70 602 Service Design 2: Service Design Futures (Spring 2025)

Passed foundation level (BA-level) at AHO or equivalent education with 180 ECTS.

Students who have taken Service Design 1 will be preferred, but this is not a requirement for this course. International 2 year master students must have been approved for service design.

Recommended previous knowledge.

• Service Design concepts and methodologies
• User-centred design methodologies
• Qualitative data analysis
• Prototyping
• Project communication

This course focuses on advanced service design knowledge and competencies by engaging students in service design research. Students will be actively involved in hands-on research-through-design work with community and public sector partners. Through this process, they will contribute to advancing the theories and practices of service design, while at the same time supporting the student’s own development in becoming a more rigorous, reflective and informed service designer. As part of the course, students will read and discuss academic articles on service design, strengthening their critical thinking skills and integrating learnings into their own practice.

The course will be delivered in three modules with different partners all focusing on public services and the service systems that enable them. Modules will include projects within areas of Norwegian welfare, healthcare and social services. We will partner with different designers, researchers and practitioners to learn more about how to navigate the messy realities of service design in public sector contexts. The Norwegian public sector has been an early adopter of service design to drive change in public service provision. This course looks at how public service design can be extended and deepened to more thoughtfully work with public policy, structural changes in service systems, the underlying logics of service development, transformation in the public sector, and how public service systems influence social inclusion.

By working within this research context, students will practice what they have learnt in Service Design I and/or GK5 and GK6 by applying these design skills toward meaningful contributions to pressing issues in Norwegian public service systems. Throughout the project-based work, students will be introduced to concepts and frameworks based on different approaches to service design that will support reflection on their own praxis. They will be guided through a learning journey that aims to strengthen their ability to design in relation to significant, complex public challenges and more carefully navigate within high-risk and sensitive settings.

KNOWLEDGE

• Gain insight into the different framings and perspectives on approaches to service design whilst reflecting on one’s own burgeoning practice
• Develop an analytical approach and critical perspective on the evolving field of public sector service design
• Deepen understanding of policy processes, service development, and administration in public service systems as well as the role of service design in relation to these
• Reflect on what design research and its methodologies mean for service design practice and vice versa

SKILLS

• Strengthen ability to read, understand and contribute to service design research
• Enhance capacity for analyzing service design situations in relation to relevant theories and insights from research
• Demonstrate the capacity to reflect upon the potentials and limits of service design within the context of public service systems
• Show competency in working ethically and carefully with marginalized populations

GENERAL COMPETENCE

• Gain an overview of the state of the art of service design research
• Promote an active and designerly participation within research projects
• Learn to engage and collaborate with external community and public sector partners
• Promote critical reflection on the unintended consequences of service design decisions

The course is run differently from Service Design 1. In Service Design 2 students will be working more independently and in close collaboration with service design researchers and practitioners at the school.

The main learning activities will be based upon research projects in collaboration with external partners, where the students will be part of the research team. The course also integrates studio work (group and individual), tutoring and reflective sessions in the classroom, workshops, structured presentations and deliveries, and discussions with other course participants.

There will also be lectures with invited guests, designers and researchers. These will include sessions specifically designed to give students insight into differing ways to approach designing both in practice and research, whilst providing space to reflect on their own practice. The students are expected to read some academic literature.

Participation

This is an intensive course and it demands consistent and hard work from the participants. Students are required to attend at least 80% of the main course events described in the detailed calendar for each project to pass the course. Attendance will be taken 15 minutes after the start of the class. The students are also expected to keep count on their absences.

Being a practice-driven course, the student’s progression through the modules will be evaluated based on:

• Group and individual mid-term deliverables

• Workshops, interviews and field work

• Evidencing material and project deliveries

In each module, students will have group and individual deliverables that will receive qualitative assessment with regards to their integration of learnings from the course curriculum.

At the beginning of each module, the structure, contents and examination form will be detailed. Each project will have a final presentation and/or report or equivalent deliverable that will be assessed in pass/fail by an external sensor and the course leader. The details for each project regarding particular deliverables and the evaluation criteria will be described in the brief for each project at the beginning of the module.

Students need to pass all modules to pass the course. The pass/fail will be evaluated individually although there will be group assignments. For students who fail a module, a supplementary delivery can be submitted before the final assessment.

Form of assessment: Individual, pass/fail, assessment folder.