Service Design (Project Course)

Learning outcomes
After this course, the student accomplishes in

1. extracting business requirements, visualising the experience from the user, front and back-end operations and connecting the system joins to create new or improved service strategies;

2. collecting qualitative and quantitate data and insides in the specific context of her/his project with ethical procedures in their mind. This gives him/her to understand user's and stakeholders' needs and behaviours to design meaningful service value propositions;

3. selecting and employing appropriate strategic service design tools and methods in collaboration with the company/organisation project partner;

4. facilitating (if proper) co-design workshops with professionals from different disciplines, to generate new business opportunity areas in the context of a selected enterprise; 

5. translating digital complexity with utilising systems thinking wit the aim to minimise friction between the user and digital interfaces;  

6. recognising future trends to predict strategic service business expansions in different domains and contexts and 

7. constructively reflect on group project progress, learning, lectures, (virtual) visits and her/his and other projects theme.

Course Description
The main aim of this course is the student's ability to utilise individual service design (SD) expertise in the practical development of an innovative project. The student understands service characteristics and knows how to take these into account when redesigning or developing innovative SD concepts. Then, she/he gets familiar with the design process and utilising appropriate SD tools at a particular stage of project development. At the end of the course, the student demonstrates an application of gained SD knowledge during the course on the practical project of selected (sustainable) services by proposing innovative systemic, strategic and user experiences solutions and concepts.

Content and Structure
The course structure supports' student learning and gaining SD skills in several different means: through readings, lectures, discussions, blog reflections and practical exercises of utilising various SD tools. Students are encouraged to examine given project theme holistically from the sophisticated systemic level, strategic and business perspective up to individual service user experiences.

First, student, employ design principles, selected strategic and business strategies, systems thinking, and SD tools with chosen Finnish company or public organisation. Then, he/she gets familiar with relevant terminology related to digital complexity (DX, DXP, CX, digital platforms, AI, AR, VR, blockchain technology, IoT) and ethical and social implications of digitalisation for future socio-cultural systems. This him/her assist in planning advance SD strategies in digital environments. The third set of lectures introduces what future SD trends are. During the course, student examines service providers' perspective as well as user side by adopting different essential and specific SD tools. The set of lectures concludes with prototyping and visualisation techniques. Last but not least, the student is working on a given project together with project mentor, had the opportunity to visit (virtually) an SD agency and listen to a talk of selected academic and industry-related guest speaker.

Teacher
Dr. Helena Sustar, Postdoctoral Researcher

Study material
Will be announced at the first lecture.

Online learning environment for the course & Activating Aalto ID

MyCourses online learning environment is a tool for both students and teachers for communication and managing everyday course work. You need an Aalto User ID to log in to the course's MyCourses workspace and participate in teaching. You can activate your Aalto User ID the day after the registration and you should activate it no later than the day before the start of the course. Instructions for activating your Aalto User IDDigital workspace of the course:
MyCoursesMore details on completing the course will be available at MyCourses closer to the start of the course.

Prerequisites
Basics of Service Design MUO-C3006 or AMUO-C3006

Only for those students who were attended at the Basic of Service Design Course and has successfully pass that course or have the following service design experiences:
   - completed BA or MA level service design course/degree at university (e.g. Aalto University, Laurea, Lahti University of Applied Science, Metropolia, Aalto PRO) or taking part at Service Design Jam
   - working/studying in the area of marketing, management, digital services, product development, project management and design  
   - having product design, interior design, textile/fashion design, graphic design, UX design experiences  
   - self studied relevant service design literature and has some practical experiences on conducting user studies and workshops

Evaluation

Assessment
1. The innovative use of service design tools in the given project
2. The quality of the project progress presented at the midterm presentation and the final presentation 
3. The inventiveness of the project service design solution or a concept
4. The quality of the learning blog posts
5. Participants need to attend the course at least 80%

Grading Scale
0-5

Course dates. Attending the first introduction course lecture is mandatory. 
Wednesday 18.9.2024 Lecture 1 from 18:00 – 20:30
Wednesday 25.9.2024 Lecture 2 from 18:00 – 20:30
Wednesday 2.10.2024 Lecture 3 from 18:00 – 20:30
Wednesday 9.10.2024 Lecture 4 from 18:00 – 20:30
Wednesday 16.10.2024 Lecture 5 from 18:00 – 20:30
Wednesday 23.10.2024 Lecture 6 from 18:00 – 20:30
Wednesday 30.10.2024 Lecture 7 from 18:00 – 20:30
Wednesday 6.11.2024 Lecture 8 from 18:00 – 20:30
Wednesday 13.11.2024 Lecture 9 from 18:00 – 20:30
Wednesday 20.11.2024 Lecture 10 from 18:00 – 20:30
Wednesday 27.11.2024 Lecture 11 from 18:00 – 20:30

Registration and course fee

Registration for Open University courses is done in Sisu-service. 
Course registration

Registration for this course starts on 5.8.2024 at 9.00  
Registration for this course ends on 8.9.2024 at 23.59

The course fee is paid upon registration for each course at a time and it is binding. Familiarize yourself with registration and payment rules as well as other guidelines for students:
Registration, payments and rules

This course is organized by the Aalto University Open University.

Access Token on Aalto University Campus

To be able to enter campus premises and classrooms you need the student access token of Aalto University. You can get the student access token from campus lobby services. The access token need to be activated with your Aalto account and password before you can use it. Please, arrive the campus well in advance before your first class so that you can make the access token work. Please, see the instructions how to get and activate the access token: How to get an access tokenOtaniemi Campus, Espoo: Campus mapFurther information
The Open University course AMUO-C3011, 4 cr is a part of the following course:
Palvelumuotoilu (Service Design) MUO-C3011 7 cr, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Design major, Intermediate studies

Individual study arrangements

If you need individual study arrangements in order to attend a course, contact the Open University office ([email protected]) in good time, at least 14 days before the start date of the course or the examination date. Further information about individual study arrangements:
Individual study arrangements at Open University