Empathic Service Design: Challenges in design, analysis and services

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Through case studies from across the globe, this book helps designers understand how forward-looking service prototyping, analysis and tools can promote and create empathic, emotion-oriented and relevant services.

Despite services being at the core of organisations, to create service flows, designers, groups and their diverse stakeholders must negotiate ever more complex and hybrid interactions between human and more-than-human role players in service delivery. The challenge lies in delivering empathic, relevant and desirable services, despite these complexities. New knowledge is needed to bridge the gaps, uncertainties and even anxieties that organisations face in making their service delivery empathic and keeping them purposeful to users.

Addressing problems within service delivery like empathy fatigue, poor collaboration, and siloed work experiences that lead to poorly-functioning systems, the authors suggest concrete solutions for developing empathetic approaches and tools with consideration for the needs of participants. The book critically examines the role of empathy, and explores how compassionate understanding of the end-user is key to success.

Case studies include mapping of children's services, wearable technologies for pandemics, understanding cultural sensitivity, emojis and chat bots, and AI used in care settings.

Reviews

There is no good service design without empathy. Empathy in service design functions as a prerequisite for co-production of service experiences, a catalyst for behavioral changes, and a cohesive force for complex system innovation. However, this concept has often remained more abstract than actionable or systematic. This book delves into the essential questions of what empathy is and what it does in service design, through critical discourses and tangible case studies. The book will equip students, researchers and practitioners with the key knowledge to embed empathy in their projects as a mindset, an actionable strategy, and a shared value.

Author Bio

Dr Melanie Sarantou is a professor of social design at Kyushu University, Japan. Her interests span the role of improvisation in arts and design practices when the unsuspected emerges and surprises the researcher.

Dr Satu Miettinen is a professor of service design at the University of Lapland, Finland, with research interests spanning the themes of design methods in engaging with the Arctic region, service design methods for inclusion, the participatory development of services and socially responsible art and design methods.

Dr Titta Jylks is a senior lecturer at the University of Lapland, Finland and a service designer focusing on digital services with artificial intelligence and data science. She also works as an independent design consultant.