Our client is in the process of developing a new innovative service proposition in this area. They wanted to obtain feedback from consumers on their early concepts, as well as get a fresh outside perspective that could help them to further develop the concepts and progress them towards implementation.

To expose the concept to many different people in a short period of time, we invited four groups of six reasonably healthy people to our studio to take part in a series of half-day Service Experience Labs. We prepared a set of engaging materials to introduce the concept to the participants, and to engage them in an interactive exploration and discussion.

In contrast to traditional focus groups, the participants in these Service Experience Labs do not just sit around a table and respond to general questions. Through a series of individual and group assignments they were prompted to reflect in detail and in a highly personal way on the consequences that the use of the concept would have on their daily lives. They also compiled a rich personal profile of their current (healthy) lifestyle, indicated the aspects they would like to change, and reflected on the potential use for them of getting support in achieving this.

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STBY recently returned to Heartlands, reprising our role as inclusive design consultants at this large-scale regeneration project in Cornwall. This time we were asked to help design a collaborative workshop to help provoke new thinking on what the future should hold for the project. Organised along the themes of Art, Culture and Society, the event brought together academics, designers, and local stakeholders to look how arts and culture can help include local communities in the design process – and even help strengthen these communities in doing so.

Several conclusions were drawn from this, including the positive role Performance, Storytelling, and Film can all play in facilitating more effective engagement. These were then applied to the next question to be addressed: what can Heartlands learn from prior experience when planning for the future?

Here, the focus was placed upon whether arts and culture could – or even should – continue to make active and forceful contributions to Heartland’s future development. Discussions evolved from the starting point of whether culture is becoming more inherently democratic, moving on to first establish exactly how arts and culture could contribute to the management and programming of Heartlands, before subsequently attempting to frame exactly what such contributions would entail.

These focused, in-depth discussions were designed to provide the Heartlands leadership team with workable opportunities to develop a more democratic approach to their engagement with the public. By generating focused opportunities in an inherently democratic way, it was moreover demonstrated that inclusive design techniques can both facilitate and ideate community involvement.

A more in-depth account of the Creative Conversations event can be found in the final report documenting its findings, a PDF copy of which can be downloaded here. 

1. Videos to Inform and Inspire: Helping Novo Nordisk Design for Diabetes STBY have recently completed a project with the Danish pharmaceutical...

How can people in the U.S. live a sustainable lifestyle? That’s the question STBY recently tried to answer during a project with the Reach Network commissioned by Panasonic. Any company developing products for the ‘Eco Aware’ has to first gain an understanding of the lifestyles such consumers need. The plurality of approaches and attitudes that invariably exist towards sustainable living complicates the matter of how people react to green products. Exploring these differences allows companies to develop products that more effectively support people’s efforts to live their lives in an environmentally conscious way.

With this in mind, Panasonic asked STBY to design an ethnographic research project that would deliver inspiring insights into sustainable living in the U.S. The approach we took was to create a series of design documentaries, thus providing an empathic link to those people trying to live in a sustainable manner. By visiting a number of such people in their home, we were able to create videos that communicated a range of intimate insights into their lives and opinions, telling their stories in a way that could both inform and inspire.

To add structure to these stories, we worked with Panasonic to develop a number of cultural probes that could be used during our home visits. These prompted the participants into asking questions about what aspects of their lifestyle could be better supported by new products and services, thus throwing more light onto the areas of their lives where innovation was most needed.

A series of workshops held with Panasonic and the Stanford University Design Research Lab meanwhile allowed us to help the company integrate these insights into their concepting processes. One of the main goals for the project was to create research materials with long-term applications – to ensure that the insights we captured could be used and re-used, time and again. This understanding of consumers’ practices and motivations could in addition be applied to the work of a wide range of internal departments at Panasonic, from design teams to business model developers.

Working with our Reach partner, Portigal Consulting, allowed us to conduct this project in San Francisco at relatively short notice, and with no logistic difficulties. This project once again demonstrated the strengths of both the design documentary format, and the Reach network itself; combining the two allows us to quickly and effectively communicate empathic insights from almost anywhere in the world.

1. Videos to Inform and Inspire: Helping Novo Nordisk Design for Diabetes STBY have recently completed a project with the Danish pharmaceutical...

To provide for informative as well as inspiring research outputs, we worked with a probe package (sent out to the participants in advance of the interviews) and with a large scale insight map annotating the stages of the decision making process from the perspectives of the various target audiences involved.

A broad range of useful insights have been derived from this first exploratory study – later in the development process more in-depth studies focusing on specific aspects may follow. The collaboration between the various parties involved has also been quite special. In the true spirit of iterative co-creation we regularly got together in workshops, where we exchanged our concurrent insights, ideas and early concepts. Apart from THNK and STBY, Lava is working on the brand identity and visual style, with LBi Lost Boys developing the next release of the online platform. All very experienced and knowledgable experts in their fields, and all a real pleasure to work with.

1. Creative Conversations: Returning to Heartlands to Inspire New Thinking STBY recently returned to Heartlands, reprising our role as inclusive...
2. Stakeholder Research in Food & Retail for Ahold In collaboration with LBi Lost Boys, STBY recently conducted a...
3. Living Sustainably: Exploring Ways Panasonic Can Support Green Living How can people in the U.S. live a sustainable lifestyle?...

The student project was part of the ongoing Belonging & Belongings collaboration between STBY and the Critical Design Lab in Kyoto, Japan. Belonging & Belongings is an international and interdisciplinary design research programme, exploring the interrelationship between technology, society and sartorial appearances.

For the exhibition 25 MA Graphic Design Communication students of Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London, worked on a two week project in December 2010. Five groups of students made a video installation to express the insights they created from their own fieldwork on the Belonging & Belongings topic. In particular they were interested to find out how people enjoy and struggle with the differences they can create between their online and offline identities.

The results are exciting, not only because great insights were created, but also because the stories of these insights are told in new and inspiring ways. This was possible because the students realised they were not mere data-collectors. In stead, they took up the challenge to tell stories. This is important, because even if design research results in great insights, its value will still be low unless these insights are communicated in a compelling way.

Doing design research includes collecting data, and analysing and reflecting on what you have collected. It then results in insights and ultimately knowledge. This however does not mean that the data and the analysis and reflections should remain separate. What the most projects presented here have succeeded in, is using the data to tell engaging stories about the insights and knowledge they have created.

This is the second Belonging and Belongings project of STBY with Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London. The first project in 2009 focused on the magazine as a medium to communicate design research, resulting in 250 printed magazines. The current project explores video installations as a way to communicate design research. With special thanks to Tracey Waller, Course Director MA Graphic Design Communication.

The design research programme of Belonging & Belongings was conceived by three scholars from different backgrounds:

The inclusion of such mixed disciplines in a design research project provokes new approaches to the ways we can understand the complexity of people’s identity in contemporary culture.

For more information on Belonging & Belongings see the project blog.

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Immerse yourself in the service experiences of your customers, identify new opportunities for innovation or discuss your service concept ideas with a sample of lead users.

In a bespoke one- or two-day programme we facilitate a lively encounter between your team and a selection of people from your target group. Through a series of well-prepared interactive assignments the participants explore the current and future 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 very easy to reach, and in the immediate surrounding of both an upmarket business environment and a buzzing creative area. In Amsterdam we are based at Herengracht, within easy reach from Amsterdam Central Station. Both locations have many buzzing streets and venues around, ideal for service safaris and service prototype testing. Of course we can also facilitate service experience labs with your customers at other locations.

The Service Experience Labs are also 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.

1. How to achieve and maintain a healthy lifestyle? This was a question we addressed in one of our...

The workshop demonstrated how visualisation of design research – from the earliest possible stages – is essential in ensuring it plays a strategic role in a company. Bas and Froukje outlined eight rules that need to be followed for this to implemented effectively.

One of these rules was “exhibit visualisations in a workshop”; this allows all people involved in the innovation of services from within a company to be part of the conversation about customers. Those participating at the Haarlem workshop got to experience this first-hand, learning how visual tools (which can be as simple as post-its and stickers) can be used to record interviews about personal routines and motives. The participants all in fact interviewed each other, using a set of stickers to document their findings.

STBY’s recent study on attitudes towards water use conducted with Southern Water was then used to demonstrate the service design outcomes visualisation facilitates. If you’d like to know more about this project, or indeed about how to use visualisation more generally, then drop Bas a line at bas@stby.eu.

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2. Creative Conversations: Returning to Heartlands to Inspire New Thinking STBY recently returned to Heartlands, reprising our role as inclusive...

STBY have worked with Nokia on a series of projects enabling them to gradually align their research and development processes around principles of design research. The latest of these saw STBY prepare and facilitate a collaborative alignment workshop focused on the consumer solutions videos produced by STBY for Nokia in early 2010. The purpose of the 3-day workshop was to help staff from various departments learn how the videos can be used to build empathy with consumers, and ‘road-test’ concepts and services currently in development.

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What should a router look like? That was the question STBY were recently asked by Cisco, who commissioned a project examining consumer attitudes towards the design and colour of their routers.

1. Investigating Written Communication: Working With Reach and Nokia to Find Global Common Ground Do different people in different companies have the same conversations?...
2. Creative Conversations: Returning to Heartlands to Inspire New Thinking STBY recently returned to Heartlands, reprising our role as inclusive...

This is STBY’s workshop, delivered by Bas Raijmakers and Froukje Sleeswijk Visser:

Creative Research for Service Design
Case studies of successful Service Design and Innovation show that they have been informed and inspired by empathic conversations with the people the services are ultimately catering for. These conversations take place throughout the service design process and make use of co-creative, qualitative research methods. In contrast to traditional market or user research, this form of research is firmly embedded in the creative process. As one of the leading specialists in creative research for service design and innovation, STBY will share its experiences with a particularly succesful method: design documentaries.

1. Creative Conversations: Returning to Heartlands to Inspire New Thinking STBY recently returned to Heartlands, reprising our role as inclusive...
2. The Great Outdoors of Design: An Interactive Conference Hosted by Reach These are exciting times here at STBY, as today we...