The results of this study are twofold. First, better understanding of the users’ needs and based on that the service concept and interactive prototype as well as the design guidelines for the future development of MSS (RQ3). Secondly, better understanding of the usage of prototyping as a service design methods for the design of digital services (RQ1 and RQ2). The validity of the research findings can be assessed on the one hand on a practical level, i.e., the validity of the research finding for the future development of MSS. On the other hand, the validity can be assessed on a theoretical level, i.e., to what extent the research findings are generalizable to the development of digital services. For both, the major threat to the validity of the findings are due to limited amount of data collected in the empirical part due to time constraints and limited availability of test users.
The validity of the findings from the prototype test session are assessed based on the prototyping framework by Passera et al. (2012). In order to avoid seeking affirmative feedback for the prototypes, different design alternatives were developed, and thus, facilitating more open feedback. Furthermore, it seemed that the prototypes were suitable for the audience and suitable level of fidelity and resolution of the given purpose, as the participants gave feedback on expected aspects rather than focusing on aspects irrelevant for the purpose. Despite the low amount of involved potential users, the validity of the results was increased by involving different viewpoints for potential customers: people from both sides (vendor and buyers), using different calendar models (open vs. restricted), IT and business, and people in managerial as well as in specialist position.
Another threat to validity is whether all relevant aspects were prototyped and whether the whole service experience was prototyped. With the chosen method on presenting the flow through the service with the interactive prototype, the whole experience was covered to some extent. Furthermore, as the service works for finding suitable time slots and agree on a meeting time similar to applications familiar to the users, such as Microsoft Outlook or Google Calendar, it is relatively easy for the potential users to imagine how the service would work. However, even though the participants could well imagine based on the prototypes and own knowledge, how the service would work in practice. Nevertheless, some interesting aspects for the service could not be covered, as it would require a pilot with actual users to better understand how open people are in reality to share their calendar and what challenges they might be facing when scheduling meetings.
8 CONCLUSION
This study set out to determine how to use prototyping as a service design methods to gain better understanding of the users’ needs and design a service concept for a digital meeting scheduling service. In the core, using service design methods for the development of digital service means a change of mindset on two levels: The first is from a focus on features to applying S-D logic or service thinking, i.e., focus on what job the customer would hire the service for. This has been leading paradigm in service management. However, in service design the focus is still on traditional services. Nevertheless, S-D logic and service design share a similar mindset and thus, service design is well suited to expand its view on services and put the theoretical construct of S-D logic with its methods into practice. The second is to apply design thinking and design methods, especially in the early phases of the service development process. This mainly implies an intuitive way of working and applying design methods from the beginning of the process. However, design thinking and design methods are complementary rather than a replacement to existing ways of working. One of the most important methods in service design is prototyping, which supports design thinking well. Prototyping can be used for different purposes throughout the process. Most common purposes are exploration, evaluation, and communication. In the development of digital service, it can be considered as a shift from specification-driven prototypes to prototype-driven specification. Technical prototypes, as often developed in software engineering, are only one possible prototype, but they do not cover all aspects of a service. Prototypes can already be used early in the service design process to understand the current user experience or generate new ideas. However, one risk with extensive use of prototypes, some of which might only cover small parts of the whole service, is to lose the focus on the big picture of the service. Hence, it is important to have a service concept, which is a mental picture of the service. In addition to the service concept, design guidelines can support continuity in the process, as they represent the learning outcomes from prototyping. However, they are not understood as requirements, as they are created early in the process, when the way of working is still explorative and thus, the use of design guidelines supports keeping flexibility.
While using service design methods, and prototyping in specific, can be beneficial to stronger focus on the users’ needs, there are challenges on how to do that in practice. Furthermore, can be challenging to integrate service thinking and design thinking to software engineering process, which is the prevalent discipline in the development of digital services. First of all, misunderstanding might arise between people with different backgrounds and educations. Second, the right balance needs to be found between intuitive way of working and ensuring that the solutions are technically implementable.
The main contributions of this thesis are deeper understanding of user needs and the resulting design guidelines for a meeting scheduling service for heterogeneous calendar systems as well as a service concept and prototype. As service design as a discipline is still mostly focused on traditional services, this is one of the few studies, that is focusing on non-traditional service applying the principles and methods of service design and thus, bridging between service management and marketing and service design. Furthermore, in a more and more networked society, in which an increasing number of companies are providing digital services, it is a valuable contribution to see how to bring service-dominant logic and service design into the development of digital services.
This study revealed several areas for further research. A long-term case study with Steeri would offer an interesting research opportunity to investigate how Steeri incorporates prototyping and the service design principles into the development process for digital services. On a more general level, more research is needed on how to apply service design methods in general, and prototyping in specific, to different categories of services. For digital services, in which software engineering plays a crucial role, more research is needed on the integration of service design and software engineering, and in specific, on how to integrate design thinking with analytical thinking and how to transition from explorative design way of working to the technical implementation. Furthermore, the relationship between design guidelines, service concept and prototypes needs more research.
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