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This paper explores how service design can contribute to the evolution of health service systems, moving them toward people-centered, integrated and technology-enabled care; the paper develops a research agenda to leverage service design research for healthcare transformation.

This conceptual study starts by analyzing healthcare challenges in terms of demographic trends and economic constraints, along with the problems of lack of people-centricity, dispersion of care and slowness in incorporating emerging technologies. Then, it examines the theoretical underpinnings of service design to develop a framework for exploring how a human-centered, transformative and service systems approach can contribute to addressing healthcare challenges, with illustrative cases of service design research in healthcare being given.

The proposed framework explores how a human-centered service design approach can leverage the potential of technology and advance healthcare systems toward people-centered care; how a transformative service design approach can go beyond explanatory research of healthcare phenomena to develop innovative solutions for healthcare change and wellbeing; and how a service systems perspective can address the complexity of healthcare systems, hence moving toward integrated care.

This paper systematizes and develops a framework for how service design can contribute to healthcare transformation. It identifies key healthcare application areas for future service design research and pathways for advancing service design in healthcare by using new interdisciplinary bridges, methodological developments and theoretical foundations.

To deliver superior customer experiences, retailers are increasingly turning to augmented reality (AR) technologies for new digital services that can enhance their customer interactions. The potential of AR has been validated in lab experiments, but when implemented in real-world contexts, its commercial impact has been limited. Therefore, this paper investigates how to design AR-based services (AR services) that enhance customer experiences in retail.

The paper uses a conceptual research approach to integrate research on AR in the context of retail, combining customer, retailer, and technical perspectives with the design thinking method to demonstrate how the challenge of AR service design can be addressed through design thinking.

The paper develops propositions that explain how a design thinking method is useful in the design of effective AR services. The paper also articulates principles for how to implement the design thinking method in the specific context of AR for enhanced customer experiences.

The study documents critical practices for retailers seeking to be competitive with superior customer experiences under the increasing digitalization of retailer-customer interactions.

The study contributes to the service design literature by answering the call to develop moderately abstracted explanations of how different digital technologies can be used to provision new services in different application domains, with the focus here being the design of AR services in the context of retail.

The purpose of this study is to explore the interactions between commuters with disabilities and transport services providers and to contribute to a better understanding of transformative service design, ensuring equitable access and the overall well-being of individuals.

This study collected qualitative data through ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with commuters with disabilities and transport services providers. The data were thematically analysed using NVivo.

Evidence suggests that there are opportunities for service users to be included in the co-creation of transformative transport service at different stages of a journey: entering service interaction, transitioning through service interaction and exiting service interaction. However, the reluctance of service providers to transform their services was recognised, due to a lack of awareness, interest, regulator demands and financial capabilities.

This study broadens the comprehension of procedures and strategies for engaging consumers experiencing vulnerabilities in transformative service design and pushes the limits of the current understanding to recognise the inherent challenges of unregulated service providers designing transformative services in an unregulated market.

This newfound knowledge is crucial for developing better approaches that cater to the needs of these individuals and further contributes towards developing transformative service initiatives, which are activities that serve people experiencing vulnerabilities and that try to improve their well-being. These include specialised training and social marketing campaigns for service providers in the informal market and new mobility start-ups or social enterprises with the potential to disrupt the informal economy and offer innovative solutions, such as assistive technologies, mobile apps and journey planners that provide exceptional customer service.

Previous studies on transformative service designs have focused on regulated service providers, such as health care and financial services. This study, however, explores the unregulated transport sector in a developing country and recognises how the intricate nature of informal service provision may jeopardise the prospects of developing a transformative service for consumers experiencing vulnerabilities.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how vulnerable consumers can be involved in transformative service design and how this approach may enhance the design of such services. The study also analyzes how co-design with vulnerable consumers differs from existing user involvement processes with the purpose of developing a co-design framework.

A case study approach was employed, with six high schools in Australia identified as sites to conduct co-design sessions for a school-based alcohol education program. Adolescents were invited to review and (re)design an existing alcohol education program.

The study indicates that co-design with vulnerable consumers cannot be approached in the same way as conventional user involvement processes. Based on the insights generated from six co-design sessions as well as the examination of user involvement and co-design literature, the authors propose a six-step co-design framework. The six steps comprise resourcing, planning, recruiting, sensitizing, facilitation and evaluation.

The co-design framework illustrates important differences to conventional user involvement processes. However, the generalizability of the research findings is limited to a specific study setting and a narrowly defined sample. Future research in a different setting is needed to further validate the presented findings.

For service design practice, this study provides guidelines on how co-design activities with vulnerable consumers can be effectively resourced, planned, recruited, sensitized, facilitated and evaluated. The framework outlines how co-design may be applied so that vulnerable consumers can become empowered participants during the design process.

This research contributes to the knowledge in transformative service research – a priority in service research – and service design by extending the boundaries of our understanding of processes and tools for the involvement of vulnerable consumers in transformative service design.

The purpose of this paper is to give a structured literature review, design concepts, and research propositions related to a product‐oriented design theory for information services. Information services facilitate the exchange of information goods with or without transforming these goods. Exemplar information services are e‐publishing, electronic communities‐of‐practice, and management reporting. The importance of information services in the current economy merits the development of an explicit product‐ and process‐oriented design theory.

This article focuses on the product‐oriented design theory by applying Walls et al.'s framework. A product‐oriented design theory of information services identifies relevant descriptive and explanatory insights (i.e. content, use, value, and revenue), meta‐requirements, and meta‐designs. The paper describes design problems for information services, and gives key requirements for information services. Next, it describes the information, organizational and information technological components of an information service, and identifies at least four information service architectures. Finally, it gives research hypotheses, research ideas, and discusses practical implications.

The results form a product‐oriented design theory for information services. The paper gives a structured way for practitioners to analyze information service design challenges, and suggestions are given for requirements and design decisions on three aspects (content, use feature, and revenue).

Given the previously fragmented nature of the literature, this paper gives new opportunities for research and practice.

The design of new services is a fundamental element of a firm’s growth strategy but, despite some recent work, our knowledge of the new service design process remains weak. This paper examines the impact of service culture and internal politics on the design, introduction success and rejection of new service design proposals. The extant literature is reviewed, a conceptual framework is developed and several longitudinal case examples are discussed. The results indicate that existing service culture can have a significant impact on modifying the new service design proposal making implementation success and high customer satisfaction levels more difficult to achieve. Several propositions for future research are presented.

Care pathways are being increasingly used in the national health service to outline an anticipated programme of care in relation to a particular illness, condition or set of symptoms. The purpose of this paper is to inform those using the service of what they might expect within what time frame. They are designed to reduce variation in practice and allow optimal quality of care across a variety of care settings. Care pathways map out a patient’s journey, providing coordination of services for users. They aim to have: “the right people, doing the right things, in the right order, at the right time, in the right place, with the right outcome”.

This paper outlines care pathways in relation to people with intellectual disabilities who present with behaviour that challenges.

It is likely that many people will have a lifelong need for support, so discharge from clinical services should only be considered if it is genuinely appropriate. Reductions in a person’s behaviours that challenge are likely to be a consequence of changes that have been made to the person’s environment and supports. Therefore, any reductions in the level or type of support that the person receives may lead to an escalation of the behaviour again.

Standards in relation to care pathways are presented.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and describe the perspectives and reasoning of senior development leaders in healthcare organizations, when reflecting on design as theory and practice in relation to more traditional methods and tools for improving quality and support innovation.

The paper is based on a qualitative interview design with five development and innovation leaders from separate healthcare regions in Sweden. They have, to varying degrees, applied design theory and practice for quality improvement and innovation in their organizations. The interview transcript was analysed using a content analysis together with an interpretive approach.

The major findings are to be found in the balancing act for leadership and organizations in healthcare when it comes to introducing and combining different theories and practices for improving quality and support innovation. The balance is between the change in power dynamics and pushing traditional boundaries in a complex healthcare world.

The narratives from the leaders' experience of applying design theory and practice for improving healthcare quality can help us create readiness and knowledge about how we prevent and/or facilitate planning and implementing design theories, practices, methods and tools in a healthcare context.

The study provides a unique insight when it captures and illustrates five different organizations' experiences when applying design for developing healthcare quality.

Service design is a multidisciplinary approach that is key to service innovation, as it brings new service ideas to life. In this context, the development of new service design methods and models for creating new service futures is an important stream of service design research. Such developments can benefit from a systematized research methodology that builds on existing knowledge and robustly evaluates the suitability of research contributions. To address this challenge, the purpose of this paper is to present design science research (DSR), an established methodology from the information systems field, and examine how it can be useful for service design research by supporting the development of new artifacts, such as service design constructs, methods and models.

This paper presents DSR and related literature and shows how DSR can support service design research through a step-by-step approach. A methodology to develop prescriptive-driven solutions for classes of problems, DSR can support service design research in developing rigorous and relevant research. One illustrative example of a service design research effort using the DSR approach is presented.

Building on DSR’s robust methodological background, this paper discusses how DSR can support service design research, namely, through the development of new methods and models, and how DSR can be adapted to leverage service design research participatory, iterative, human-centric and creative approach.

This paper provides an overview of DSR and proposes it as a methodology to conduct service design research, offering step-by-step guidance on the application of DSR in service design research and discussing how it can be adapted according to the specific characteristics of service design research and drive future research.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the usability of different design methods in understanding the customer experience from a contextual and systemic standpoint.

Three design methods (i.e. personas, observations and collaborative service mapping) were applied to analyze customer experiences in two service settings. These methods’ usability was compared across the two settings.

Personas, as informed by phenomenological interviews, provide insights into the customer’s broader lifeworld context. These insights assist in connecting with and understanding the customer experience from a dyadic customer-firm perspective. The involvement of the customer in service mapping activities supports the validation of findings and gives access to experience dimensions beyond the immediate service setting.

The analysis is limited to three design methods and is based on small samples. Future research should systematically review design methods to provide a basis for a more comprehensive evaluation.

To successfully capture the contextual and systemic nature of the customer experience, managers should apply interpretive approaches and actively involve selected customers as “experts of their experiences”. The study provides guidelines on how design methods can be combined and applied to a more holistic customer experience analysis.

The paper shows that design methods, when applied in a combined form, can support an analysis that captures both in-depth insights into the customer’s lifeworld and the complexity of value constellations.