Design for Service - A framework for better services

How can we understand industry designer’s knowledge and practice, and their function when integrated in areas other than traditional product design - and how can they then contribute to Service Innovation? Katarina Wetter-Edman’s thesis aims to strengthen relations and to facilitate communication between design- and service research. This is within the new framework, Design for Service, which gives the two disciplines an common vocabulary.
The thesis focuses on the role and knowledge of the users in the development of a service, and how the designer as the middle-hand interprets the users experiences from that service.
In the dissertation design becomes an approach to innovation. This way can we see that the framework allows for the real design to be given space. If we talk about the design as a central part to understand the users, and that it can be described with economic terms, it is easier for people from that discipline to understand it, say Katarina Wetter-Edman.
The thesis is based on theoretical comparisons and field investigations. The central part in the thesis is a ten month long collaboration between a design company and an industrial company, which Katarina studied using ethnographic inspired methods.
On April 4th, Katarina Wetter-Edman defended her thesis “Design for Service - A framework for exploring designers’ contribution as interpreters of users’ experience” at HDK-School of Design and Crafts in Gothenburg, Sweden. Opponent was Assistant Professor Anna Meroni, Politecnico di Milano and the grading committee consisted of Professor Steve Vargo, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Professor Mike Press, University of Dundee, Dr. Lena Hansson, University of Gothenburg. Katarina completed her thesis in collaboration with CTF.
The doctoral thesis can be downloaded at University of Gothenburg’s website.