The Systems Turn in Service Design There is a transition underway in service design that is challenging traditional ways of working. As the scope of service design projects continues to expand, service designers are increasingly confronted by the immense complexity of overlapping service systems. Amid entangled global crises – including climate change, migration, eroding democratic norms and strained healthcare systems – there is growing awareness of the urgent need for significant societal shifts. The discipline of service design is being looked to as contributor and facilitator of these critical systemic changes.
These developments shed light on the limitations and inadequacies of reductionist approaches to service design that fail to support more structural long-term change and risk perpetuating harmful, unintended consequences. As such, many service designers are integrating learnings from systems thinking to better grapple with the complexity of the challenges they face and aid in realising the transformative potential of the practice. However, these learnings challenge the very core of service design and call for a fundamental rethinking of its philosophies and approaches. 10 Touchpoint 12-2
The articles in this issue of Touchpoint highlight four critical evolvements connected with the integration of systems thinking: 1. rethinking the principles of the practice 2. integrating knowledge from other domains 3. applying alternative approaches, methods and tools 4. addressing systemic inequities. Rethinking the principles of the practice The growing appreciation of complexity calls for a new set of principles to guide service design
practices. Challenging convenient project externalities, Neeley (page 12) responds by suggesting that service designers must consider everything, take universal responsibility and work within grand priorities. In a similar vein, Gampp (page 52) problematises the humancentred paradigm that has been dominant over the last decade and offers an alternative set of principles to support the continued evolution of worldviews. Furthermore, in an attempt to embrace a systemic view on value in service design, Pelgröm and Roscam Abbing (page 46) extend Tim Brown’s well-known model of “feasibility, desirability and viability” by highlighting the importance of the collective, the triple bottom-line and consortia. Integrating knowledge from other domains As service design takes on larger, systemic challenges, there is growing recognition of the need to integrate knowledge from other domains. Wildhagen and Strålberg (page 36) offer a hopeful example of building infrastructure to support the integration of service design with systemic design in the context of the Norwegian innovation lab for public sector (StimuLab). In addition, Harviainen, Hämäläinen and Saarinen (page 26) argue that service design combines well with systems intelligence to support wise action in complex systems. Barcham (page 56) further highlights that service design can
