What is this whole Service Design?
Uncle Google says this: 'Service design is a methodology for creating services using a user-oriented approach and design thinking. It can be used both to design new processes and to optimize the existing ones. ’’
Designing services is a dynamically developing field, thanks to which we are able to create and modify services that solve real problems, are needed, valuable and find their recipients. In Great Britain, public services are designed (gov.uk), in Norway, service designers managed to reduce the time of the breast cancer diagnosis procedure by 90% (video: https://vimeo.com/113829498). Serious, international service brands design, prototype and test every new solution before they undertake to implement it. This applies to the customer service system (e.g. McDonald’s or Apple), changing the way of operation (e.g. Xerox or IBM), or creating and developing completely new services (e.g. UBER, Booking.com or Lime). Services are also designed in Poland. Of course, designing e-services, i.e. electronic services, mobile applications, etc., is a must, but for most offline services, the more traditional ones, it is not a rule. The number and importance of service companies in the Polish economy and their relatively low innovativeness mean enormous potential for the service design methodology, for service designers and service providers in creating new, more economic and environmentally friendly services that are needed and better for customers.
We teach Service Design methodologies at Collegium Da Vinci in practice, both in Poland and in international projects, and this is exactly what the Service Design Winter School is an example of.
Who are we anyway?
Service Design Winter School is an annual event during which international teams of students struggle for 5 days, under the supervision of experts, with a challenge set by a reputable brand, company or organization. Service Design Winter School is organized for the fifth time! Each year it takes place in a different European city (Antwerp 2016, Lubljana 2017, Kaunas 2018, Lier 2019, Poznań 2021).
This time at the Service Design Winter School 2021 we will see you in Poznań at Collegium Da Vinci!
This workshop is a project sprint, in which, on Monday, the teams find out (from the company’s management, city, organization) what problems they should solve, then for 3 days, students work on a workshop method on a proposal for a solution, so that on Friday they will again face the project’s principals and present the results of your work – preferably in the form of a prototype solution, supported by research.
What’s the idea of Service Design Winter School?
Service Design Winter School | LIER 2019
Ania, Laura, Kuba: From November 17 to 22, 2019, eleven CDV students, including representatives of the Vinci Square science club, had the pleasure of attending the Service Design Winter School in Lier, Belgium. The event was hosted by Thomas More University and over 40 students from all over the world (the Netherlands, Germany, India, Finland, Belgium and El Salvador) took part in it.
We spent five days looking for solutions for the Lier authorities to turn this place into a real student city. We were all divided into international teams, in which we differed not only in nationality, but also in the type of knowledge we had. Thanks to this, we were able to get to know different cultures, exchange experiences and gain a completely new set of skills.
The workshops were conducted with the Design Thinking methodology, and at the beginning of each day of classes, we had the opportunity to learn from specialists in the field of Service Design. The content of the workshops was supervised by Marc Clerkx from Belgium and Dr. Marcin Chłodnicki from Poland (Collegium Da Vinci). In addition to the workshops, we participated in a city game around Antwerp, which allowed us to see the most important points of this beautiful city. The trip would not be complete without trying traditional Belgian fries and… Belgian beer. 😊
Despite the difficult weather in November, the atmosphere warmed up and every day we came to the workshops with motivation, new ideas and positive energy. Thanks to the opportunity to participate in this event, we were able to look at our main problem from a completely different perspective, through the prism of different experiences. This event inspired us to further activities and development.
The most important question during the trip was not „what?” But „who?”. The answer was: we – all participants of this project. We who left there with open minds and new acquaintances that may bear fruit for many years to come.
It was a really great experience that will stay in our memory for a long time.
You can follow the experiences of the participants from this year’s edition of SDWS on Instagram and our Facebook page, to which we invite you.
Old projects
If you are interested in what the winning projects from previous years looked like, you can see them here.
