Service Design

After the Christmas break our team came back and decided to brainstorm a fresh solution to the problems faced by the library we researched. We decided from the feedback we received after our first presentation that simplicity was key. We also decided to incorporate not only touchpoints that could be physically interacted with, but also some that couldn’t: signage.

Scaling back a bit from our all-encompassing solutions suggested in our first presentation, we highlighted the most pertinent problems faced by the library and work towards solving, or at least minimizing the impact of these.

After much discussion and various suggestions and prototypes, we decided that the two key things to focus on are:

• Alleviating some of the strain on the overworked librarian and
• Helping to foster the already solid community spirit

We asked ourselves ‘what solution could address both of these issues?’ and kept coming back to the idea of a way to give more responsibility to the loyal members of the library so that they could self-organize. This would take some of the strain off the librarian and in doing so, further develop a ‘this is our library’ sentiment among members.

We liked the idea of a ’round-table’ approach, a focal point around which members could gather to interact, share, and organize themselves. Unsurprisingly, given how much we use them in class, we thought the simplistic idea of a whiteboard was a good basis. From this, we decided that an interactive white board that incorporated the best aspects of our previous app/kiosk/PA idea was the way to go. With this device (called ‘OnBoard’) members could find answers to questions, search for and order books, create and view events, and watch educational material. All of these served to alleviate the stress placed on the busy librarian, giving him/her time to do what he/she does best: delighting library members.

Here are some the OnBoard’s key features:

• It’s mobile – it doesn’t take up much of the already limited space and can be moved around to suit the needs of the members/librarians
• It’s easy to implement – One simple but effective device that addresses the most pressing issues of managing the library
• It’s a hub within the hub – Members can gather to use OnBoard together and organize events, make presentations, create art, and self-organize
• It frees up the librarian’s time by allowing users to search for and order books, answer their own questions, and schedule events and visits, all without having to bother the librarian.

We also were tasked with making a video to showcase our process, no mean feat considering that we had only started developing the OnBoard idea with 3 days to spare before the deadline. Given how busy we were during these 3 days, as long as we remember to turn on the camera to record all the things we needed to do, we were confident we’d have plenty of footage to work with in the end.

Our next challenge was trying to bend Adobe Premier to our will. Neither of us had any experience in using it and we worked late into the evening of the final day to cut the video together and find appropriate music to go with it.

All in all, the Total Experience Design project has taught me a lot. Time constraints meant that I couldn’t delve into Service Design as deeply as I would have liked, but even skimming the surface gave me a sense of the complexity of the discipline and the value that mastering the various service design skills can provide to a student who’ll soon be emerging into the jobs market.

Our first presentation showcased our initial idea of a service we believed could benefit the library experience. We introduced two new touchpoints to the service that we felt addressed many of the problems highlighted by our research:

• Limited staff
•  Low seating capacity
• High noise levels
• Under-usage of facilities at key times
• Lack of awareness of library services
• Limited opening hours

The first touchpoint was an app that linked users to their local library network, allowing them to plan and manage their next library visit. The app put local library resources at users’ fingertips, allowing them to book study time, view upcoming events, and to find and choose a library that best suited their particular needs.

The app would have the effect of helping to efficiently utilize the limited seating capacity, help to reduce noise-related frustrations of people who wanted to study/read in silence, and allow users to plan and view events on the go. We saw the combination of all of these features in an app as a way to give added responsibility to the community members with regard to their library, thus freeing up valuable time for the librarian to continue making the library a local social hub for the community.

The second touchpoint suggested was a kiosk that would be placed inside the library. It served a dual purpose: to act as a digital notice board and to allow quick and easy check in/out of people who booked study space. Users could view and suggest upcoming events, view and create services among members, and leave comments, questions, and suggestions for the betterment of the library and the local community at large.

The combination of these two services would be complimented by a Librarian PA that collated data inputted by users. The librarian could see who was booked in for study and when, and could interact with the comments and messages that users would leave on the app or at the kiosk, helping to organize events or offer advice.

The presentation went on to show how two different users might use the new touchpoints and service as a whole to make their library experience more suitable for their needs. Sean, a busy student looking to study, could easily find and book a study time when it’s suitable quiet to do so. Declan, a required teacher looking to give back to the local community, could advertise his availability to give classes in his area of expertise.

After feedback from our lecturers, Louise and Marcus, it became apparent that we had overreached with our service design suggestions. Unlike our previous projects where we were given leeway to let our imaginations run riot regardless of cost, technical possibilities, or practicality this service design project should be more based in the reality of the situation. The practicalities involved in creating the suggested app, getting by-in from all of the local libraries, and establishing all the related infrastructure, made the suggestions realistically unfeasible. The same could be said for the kiosk and the expense of implementing these two systems, especially in a time when libraries are already struggling to stay afloat.

Although I feel we accurately identified the real problems faced by the library, perhaps we tried too hard to solve them all simultaneously, an unrealistic task unless the library in question had very deep pockets.

Our team took the Christmas holidays as an opportunity to rethink our approach and to start afresh when we returned.

Upon returning from their service safaris, everyone came into the studio and using white board markers and sticky notes, threw all the information they gathered up on some whiteboards. The goal here was to make all the information available to everyone as a larger studio research team.

After everyone was set, all the teams took it in turns to introduce and explain their findings to the rest of the class.

I don’t know about anyone else, but the disparity between the various group’s findings, given that all the groups visited libraries, was eye-opening for me. Sure, there were always going to be similarities in how the books were referenced or the checking in/out procedures etc., but the behaviours, atmospheres, attitudes and facilities available at, for instance a college library, compared to some of the smaller public ones, varied wildly in some cases.

That’s not to say that that is a bad thing. On the contrary, not only is it great that there’s evidently a library for people from every imaginable background, it meant that the next phase of research and development for service design was interesting and appealing. There were so many options for what aspects of libraries we could focus on.

From the outset I was particularly interested in the smaller community-based libraries, like the one in Drumcondra. I liked the idea of designing something helpful or useful not only for the library itself, but of the loyal members who use the library as a social hub.

Luckily, my teammate, Colm shared my interest in this sort of library.

Otherwise, things could have gotten messy.

The class were divided up into teams based on proximity to a list of appropriate libraries and then each team headed off on a library service safari tasked with analyzing one based on the following criteria.

• Services
• Facilities
• Space/Environment
• Future
• Community
• Users
• Emotions/Empathy
• Function/System
• Stakeholders

Our team’s first port of call was to stop into the NCAD library as a comparison for our main goal, Trinity College Library. Making notes on the categories in the list above, we played the role of what we considered the standard user, finding and checking out a book as well as requesting a card to enable us to enter Trinity College library.

Our next step was to make our way to Trinity on foot, considering waypoints and general accessibility. Once there, we considered the library in the same terms as we used at NCAD. We also interviewed a librarian and found some interesting pain points around the quick-return facility. We made note of any opportunities to improve the services as well as things we thought worked well.

Following our trip to Trinity, we walked over to the National Library to attempt to do the same kind of analysis. However, as a non-traditional library, our activities were somewhat curtailed by the fact that we weren’t allowed wander around taking notes, as well as an inability to take pictures.

The following day, our 3 team members arranged our findings on a white board using post-it notes, markers and blu-tac to stick up any physical artifacts we picked up along the way.

For me, the service safari was hard to get my head around at first. Because of the sheer volume of things that could be considered touchpoints or waypoints, especially around some of the larger libraries, I constantly found myself wondering if I was overlooking anything that might later turn out to be important. This could well have been the case but given the relatively limited time we had to go through the process I think we did pretty well in amassing the quantity of data that we did. It also dawned on me that in a real-world service safari, we’d probably have a lot more time to observe, interview, probe etc.

Had a general overview with Ian of the main things to consider with regard to the operation of a digital camera.

We covered things like:

• Depth of field
• F-stops
• ISO
• Aperture
• Stutter Speed

As well as general tips like

• The storytelling arc
• How to use a tripod to stead a camera whilst holding it
• Shooting with an editor in mind
• Lighting
• Operation of sound equipment

Ian clearly knew his stuff and was very engaging. I think he found it difficult to know how in-depth he needed to go with us on the various topics he covered.

As a class, we were challenged to explore libraries and the services they provide. We were asked to gain an understanding of their role in the community, who interacts with them, the work done by the staff in these facilities, how libraries might change in the future, what space they provide and how is it used. From finding libraries to locating books inside, we have to explore and understand this area before prototyping and testing using a human-centred design approach.

The first thing we did as a class (studio) was to grab some sticky notes and in a limited amount of time, through up some ideas about what sort of research questions we’d need to answer. After this, ideas were grouped into categories and given appropriate names. It was pointed out that not all ideas need to fit into each category. Sub-categories and ideas that float between categories are acceptable. The categories identified were:

• Services
• Facilities
• Space/Environment
• Future
• Community
• Users
• Emotions/Empathy
• Function/System
• Stakeholders

The categories were organised in terms of themes (from the Epics, Themes, Stories structure we heard in the Service Design workshop). This was further broken down into ‘Activities to do’, ‘Activities in Progress’, and ‘Activities completed’, a la a kanban and scrum boards (from Agile development process).