STBY » design research

Design research in Brazil

Bas Raijmakers — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:06:53 +0000

Geke and Bas are now almost a week in Brazil, travelling across the country visiting friends at our partner company Feel the Future and elsewhere. The vibe in Brazil is different from Europe we feel, in that their is a clear understanding here that the economy needs innovation to spur its growth, and that design has to play a vital role in that growth. In Europe we are more focused on repair at the moment it seems which makes the mood a bit defensive. Companies like Feel The Future, our Brazilian Reach partner, but also architectural practices we visited, show there is a real understanding that design can do much more than just make things. It can help change things by playing a strategic role in innovation.

Brazil seems to be at a tipping point regarding the role design plays in society and the economy. There is a real understanding that it makes a lot of sense to bring different disciplines, such as business people, engineers, marketers, social researchers, architecture and all kinds of designers, together to spur innovation. But at the same time there is not a real understanding nor practical experience of how they would collaborate and make innovation happen. This is where Design Thinking and Service Design come in, and companies like Feel The Future can make a real difference by simply doing these things with brave clients who want to experiment with new ways of working. Good luck to them!

Tonight we will be speaking at N2010 in Curitiba where 5000 (!) design students from all over Brazil have gathered to workshop, discuss and celebrate design as a tool to move their society and economy forward. This is an impressive initiative from students themselves, that we would love to see happen in Europe too. Superfriendly as the Brazilians we meet are, they immediately offered to help if Europeans would take such an initiative. Any students who want to take them up on that offer?

Presentation at N2010 in Brazil STBY Co-founder and Strategy Director Bas Raijmakers will be in...
Presentation at ‘Creatie van Waarde’ On 28 June Bas Raijmakers presented two case studies of...
Reach: Global Design Research Network Reach is an network of highly skilled and experienced companies...

Exhibition at EPIC

Geke — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 12:24:30 +0000

In collaboration with Daijiro Mizuno from the Critical Design Lab at Kyoto University of Art & Design, STBY will be exhibiting results from the Belonging & Belongings project at the EPIC conference in Tokyo from 28 August to 1 September.

Belonging & Belongings is research project with a multi-disciplinary approach. It explores how people express their multiple identities using fashion and communication technologies. What makes people feel they belong to a certain group of people, and how do their belongings (physical and virtual, garments and media) express this belonging?

This project is an international and multi-disciplinary research, initiated by dr Daijiro Mizuno (Critical Design Lab at Kyoto University of Art and Design) and dr Geke van Dijk and dr Bas Raijmakers (STBY design research London/Amsterdam).

Belonging & Belongings As part of our ongoing international research collaboration with Kyoto...
Man + Humanity Masters of Design Eindhoven Over the past academic year Bas has been tutoring at...

Presentation at N2010 in Brazil

Luke — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 08:39:15 +0000

STBY Co-founder and Strategy Director Bas Raijmakers will be in Brazil this July speaking at the N2010 design festival. N2010, or the National Meeting of Students of Design, is this year celebrating its 20th anniversary by returning to Curitiba, the site of the first meeting in 1991. The event brings together students and academics in order to provide a forum for the articulation, exchange, and integration of Brazilian design thinking. Bas will be at the event as a speaker on July 15th.

Design research in Brazil Geke and Bas are now almost a week in Brazil,...
Presentation at ‘Creatie van Waarde’ On 28 June Bas Raijmakers presented two case studies of...
Presentation at Emerce E-Day Geke van Dijk and Julia Leihener (Creation Center Deutche Telekom)...

STBY in Touchpoint

Luke — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 08:35:47 +0000

STBY’s Strategy Director Geke Van Dijk has contributed an article to issue 4 of Touchpoint, the international journal of service design. The issue focuses on links between service design and behavioural change, with a series of articles highlighting how design can function as a tool to influence the behaviour of consumers, employers, and employees.

Geke’s article is a case study of the Charging Up project recently conducted by STBY in conjunction with the Reach network. As this project looked in detail at the motivations and drivers of consumers’ everyday energy usage, it serves as a useful examination of how service design techniques could potentially help influence consumer behaviour.

In the article, Geke explains how one of the main challenges in the study was identifying the trigger point at which consumers began to reconsider their daily routines in regards to energy usage. She also explains how conducting the project in collaboration with the Reach partners provided a comprehensive, truly global account of how energy usage is viewed in different regions.

Issue 4 of Touchpoint is available for purchase through the Service Design Network here.

Charging Up: Energy usage in households around the world Article for Touchpoint 4, the journal of the international Service...
Charging up around the world How do people around the world charge their mobile devices?...
Call for papers on Service Design The academic journal Behaviour and Information Technology has accepted to...

Service Design En Espanol

Luke — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 08:31:40 +0000

Members of STBY’s core team have already had an extensive array of articles relating to service design published in both English and Dutch. This week saw a first however, with the publication of a Spanish language book featuring a chapter from STBY’s Creative Director, Bas Raijmakers.

Bas’ chapter is based on a recent project conducted by STBY which looked at the provision of care services for elderly people. Specifically, Bas addresses the question of how service design can help care organisations adapt their approaches to cope with an ageing population; STBY recently worked with Zuidzorg in the Netherlands to explore the barriers that currently prevent people from accessing care services remotely, as this is one way in which high quality care and support can be provided for large numbers of people.

Publishing articles such as this are one way in which STBY are contributing to the ongoing development of service design theory. Reflecting on what makes each project the company conduct’s a success opens up the nuances of service design methodology to peer review. As the body of literature accompanying the field continues to grow, so does practice in the field become increasingly refined.

Service Design Talks 20/1 On 20 January we will be getting together again to...
Remote services for older people For a consortium of public sector organisations in The Netherlands...
Service Design Thinks Amsterdam Please come along for another evening of presentations and debate...

Living Well in Cornwall

Luke — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:39:05 +0000

STBY were asked by Dott Cornwall – a Design Council body who promote design-led solutions to economic and social problems – to investigate what could be done to support sustainable living in Cornwall. The project initially focused on whether a new ‘Centre for Sustainable Living’ was needed in order to support the transition to sustainability throughout the region. To this end, STBY interviewed 27 carefully selected people – 18 stakeholders and 9 ‘future’ users – before analysing the results with nine key stakeholders in a subsequent workshop.

The field research for this project was done in close collaboration with four design students from University College Falmouth. From the data analysis and the workshop, it emerged quite clearly that a decentralised approach – one that would support the various organisations, initiatives and practices already existing in relation to sustainable living – would be far more useful than building a new centre.

STBY’s research had found that the barriers preventing the spread of sustainable living were primarily issues of visibility, and connectivity. The significant amount of activity concerning sustainability taking place in Cornwall simply wasn’t visible enough (nor accessible enough) to people wanting to make changes in the way they lived and worked. Further to this, the many initiatives and micro-businesses involved in sustainability simply weren’t ‘connected’ enough; a social business culture, built around the idea of sustainable living, would make the setting-up and subsequent growth of these businesses far easier – and a decentralised approach using local social ‘hubs’ was the best way to achieve this according to both STBY’s research and the experts in the workshop.

Based on these insights, STBY were able to co-develop several potential project ideas in a workshop with stakeholders and experts. These were not only backed up by the insight-based foundation established in the research phase, but were presented with a summary of the potential funding streams available to each.

The project was thus able to provide a comprehensive summary of the issues currently affecting the promotion of sustainable living, as well as a series of prototype concepts tailored to the realities of the situation that the research had established.

Helping parents to advise and support Building on the results of a previous study, STBY were...
Remote services for older people For a consortium of public sector organisations in The Netherlands...

Global what?

Geke — Sun, 02 May 2010 16:14:59 +0000

This lovely collage of webcam pictures illustrates what we are going on about all the time: our fantastic network of great design researchers collaborating all around the world! www.globaldesignresearch.com

Reach partners meeting up Our colleagues and friends from Apogee in Hong Kong, Jo...
Reach: Global Design Research Network Reach is an network of highly skilled and experienced companies...
Lovely video! We went to the BFI this weekend for the onedotzero...

Service Experience Lab on mobile internet

Geke — Sat, 01 May 2010 22:00:07 +0000

Together with the Creation Centre of T-Labs (part of Deutsche Telekom in Berlin) STBY organised and facilitated a Service Experience Lab in London. In a full day programme product managers from T-Mobile’s British and German teams interacted with a group of consumers and discussed ideas for the next step in mobile internet services.

The participants had all been asked to do some home work in the form of a diary assignment in advance of the workshop. This material was used to trigger the discussions on the concepts and ideas. Through group assignments and plenary discussions a wide range of aspects were explored and further elaborated.

The day after the Service Experience Lab all the documented materials were analysed by STBY and the client team. This is an excellent way to continue and further refine discussions that started during the research session. In the following days STBY completed a full report on the process and results of the Service Experience Lab.

Service Experience Lab Immerse yourself in the service experiences of your customers and...
User-Centered Design across development stages For the University of Amsterdam STBY facilitated a series of...
Co-creating education In the early stages of developing a new international master...

Service Experience Lab

Geke — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 10:01:48 +0000

Immerse yourself in the service experiences of your customers and identify new opportunities for innovation. In a bespoke one-day programme we facilitate an lively encounter between your team and some consumers from your target group. Through a series of well-prepared interactive assignments the participants explore the day to day service experiences of your customers. Your team will be able to closely observe these experiences and build up a deeper understanding of motivations, barriers and unmet needs by engaging in empathic conversations with your customers.

Our studios in central London and central Amsterdam are perfectly situated to host these Service Experience Labs. In London we are close to Liverpool Street station, so easy to reach. And in the immediate surrounding of both an upmarket business environment and a buzzing creative area. In Amsterdam we are at Vijzelstraat in the canal area,easy to reach from Centraal Station, with many buzzing streets and venues around. In particular for consumer related services this gives plenty of opportunities for service safaris with telling real-life service experiences! Of course we can also talk to and work with your customers in our studios or at your location.

The Service Experience Labs are very suitable for teams that wish to familiarise themselves with the service design approach of engaging with customers in an early stage of innovation projects. In a full-day programme we facilitate an exploration of the essential stages of immersion, insight creation and idea generation. The programme will be customised to fit the objectives and prior knowledge of your team members.

Service Experience Lab on mobile internet Together with the Creation Centre of T-Labs (part of Deutsche...
Launch AMSI – Amsterdam Centre for Service Innovation On 3 September an ambitious new centre for Service Innovation...
User-led service opportunities for Sony In close collaboration with Radarstation, STBY conducted a qualitative consumer...

Charging up around the world

Geke — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:15:14 +0000

How do people around the world charge their mobile devices? How do they use electricity in their households, and how do they think about their energy usage? Together with all the partners in the Reach network (www.globaldesignresearch.com) we did a global study on this topic. The fieldwork, consisting of home visits to a wide variety of consumers and households, took place in 10 countries: Brazil, China, Denmark, France, Hungary, India, Japan, The Netherlands, Spain and the USA.

In the analysis striking similarities and differences between cultures have emerged. Based on the outcomes of this study we have jointly developed consumer insights relating to various markets. We have been invited by several large companies (utilities, transport, consumer appliances) to present and discuss opportunities for services innovations that can take inspiration from this.

Charging Up: Energy usage in households around the world Article for Touchpoint 4, the journal of the international Service...
Personas to inform and inspire service innovation In a follow-up project to the early explorations in 2009,...
Living Well in Cornwall STBY were asked by Dott Cornwall - a Design Council...