are based upon their true needs. This paper emphasise how co-creation contributes to implementing people’s values when designing services, raising awareness for designers concerning how to create sustainable solutions and thus provide knowledge on how to prepare students with substantial tools in design education.