D E S I G N

I NG F O R
SERVICES
CONTENTS
DESIGNING FOR SERVICES 2

DESIGNING VALUES 4

PARTNER: CITY OF ESPOO 6

CASE PROJECTS 7

STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES 28

CLIENT REACTION 29
DESIGNING
FOR SERVICES
To design for services, is to design for the livelihood
Tuuli Mateelmaki
and well-being of people. All members of a modern
Associate Professor
society interact with a myriad of services on a daily tuuli.mattelmaki@aalto.fi
basis. The livelihood of citizens in these societies do
not only benefit from services, but depend on them. The
inseparable integration of services, society, and people
creates the kind of complex systems where Design has
the opportunity to truly shine. Designing for Services Helena Sustar
Post Doc, Teaching assistant
is a project based interdisciplinary course from the
helena.sustar@aalto.fi
Collaborative and Industrial Design MA Programme
at the Department of Design in Aalto University. The
course explores and exhibits the power Design has when
applied to the development of services.
Haian Xue
Designing for Services (DFS) is a union of design theory Doctoral Student
haian.xue@aalti.fi
and practical application of design within the Public,
Private, and Third sectors. Here partnerships are forged
between teams of students and clients (from the Public
Sector). Over the course of 7 weeks students push design
thinking, into doing. The course expands designerly ways Kirsi Hakio
of theoretical research, ethnography and interviews into Doctoral Student
prototyping, testing, and applying concept strategies, kirsi.hakio@gmail.com
platforms, and products to real life contexts.

DFS focuses the influence of design to make meaningful

impact for the people who both perform and use services. Nuria Solsona Caba
If to design for services, is to design for the livelihood Guest lecturer from
and well-being of people, than human-centered design Livework studio
nuria@liveworkstudio.com
thinking and doing is how the students and clients of
DFS, achieve what it means to Design for Services.

2
7
WEEKS
141
10
ARTICLES

CO-DESIGN
WORKSHOPS

HOURS
148 7000
INTERVIEWS
 DESIGNING
VALUES
EMPATHY
At the core of the Designing for Services course is
the value of empathy. Services are largely about
people, and therefore in-order to design for
services, designers must first understand people
and their needs. Students of Designing for Services
learn theories of empathy and methods designers
use to conduct empathic research and make
empathic choices.
DOING
Doing is a part of learning, discovery and ultimately
innovation. Students push and challenge theory
into testing, observation, probing, provotyping
and prototyping. Design happens in the real world
with people and action. Through action, students
and clients alike use the world as their textbook.
SENSE MAKING
Services are nuanced complex systems of
networks, organization, behaviour, and information.
Designing for Services guides students through
designedly ways of making sense of complexities
with in services. Here affinity diagrams, journey
maps, critical thinking, and more, hold favour.
4
COLLABORATION
Good design does not blossom in a vacuum.
Through collaboration students learn we achieve
more together then alone. Through collaborative
design practices students involve the expertise of
teaching staff, peers, client partners, and citizens
to make the projects of Designing for Services truly
a team effort.
REFLECTION
Essential to learning, action, and relationships,
is the ability and time to reflect. Students of
Designing for Services reflect on their time and
progress through events known as Reflection Cafs.
Reflection Cafs are collaborative workshops
hosted by the teams of Designing for Services to
their course peers. Here one team a week plans
a day with activities that reflect upon lessons
learned, theories, ways of thinking, methods,
prototypes, and inspirations explored during the
course. Reflection Cafs are designed to bring
consciousness and comprehension of actions and
thought processes of students and their peers.
PARTNER:
CITY OF ESPOO
As one of Finlands fastest growing cities The City of Espoo
aspires to develop public services in a resident-centred
way. The city is considered to be a living lab with open
participation models, service as sharing economy, and people
as resources, and collaborative ecosystems.

Currently the city is developing three key themes. First is

Chinese tourism services in Espoo that reconsider possibilities
for Chinese travelers and Stop Over visitors to Finland while
providing career opportunities for unemployed Chinese
Espoo residents. Second is cross-sector collaboration with in
Espoos Innovation Platform. This platform rethinks business-
related services in the Iso Omena Service Center to envision
ways to support aspects of business and entrepreneurship
as a collaborative platforms. Lastly, the city looks to develop
the Espoo seashore service and discover ways to populate
it with locals.

By collaborating with Students of Aalto University, the City

of Espoo partners practice their mission to use collaborative
development and action as a tool to build a better city.

Humor added to brave testing should never be

underestimated when creating something new.

-Suvi Kajamaa,
Planner, DFS Alumni

6
CASE
PROJECTS
ESPOO 1/ OPPORTUNITIES FOR CHINESE
INTRO: UNEMPLOYED:
What opportunities are there for Chinese unemployed
residence within the City of Espoo.

2/ STOP OVER IN ESPOO:

How can the City of Espoo better attract Chinese stop-
over tourist.

SERVICE 3/ SHOWROOM:
How can the Iso Omena Service Center boost activity to
CENTER
an under utilized space.
INTRO:
4/ THINK-IN ESPOO:
How can the Iso Omena Service Center boost economics
in surrounding region.

RANTARAITTI 5/ ACTIVE RANTARAITTI:

INTRO: What opportunities are there to boost activity along the
Rantaritti Shoreline.

7
OPPORTUNITIES
FOR CHINESE UNEMPLOYED
BUILDING A BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS

TEAM | Zhifa Chen, Xiaoyu Ji, Mikko Latva-Kayra,

Mengxiao Li, Laura Salmi

This web based concept is an add-on platform

to the current Visit Espoo website, it aims
to enable the skills of Chinese unemployed
residence by offering opportunities to boost
tourism services for Chinese visitors.

This platform utilizes Chinese residents as cultural, social, I clearly remembered the
and linguistic consultants to improve tourism services for
Chinese travelers. This platform Includes a campaign plan
feedback I got from my team
in order to attract Chinese citizens (living in China) to the members at the end of the
platform through a series of videos, blogs, and posts through
Reflection Cafe, all their
popular social media channels. The platform connects local
Chinese residence of Espoo with Chinese travelers in order to comments and advice were
provide personal and trusted travel information to visitors of very precious to me, which
Espoo. With the platforms three main user groups; Chinese
travelers, local Chinese residence, and local service providers,
drives me to be better.
this platform creates opportunities for unemployed Chinese
residence and a better experience for Chinese visitors. -Mengxiao Li

8
 OPPORTUNITY
The City of Espoo seeks to find new partnerships
between the public and private sectors and aims to aid
local Chinese residents and Finnish companies to find
each other for mutual benefits. As Chinese tourism in
Espoo has grown rapidly in the last couple of years,
new opportunities for employment in services for
Chinese tourism have increased. The city is faced with
the challenge of how to make their services visible to
Chinese travelers.

METHODS USED
The Opportunity for Chinese Unemployed team used a
design game to gather feedback on initial concepts and
co-develop them further with participants consisting
of different stakeholders. They develop an existing
concept idea and come up with a solution that integrates
offerings and needs of each stakeholder group. Game
props included a game board, role card, and post-it
notes. Each group is given a scenario to play-out as role
cards based on personas are partnered to players. Each
Scenario represents an possible concept proposal from
the students of DFS. According to their role, players use
post-it notes to list the goals, challenges, needs, and
offerings of their role card within their teams scenario.
After playing the design game, players choose the most
interesting or promising concept for the team to continue
exploring and develop further.

9
 Reflection: This Reflection Cafe focused
on students celebrating their most valuable
learning moments of the course.

Doing: Design games were a way to involve

clients in the design process.
RESULT
The opportunities for Chinese unemployed citizens and
residents team gave clients a new perspective on how to solve
two challanges the city wishes to overcome. Clients are able
to use the business model canvas (below) to further develop
the ideas produced by students. This canvas is not only a map
for the proposed concept but a method under which the city of
Espoo may develop other ventures as well. The project remains
under review by The City of Espoo partners.
STOP OVER
IN ESPOO
USING MAPS TO FIND YOUR WAY

TEAM | Chengxin Hao, Fabio Faccin, Satu Niemi,

Seoran Jin, Yucheng Wang

Stop Over in Espoo is a long term, 5 year,

strategic growth plan to better prepare The
City of Espoo for its growing population of
Chinese tourists.
This strategy focuses on establishing a foundation We had a real client, It was
infrastructure for Chinese tourism before, during, and post
travel. In its first years, Stop Over in Espoo focus on strategy
meaningful for us to work for
building and evaluating potential. This occurs by promotion some potential area that we
through Weibo, VisitFinland, and Alipay, while making small
can make a change in a real
improvements for Chinese tourists with in Finland, growing
out to Chinese markets. The first years also includes building tour market.
the physical infrastructure of Espoo to better accommodate
visitors using public transportation and businesses. Also
training Chinese professional guides. In its following years,
-Seoran Jin
Stop Over in Espoo, focuses on standardizing services and
improving infrastructure. This is done by involving Espoos
professional guides, Chinese speaking professionals, and
involving Finnish Chinese residence in this development.
Finally, Stop Over in Espoo looks to expand partnerships
directly with major Chinese travel companies. Espoo can
make traveling to the city easy, familiar, and accessible for
Chinese tourist. As popularity grows so will the infrastructures
to support it.

12
 OPPORTUNITY
Geographically, Finland is a connection point between
the east and western worlds. In 2014 Finland saw a
35% increase in Chinese visitors who contributed over
340,000,000 Euros to the Finnish economy. With a
growing middle class and economy Chinese citizens are
traveling more than ever for both business and holiday
adventures. The City of Espoo has much to offer its
growing demographic of Chinese stop over visitors, its
underdeveloped plan for how to accommodate this
growing demographic leaves for a wealth of opportunity.

METHODS USED
Stop Over in Espoo uses a number of stakeholder and
journey maps in order to both understand the system
and actors of stop over visitors to Finland from China.
Visual maps aided Stop Over in Espoo to understand
the current journey of Chinese visitors to to the city.
Through interviews, the group is able to identify points
in a customers journey where they may feel positive,
content, or stressed during their travels. The team then
identified causes for moments of stress of a self planned
trip. With the use of visual maps the team was able to
overlay their points of action to address points of stress
during a travelers journey.

13
Empathy: Students worked to connect and Reflection: Students learn the importance of
understand Chinese values to better how to how every member of a team holds a vital skill to
appeal to travelers. make a team great.

Doing: Maps help organize system complexities

within current and future platforms.
RESULT
Stop Over in Espoo allowed partners to understand the
journey of Chinese travelers. This understanding has lead to an
expansion in conversation moving forward. Promoting what
is valuable and unique about the Ccity of Espoo in a format
which is appropriate and valued by Chinese citizens is the most
impactful result.
SHOWROOM
IN ISO OMENA
CO-DESIGN WORKSHOPS IN PRACTICE

TEAM | Acha Konat, Francesco Fontana,

Jangbae Lee, Siiri Sarkola, Esteban Sols

The Showroom is a concept platform that

aims to create synergy between Iso Omena
Service Center resources, customers, and
businesses who share the values of the
Service Center within an exhibition space.
On the back end of this platform, the Service Center uses The The most precious moments
Showroom for booking, organizing, and allocating resources
to businesses renting the space. While businesses use the were the interesting talks
platform to request rentals, communicate needed resources, and learning from each other
and promote themselves by complimenting their products
as well as sharing jokes and
or services with services within the center. On the platforms
front end, Customers learn about past, present, and future great laughs.
businesses occupying the space. The Showroom organizes
a complex system of actors and their needs to benefit
stakeholders of the Service Center.
-Siiri Sarkola

16
 OPPORTUNITY
The physical space The Showroom platform supports,
is formally known as the Service center Pop-up space.
This space is avaliable for businesses who share the same
values of the service center to exhibit their products and
services free of charge. Though occupied the space had
low activity, attracting little interest from customers
of the Service Center. Customers were unaware of its
presence and purpose. The service center looks to boost
activity in the space without disrupting existing duties of
staff and enhance customer awareness.

METHODS USED
The Showroom team observed visitors activities of
the Service Centre, conducted interviews with visitors,
local entrepreneurs, and Service Centre staff. The team
conducted Co-Design workshops in order to map the
Service Center ecosystem and validate concept ideas.
These workshops are used to gain insights about the
Interactions of the different actors in the Service Centre.
Participants were managers of the Service Center and
Service Center departments, who used props during
various role play scenarios to uncover and map the
roles of stakeholders. Participants played themselves
and others in order to gain new perspectives of various
stakeholder needs. These workshops were essential in
produceding qualitative and quantitative data for the
Showroom team.

17
Empathy: Students conduct informal one on Reflection: Students test props and role
one interviews to better know the people of the play scenarios to aid The Showroom team in
Iso Omena Service Center. preparing for client workshops.

Doing: Stakeholders journey map customer

journeys for validation and further concept
development.
RESULT
The Showroom concepts has shifted the way the Service
Center managers understand how the space is acquired by
potential clients. Since the projects conclusion members of The
Showroom team have presented to Service Center Managers
and elements of the showrooms service package are under
evaluation for piloting in the coming year.
THINK-IN
ESPOO
THE POWER OF DESIGN INTERVENTIONS

TEAM | Elisabeth Fried, Roope Kolu, Jutta Menestrina,

Tito F. Williams II, Yiding Zhang

Think-in Espoo is a strategy concept

designed to attract and inspire visiting
residents of the Iso Omena Service Center
to usher a path to entrepreneurship.
Partnered with the existing Service Center facilities, the Think- Our team had the best group
In Espoo strategy includes, Bi-weekly Video Loops at the top
of the hour throughout a day, resembling TED-Talks to spark communication. This was
inspiration, curiosity and confidence around entrepreneurship. amusing and continued
Video Loops days are followed by a day of presentations by
through weekends and after
established entrepreneurs to share their experience and advice
in dialogue with citizens. During days of inactivity, this stage the course.
space becomes a Workspace for all, this space is populated with
ambient information and opportunities for entrepreneurship.
Lastly, once a month, occurs a partnership with the Service
-Jutta Menestrina
Center and Yirtys Espoo to host a drop in event for citizens to
gain advice, learn and network with light refreshments free of
charge. This places citizens in an open behavior loop, where
users of the Service Center are only committed to these events
through their own free will. Citizens will move through stages
of non engagement, curiosity, getting inspired, venturing into
entrepreneurship, establishing themselves as entrepreneurs,
and finally impacting others to do the same.

20
 OPPORTUNITY
The City of Espoo is growing as a leader in start-up
innovation and economic growth. The Iso Omena
Service Center is the first of its kind in Finland, where
public services such as the local library, health clinic
and Kela exist under one roof. This merger of space
combined with the arrival of the Matinkyl metro stop,
will bring opportunities for new business to the Service
Center. The City of Espoo wants to find ways the Service
Center can support economic growth and innovation
with existing resources.

METHODS USED
In an effort to uncover what skills and mindsets existed
within the customers of the Service Center, The Think-In
Espoo team conducted the Fresh and Almost Free Cart as
a temporary design Intervention to probe for data. The
cart offered Fresh Coffee, Tea, Smoothies, and Banana
Bread in exchange for writing a skill one possessed on
a card as payment. Through this action the Think-
In Espoo team was able to have deeper conversations
about mindsets toward entrepreneurship. After using
affinity maps to categorize and analyze mindsets, the
Think-in Espoo team was able to create behavior maps of
citizens. This behavior map allowed the team to design
interventions to positively interrupt existing behavior
patterns and guide citizens to new ones.

21
Empathy: Free coffee and Tea make the Reflection: Students experience the importance
possibility of meaningful conversation with of knowing and respecting the roles and skills of
visitors of the Service Center easier. fellow teammates to accomplish a goal.

Doing: Students design an intervention that

sparks curiosity and conversation amongst
members of the community.
 RESULT
Think-In Espoo produced rich talks between managing bodies
of the Service Center and Yritys Espoo. Since the courses
conclusion the Think-In Espoo team was invited to present
to directors if Yritys Espoo and additional managing team
members of the Service Center. On May 9th 2017, the Service
Center partnered with Yirtys Espoo to host a pilot event called
Yrityspiv, with speakers giving their insights on business,
mega-trends, and pathways to entrepreneurship. The Service
Center plans to continue testing such events to discover and
perfect what methods work best for the visitors of the Iso
Omena Service Center.

Yrityspiv Pilot Event

ACTIVATE
RANTARAITTI
SINGING RANTARAITTI

TEAM | Jinny Kim, Pia Laulainen, Jeong-Sun Park,

Sanna Suoranta, Ting-Jhen Yang

Activate Rantaraitti proposes an online

platform for citizens to host and attend
events along the Rantaraitti pathway.
Through this platform, citizens become event planners of The most memorable expirence
Rantaraitti with the power to organize, advertise, evaluate,
and document their own events. The platform supports
was the prototype singing
socially participatory activities in order to create a culture of event, when people sang
collaboration and inclusivity. What makes this platform stand
together, it was really amazing.
out from other social event planning platforms like facebook,
is it comes complete with a toolkit for its users. This Tool-
kit provides amateur citizen event planners with a host of -Ting-Jhen Yang
templates such as posters, flyers, and journey maps, to make
the various stages on hosting an event easier and successful.

24
 OPPORTUNITY
The new metro expansion from Helsinki into Espoo will
bring new business opportunities to the city of Espoo in
the surrounding areas of the line. In close proximity to
the new metro is a 40km stretch of walking and cycling
path known as Rantaraitti. As the City of Espoo has begun
to develop infrastructure for business and activities
along Rantaraitti, the city must now think how they will
activate this path with visitors and locals.

METHODS USED
The Activate Rantaraitti team created a prototype event
that explores the type of happenings that could attract
visitors to the newly developed area. Provided with
rhythmic instruments and lyric sheets for participants,
this event taps into the power of music to bring people
together and boost social well being by inviting residents
and tourists to come and sing together. The prototype
had low cost advertising through Facebook and word of
mouth. As voices began to sing the even attracted passer
byers who joined in on the fun. The team was able to
collect surveys prior to hosting the event and face to
face interviews during, to understand what citizens
would need if they were to host their own event. By
hosting this event the Activate Rantaraitti team was able
to identify touch points where their platform could best
assist future citizen planners of Rantaraitti events.

25
Empathy: Music brings a community together Reflection: Students reflect on learning Co-
and warms the heart even during Finnish winter. Design methods and expectations of what it
This bond makes for deeper conversation. means to Design for Services.
RESULT
Activate Rantaraitti showed The City of Espoo partners
exactly what events could look like along the path and what
is needed for citizens to become participants. The outocomes
of the Singing Rantaraitti event are currently being reviewed to
potentioally use as a template for how to develop similar events
along the Rantaraitti pathway.

COLLABORATION &
EMPATHIC APPROACH
It was nice to see how big of an impact DFS has when
people are engaged in a problem and want to solve
it together. Planning and arranging the workshops
is definitely one of the learnings that have aided me
later on.
-Siiri Sarkola
After learning about the process involved in
designing services, I think that I am able to think
holistically from the very beginning of every project
I am involved in. I think it has been very important
for me as a professional and it definitely changed
my mindset.
-Esteban Solis
DFS helped me realize that nobody can be absolutely
right and offer one correct solution to a problem.
Realizing this, relieved my own thinking to focus
on collaboration and emphasize good team spirit
instead of stressing for one right solution.
-Satu Niemi
This course inspired me to be more brave and active
with interacting with the client & customers
-Pia Laulainen
Designing for Services provides me with a new
vision of collaboration. It expands the boundary of
traditional design.
-Mengxiao Li
STUDENT
LEARNING
OUTCOME
WHAT IS THE DFS FUTURE
IN PUBLIC SECTOR?
The course has inspired me to think about the public
sector more profoundly. More perspectives and
differences in municipal and governmental sectors.
-Jutta Menestrina
Hopefully DFS can open the Public Sectors eyes to
the possibilities design can contribute.
-Pia Laulainen
I think the impact in the future of the public sector
is huge since designers are trained to develop skills
that involve empathy, user-centered approaches,
and more. Learning how to perceive and act in
favor of the interests of a company or business
and their customers can be a very significant
difference between a good and a bad service.
-Esteban Solis
I think Service Design needs much more attention
in the future. Since the world is becoming more
complexed due to globalization, there are multiple
interests emerging at the same place, at the same
time. I think Service Designers are people who can
navagate the thicket of complexities in society.
-Seoran Jin
CLIENT
REFLECTION
INSPIRATION
The students of Designing for Services have inspired
our organization to think what our future is, what
kind of services we need and how we can develop
those services with our customers
-Arja Kaikkonen, Development Manager
After the Designing for Services course we think of
citizen participation with fresh perspectives
-Suvi Kajamaa, planner
SOCIAL IMPACT
By adding citizens possibility and freedom to
influence, resbonsibility, sense of community and
ownership will grow.
-Suvi Kajamaa, planner
At this point its hard to predict the impacts. Our
goal is of course develop our innovation platform
(Service Centre) so that it has social impact through
co-creation and Design for Services has given input
for this work.
-Veera Vihula, Project Manager
29
MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE
To follow the brave process of students, from
uncertainty to great ideation and fast testing was
very inspiring to follow.
-Suvi Kajamaa, planner
Working with the groups was very fluent and I was
very pleased with their work. From this cooperation,
we got a lot of input for our future development to
our innovation platform work on Service Centre.
-Veera Vihula, Project Manager
FUTURE PLANNING
We did try the Think in Espoo concept in our event
for businesses (Yrityspiv) and we have plans to try
it again. Also we have used the service model that
the students designed for our Pop up space (team
Showroom) to think the service again and as the
bases for the changes we are making.
-Veera Vihula, Project Manager
Yrityspiv Pilot event at Iso Omena Service Center