This section describes the thinking behind each research publication, the content and findings and a reflection over each one. They are presented here chronologically. Five publications are submitted as part of this document. The papers present the core of the work and the reflections presented in this docu- ment build upon them. The publications are therefore important in terms of understanding the main content of the work carried out as part of this PhD. In this section I do not repeat and summarise each paper, rather reflect upon the nature of the paper, the reasoning behind its content and publication chan- nel, and its contribution to my work as a whole.
Conference papers and articles: different audiences and messages
I have specifically chosen to publish some work as peer reviewed conference papers and some as journal articles, with the intention of communicating dif- ferent aspects of the work. Conference papers have been developed to share work in progress, develop a network and to present and share methods and tools. Articles have been developed with the intent to raise and reflect upon more theoretical aspects of the work. In addition, one of the articles was tar- geted towards a business journal, to develop cross-disciplinary discourse.
P A P E R 1 : I N N O V A T I O N S I N S E R V I C E E X P E - R I E N C E S : T H E A T - O N E M E T H O D
Presented at the Sixth Design and Emotion Conference in 2008, this pa- per was written primarily to describe the AT-ONE project and to develop a network around Service Design and Experience Design. The Design and Emotion Conferences were established in 1999 by the Design and Emotion Society and have a strong product-based focus upon design and emotion. I wanted to introduce Service Design to the conference, and at the same time present and receive feedback regarding AT-ONE, which was in the early stages of development. Finally, I wanted to establish a network around cus- tomer experience and receive input regarding this field. The paper gave me the opportunity to write in an academic form and to make explicit much of the tacit knowledge and influences that had formed the AT-ONE method, but which had not been articulated clearly before this time.
Upon reflection, it is the weakest paper of them all, in terms of academic writing. However, it was a good introduction to writing about my research, as a contrast to designing tools and facilitating workshops, which had been my focus until then. After re-reading the paper, I see that I could have written differently, but at the time, I think it fulfilled its function well. It was a good time to describe what Fallman (2008) describes as the area of design practice research (see earlier section on design research). At such an early stage of my research, I had identified the multiple areas that were being synthesised into a workshop-based solution; cross-functional teams, fuzzy front end, design thinking and service-specific characteristics. I had already run several workshops to receive some results for analysis and improvement, and could therefore give some initial comments regarding results. Finally, looking back on the paper, I can see that the brand megaphone concept was already identi- fied at that time. Although not fully developed nor fully understood, it had a conceptual form.
P A P E R 2 : B R I D G I N G T H E G A P B E T W E E N B R A N D S T R A T E G Y A N D C U S T O M E R E X P E R I - E N C E I N S E R V I C E S : T H E T A R G E T E X P E R I - E N C E T O O L
paper aimed to present the target experience tool in a way that others could use, and at the same time to stimulate discussion. It described the theoreti- cal background for the development of the target experience tool, and its relevance for services, but its main focus was to describe the tool itself to the conference participants. It therefore had a detailed appendix with a step by step description of the tool.
The work presented was work in progress, and was based upon the develop- ment of the tool and its use in the AT-ONE project. However, at this stage the paper did not reflect upon the wider implications of the tool, nor did it include evaluation data from project participants.
The paper can be seen as a second iteration of the brand megaphone that was described in Paper 1. It can be seen that the brand megaphone concept had developed to become more service and customer experience related, and is described as a process in detail. The paper also introduces the use of meta- phor and analogy as part of the process, and the term Service Personality is introduced as part of the service branding process. This is the first develop- ment of a service-specific tool, in which the characteristics of services are focussed upon, particularly the aspect of behaviour and tone of voice. It signifies therefore a move from traditional branding thinking into new terrain.
P A P E R 3 : S E R V I C E I N N O V A T I O N T H R O U G H T O U C H - P O I N T S : T H E A T - O N E T O U C H - P O I N T C A R D S
This paper was presented at the Second Nordic Service Design Conference in Linköping in 2010. Its aim was to present the development of the touch-point cards and results from usage. This paper again had a focus upon sharing a tool in a way that others could use it. In addition, it aimed to start a research discourse around touch-points, one of the central aspects of Service Design. The paper describes the evolution of the touch-point cards and how they could be used in different ways as part of service innovation projects. It pre- sented some feedback from initial evaluations of their use and attempted to position touch-points within the field of service design. It described how the cards could stimulate innovation in teams, and the expected effects this could have upon team cohesiveness. The paper does not reflect over the theoretical
aspects of cards as boundary objects or upon the relations between physical movement, visual representation and cognition.
A R T I C L E 1 : S E R V I C E I N N O V A T I O N T H R O U G H T O U C H - P O I N T S : D E V E L O P M E N T O F A N I N - N O V A T I O N T O O L K I T F O R T H E F I R S T S T A G E S O F N E W S E R V I C E D E V E L O P M E N T
This article was based upon Paper 2. It was fast tracked from the Service De- sign Conference in Linköping for a Special Issue of the International Journal of Design, with focus upon Service Design. It was published in August 2011. For this article I chose to focus upon three aspects related to the touch-point cards. Firstly, to describe their development and use, such that the paper would allow readers to use the results themselves in a practical context. Secondly, I wanted to place touch-points as a key aspect of Service Design and to start a research discourse on touch-points. I had a larger empirical data set from interviews, observation and further evaluation of the cards than from the previous paper, and could therefore show the important role that the cards had in innovation and team function. Finally, I wanted to reflect upon the use of cards or other physical media in Service Design and the importance of physical media to support embodied cognition. This allowed me to highlight the existing literature from the related areas of co-design and participatory design and to build a bridge between the two areas.
However, as I wrote the article, I became aware of a new issue, which has been further developed in this document; the materials of Service Design and the essence of designing services. In the article I mention touch-points as a possible material of Service Design, but I only hint at the link to materials. This started a larger process of reflection, discussed in this final documenta- tion. It also started the reflective process relating service personality to both materials of Service Design and boundary objects. I would not have made the association between service personality and boundary objects without having written article 1. I am therefore thankful for the opportunity to submit to the IJD and focus upon a journal article. It allowed a degree of reflection that I
would never have achieved in a conference paper.
A R T I C L E 2 : B R I D G I N G T H E G A P B E T W E E N B R A N D S T R A T E G Y A N D C U S T O M E R E X P E R I - E N C E
Article 2 was published in Managing Service Quality in March 2012. This article was based upon Paper 2, which was a work in progress conference paper. After having further developed the target experience tool to a second iteration and evaluated it with both interviews and observation, I felt that the findings were important enough to be published as a journal article. Further, I wanted to publish a design-based piece of work in a business journal. This is because I feel that the findings have relevance for the wider business com- munity, and also because I feel that service design has a place in business and management research and education. I therefore chose a business journal which has published service research articles with a focus upon customer experience and branding. This article benefited from a greater degree of reflection upon service personality and the role that this has in the semantic transformation during service innovation.
INNOVATIONS IN SERVICE EXPERIENCES; THE AT-ONE METHOD
Presented at the Sixth Design and Emotion Conference in Hong Kong in 2008.