Several international reports and studies indicate that the Communication Design sector has a skill deficit in entrepreneurship and business management, and a greater understanding of these topics is needed. Some authors advocate applying existing business models for design enterprises. However, the skill deficit prevails. It is worth noting that these reports discuss the entrepreneurship deficit in general terms without an explanation of the causes of this deficit or how to remedy the issue. Therefore, this paper explores the development of a Business Model specific for Design Entrepreneurs for deployment in Communication Design enterprises. A theoretical framework for a specific business model for design entrepreneurs for application in their enterprises was developed by assessing the literature in the field, in which a previously unidentified connection between the themes of design and the entrepreneurship process was identified. This review evaluated themes for their applicability in a business model for design enterprises. This hypothesis was tested and evaluated through this study's primary phenomenological research, conducted through semi-structured interviews with prominent and successful design entrepreneurs. Thematic analysis methods guided the research findings. The data analysis identified various themes that emerged from interviews. These themes helped further develop the theoretical framework and iterate a proposed entrepreneurship model applicable to design entrepreneurs. This proposed entrepreneurship model better explains the entrepreneurship process from the point of view of designers, meaning that the model is relevant and valuable to the sector. This paper contributes to the academic knowledge of entrepreneurship by developing a framework for a business model, specifically for design entrepreneurs in the Communication Design sector. In addition, it proposes a thematic relationship between entrepreneurship and design processes, a connection that has not been explored in the literature before. This novel perspective enriches the academic discourse on entrepreneurship and design, offering new avenues for research and understanding.
This paper explores how design can be used as a process of enquiry in climate research in collaboration with climate scientists. The research discusses the value of design in navigating the complexities of transdisciplinary climate research by engaging with the mess and researching everyday climate actions. The ordinary can be described as the realm of social life where the repetition of daily cycles that we learn is eventually taken for granted. Climate actions that are situated in this ordinary are vital to delivering larger-scale transformations and achieving carbon reductions. However, climate scientists across disciplines often overlook the importance of engaging with the messiness of such climate initiatives – such as understanding how ordinary climate initiatives emerge, impact a place, and move across contexts. As a result, academics and policymakers tend to focus on global and high-tech responses to climate issues. However, by shifting our focus on the mundane, we can research and present situated perspectives of climate actions that are crucial to achieving carbon emission reductions and improving resilience to the impact of climate change at different scales. This paper presents theoretical grounding for design to be used as an integral part of ‘ordinary’ climate research.
Cultural tourism is a fast-growing segment in the tourism industry and is estimated to be around 40% of the tourist segments globally. After COVID-19, this has come back with renewed force. Regional attractions such as experience centers, museums, event developers, city developers, tourism offices, and so forth need to work together to create enough “reason-to-go” and subsequent “reason-to-stay” experiential qualities in their tourism service value propositions. Through two larger cultural tourism case projects, we investigate how one can bring ecosystem tourism stakeholders together through codesign tangible methods to ideate on cross-locational experiential service value propositions and what opportunities and difficulties seem to emerge through this. In the first project, three regional museums and a tourism destination office worked together to find shared themes and connected stories. In the second project, seven Second World War museums, three tourism offices, and design developers collaborated to extract three experiential journeys that visitors could follow. We illustrate how a series of codesign interventions can engage a cross-disciplinary circle of stakeholders and lead to novel insights and shared understandings, establish common ground, and generate ideas with potential. In addition, we analyze the use and effect of introducing codesign methods that can support the development of shared themes and stories attracting visitors and international tourists. Through observations, video recordings, and interaction analysis, we outline both the opportunities and difficulties found in these collaborations. The opportunities point to the possibilities in providing an attractive offering through a series of connected stories that involve the value chain of travel, food, and accommodation providers and in training the front personnel to guide to the next places. The difficulties point to issues such as the gap between stories as marketing and the stories as they are experienced on location and the difficulty in aligning practices according to a central story line and overall service value proposition across various distances and time. From the perspective of experiential service design, the results have theoretical implications because a holistic service flows through cross-locational and cross-organizational touchpoints while the practical implications also point to the development of ecosystems of tourism actors working closely together.
Industry demands that graduates excel in their academic disciplines while creatively solving problems and challenges across various contexts, while collaborating effectively as part of a multidisciplinary team. This paper reflects on key learnings and implications from delivery of an innovative and novel “year-out” multidisciplinary design education programme for third-year undergraduate students from multiple disciplinary backgrounds. The programme's core aim was to facilitate learning and application of a range of design tools and methods, while concurrently allowing students to apply knowledge and skills from their home disciplines. Bringing together students from a range of disciplines helped to create novel solutions to complex problems while fostering critical thinking, creativity, adaptability, communication and collaboration – key skills for graduate employability. This paper derives and interrogates key learnings associated with two years of programme delivery. With a focus on pedagogical approaches through the lens of Threshold Concepts, we provide recommendations that support students to develop their own agency, to make this transition possible.
C-K theory is about design creativity & innovation. Operational theory is about optimization and efficiency. C-K theory is about the search for the new in the unknown. Operational theory is about squeezing out inefficiency in the known. C-K theory works best under low pressure whereas operational theory works best under high pressure. C-K theory provides a framework for an exploration of a metaphorically unknown jungle whereas operational theory provides the procedures for traveling by public transport. This paper addresses the challenging situation of applying design creativity within tightly organized operational processes. Processes are tightly woven organizational routines which resemble the parasympathetic system of our digestion that proceeds autonomously. How can we break in and make room for design creativity? From a situational perspective on C-K theory, we then look at the theory of organizational routines. What are they and how are they created? These thoughts form the prelude to an exploration of the possible inclusion forces of routines, the forces that keep people within the behavior of the routines. Along the lines of a Deweyan inquiry, we look for integration of these elements to ultimately arrive at a proposal for resolution. Not easy, but fundamental.
Many approaches to innovation are active in the health sector, the majority derived from the world of quality improvement. While these methods are potent and can yield significant results, when used in healthcare they frequently concentrate on individual patient pathways or specific components of a healthcare system - yet many of the challenges in healthcare are associated with patient and staff experiences and the poor interfaces between different parts of a service. In the conventional quality improvement (QI) toolbox there are relatively few methods that support exploration of these more holistic challenges. Design and systems thinking, however, have much to offer. Design thinking has methods and frameworks that put the user at the centre, encourage divergent and convergent thinking, promote early prototyping & iteration and support collaboration through visualisation. Systems thinking helps map the complex connections and relationships between different actors and elements within a system, it explores flows & feedback loops and encourages looking at the system in its entirety from the perspectives of events, trends, connections and mindsets. To translate design and systems thinking into action, healthcare professionals need design and systems methods that are framed around their very particular challenges, are described in the vocabulary of health and complement existing paradigms of quality improvement. This paper describes how a Patient Ecosystem Mapping methodology has been developed that enables a healthcare team to build a ‘London Underground’ style map of the patient pathways within which they work and then use this to reflect on potential improvements. The principles of the mapping process are described. Examples of how the Patient Ecosystem Mapping methodology has been used on various projects and Scotland and Northern Ireland are described. The maps have acted as Boundary Objects, breaking down silos and empowering teams to take ownership of their areas of healthcare. The way different frameworks from systems thinking, such as the iceberg model, have been used to help review the maps is also described. The work is a case study in how design and systems thinking principles can be integrated into a working method with real world value. The work is also a case study in how non-design professionals (from healthcare) can be upskilled in design approaches.
Design-driven innovation (DDI) is an approach to innovation that focuses on creating new meanings for the products and services a company offers. DDI differs from other forms of innovation, which are typically more so driven by the development of breakthrough technologies or on addressing current market needs. It is argued that DDI is an effective approach to creating value and promoting the growth of a company. Research regarding DDI has largely focused on the outcomes for end-users or overall company growth. While these outcomes are important, a lot goes on behind the scenes to successfully deliver them. Internal stakeholders such as managers and employees are responsible for delivering these outcomes, and research regarding value creation for them is currently limited. This paper serves as a starting point for further research by presenting a critical literature review that investigates how DDI could be a catalyst for innovation and growth through the creation of new meanings for internal stakeholders involved in the development of products and services. The result of this literature review is the identification of possible areas for intervention and a proposal for further primary research.
The rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) like ChatGPT into educational settings has irreversibly transformed teaching and learning paradigms. Recognizing that conventional instructional methods may fall short in equipping students with essential skills, this paper advocates for a shift towards experiential learning through service-learning (SL) and problem-based learning (PBL) in design education. These pedagogies, which promote intellectual growth and hands-on experience, are critical for students' career readiness and provide valuable real-world client engagement. Despite enthusiasm, incorporating SL and PBL faces significant hurdles, including a lack of educator training, resources, and structural support, coupled with the complexities of establishing partnerships, particularly affecting small businesses and disenfranchised entities. This research delves into the experiential learning landscape, examining successes and identifying skills gaps impacting educators and students. The findings, based on various design schools within a single university, assess challenges of integrating SL and PBL into design curricula and propose solutions to mitigate these barriers. Aiming to forge a stronger bridge between research, business, and academia, this paper underscores the necessity of preparing students for the 21st century's demands. Through this exploration, it contributes to the discourse on experiential learning within design education, enhancing the overall quality and relevance of student learning experiences.
With various types of mobile service robots gradually taking their place in our homes and public spaces, robot designs are diversifying to address a wide range of tasks and usage contexts. While research on robot morphology within human-robot interaction (HRI) has primarily focused on anthropomorphic design, studies on robot appearance and human perception yield conflicting findings regarding the effect of anthropomorphism and the desired level of human-likeness across contexts. This study hypothesizes that the optimal level of human-likeness varies depending on the nature of the context. By exploring the design of mobile service robots across three different service contexts - restaurants, supermarkets, and delivery services - this study examines the relationship between usage context, perceived capabilities, and the desired level of human-likeness. Generative image artificial intelligence (AI) tools were employed to facilitate the development of design variations and their visualization in context as photorealistic renderings. A total of nine renderings were created and presented in an online survey, from which 36 responses were collected and analyzed. The survey results indicate a preference for low-level human-likeness for robots in supermarket and delivery contexts. However, the restaurant context had mixed results, exhibiting no clear preference for a certain human-likeness level.
This paper evaluates the human‐centric, systemic and near future‐driven components of Service Design to understand how they can work within a Future Studies and Foresight (FSF) framework. Expanding on empirical evidence gathered from a case study with renters and shareowners in Danish cooperative housing associations (Andelsboligforeningen), the paper looks at how the application of Service Design – within Future Studies and Foresight (FSF, hereafter) – can facilitate a fine‐grained and inclusive rebuilding of our socio‐technical systems in a way that allows end‐users to understand and engage with them more productively. The paper provides a theoretical reflection on the gestalt emerging from bridging Service Design and FSF and how this can inspire and establish strategic viewpoints on how to co‐design complex systems embedded in different socio‐technical dimensions.
This paper highlights the significance of emotional values within digital services during the airline cabin experience. Currently, emotional engagement with front-line AI interactions, such as AI assistants, lacks trust. Thus, the role of AI must be reimagined to better integrate the human factor into the service experience through things like high-touch in order to create trust and improve the perception of cabin service quality. Service design is a human-centric approach to service creation in which the user is typically made the main subject of the service research; the service process (service interaction) then co-creates values alongside the service provider. The major concept discussed here is AI Augmented Services (AIAS), which turn high-tech capabilities into high-touch “human centric” services that can offer access, control, and well-being to the user, all of which are key components in the establishment of trust. Airline future services can then implement this study for the purpose of detecting human emotions, co-creating emotional values, and promoting emotional intelligence through the AIAS interactive communication channels, thereby transforming high-tech capabilities into high-touch opportunities. The methodological approach began by determining a benchmark for the state-of-the-art AI technology in transport and conducting a set of expert interviews. Notably, the possible materialisation and challenges of AIAS high-touch cabin services are also discussed here. This article can be considered to be a first step toward a service design in which opportunities are discussed with the goal of “discovering” possible AI solutions. Consecutive stages will be presented in future articles in which the concepts introduced here will be further defined and developed.
A low level of treatment adherence is one of the challenges facing the UK's healthcare system. An estimated 30% to 50% of patients with chronic diseases fail to adhere to prescribed medical interventions. While medical technology provides an opportunity to overcome existing challenges, poor adherence blurs this opportunity by reducing the intervention's positive impact. The spread of the Covid pandemic dramatically increased the pressure on healthcare systems and highlighted the urgency to address the low adherence problem. Various studies have investigated the underlying factors behind low adherence. However, two main gaps were identified: 1) lack of adherence frameworks that consider self‐administered treatment technology, and 2) lack of a practical mechanism to help companies consider adherence factors during the design and development of the technology. This paper introduces the development of an Adherence Framework for self‐administered treatment technology and a design‐focused adherence canvas used as a practical resource for companies to consider during the design process. Adherence factor data from literature and case studies were triangulated to an eDelphi study used to develop the adherence framework. The presented adherence canvas and Adherence Framework allow companies to consider adherence during the design of self‐administered treatment technology.
Theory of Change was created as a logic planning model to explore and represent a potential change in a way that reflects a complex and systemic understanding of development. Even though it is a familiar tool in the context of community initiatives and philanthropic projects, Theory of Change is under-applied in design as a problem-solving practice and underexplored within design research. Design projects that are looking for more comprehensive ways of negotiating change can greatly benefit from it to inform a deep understanding of the dynamics of change. This paper focuses on how a designerly approach to Theory of Change can support participatory visual mapping, thus creating some enabling conditions towards transformation in cities, namely: facilitating more granular communication, suggesting a multifaceted and systemic perspective, helping to navigate complexity by creating shared mental models among stakeholders, fostering thinking through different temporalities, and boosting creativity. The paper will examine a case of an urban transformation project that involves six European cities under regeneration.
In recent years, design thinking (DT) has become a pervasive innovation approach in the managerial community as a structured way of solving challenging problems through a human-centered perspective. The approach fosters lateral thinking and has a huge impact on the organizational culture and the core elements of the innovation process. At the same time, the number of organizations trying to solve problems through the application of artificial intelligence (AI) is constantly growing, although more than 80% of AI projects never reach deployment due to the wrong strategic approach, poor data quality, or a lack of AI awareness among employees—and those that do remain below profitability expectations. The aim of this paper is therefore to connect the AI and DT communities by proposing a first framework supporting the development of AI solutions in a human-centered way. The contribution of this paper is thus twofold: First, we investigate ways in which design thinking adds real value along the design process of intelligent solutions, thereby enriching the present body of design management literature. Second, we propose a first framework by linking core elements of both worlds to support strategic designers and data engineers in designing such applications. Finally, we propose a research agenda that can serve as a basis for future research directions in order to advance contributions at the intersection of the two fields.
Sustainability is recognised as a complex issue with it comprising of three themes, namely social, environmental, and economic impact. The role of professional designers is becoming trans‐disciplinary, with employers expecting designers to be equipped with the necessary skills to implement sustainability within their design process. Environmental sustainability has been and has continued to be an important theme within design and design management literature, with a focus on how to effectively implement this throughout the design industry. It is currently unclear how designers are managing environmental sustainability throughout their design process. To investigate this gap further a detailed methodology was employed, including a review of previous academic literature, an investigation into the design processes of sustainability‐design specialists, and a holistic review of the current status of environmental sustainability within the design industry. The study has enabled an evaluation of the current status of environmental sustainability implementation as well as the management methods used by those in industry to aid designers and their process. From data analysis, a framework has been developed to aid designers in the implementation of environmental sustainability during their design process. Future suggestions for research will also be outlined.
Startup accelerators offer a range of services to entrepreneurs that enable them to accelerate growth and development in just a few months. Typically, small-, and medium-sized, growth-oriented companies are supported early in their development through offers of education and training, mentoring, consulting, and venture capital. The startup accelerator “Growth Train” of Business Lolland-Falster – a regional development organization in Denmark, has been the subject of a closer investigation as a service journey and business model. Four distinct factors make accelerators unique: time-limited, cohort-based (a standard course for a selected group), mentor-driven, and typically ends with a ‘demo day’. The analysis of Growth Train is based on Service Design Thinking and theories on Business Models. It contributes to the theoretical understanding of startup accelerators as a service journey for the participating startups where Service-Design Thinking plays a crucial role in the design of the accelerator. It also explains how the accelerators create value for the selected group of startups. Startup accelerators also represent a Business Model (value proposition) for the managers of the accelerators and the stakeholders in the local business ecosystem. It also offers economic growth and employment for outlying areas like Lolland-Falster in Denmark.
This conceptual paper draws together the seemingly disparate concepts of business continuity and inclusive design with a two‐fold overarching aim. Firstly, the paper aims to make a case for people‐centred approaches to business continuity planning, particularly in areas of real‐time assessment, building agile and resilient organisations, and new value creation. This is fulfilled by tracing recent developments in business continuity thinking and business continuity management practice, that highlight a shift from a purely functional approach, to a more holistic, embedded, dynamic, people‐centred and strategic stance. Secondly, the paper aims to propose new applications of inclusive design for business impact in general, and business continuity in particular, thereby extending the business case for inclusive design as outlined in British Standards (BS 7000–6:2005). This is fulfilled by highlighting the rationale, value and emergent opportunities in this area. In bringing the two concepts and their respective theory and practice together, the paper also presents recent discussions on the intersection of design thinking and business continuity, which demonstrate the potential value that a design‐led approach can bring to enable people‐centredness and inclusion in the domain of business continuity. Additionally, the paper proposes a first‐level definition of ‘people‐centred business continuity’ which is considered a steppingstone in the research process for further investigation in both theory and application.
This research explores innovation‐readiness in the context of design‐led innovation in micro, small and medium‐sized enterprises (MSMEs). It builds on work undertaken and published by the lead author's team in 2018. This reported on the team's rapid design‐led intervention for supporting organisations to establish innovation readiness. Since it first delivery, the approach has been deployed with over 60 separate enterprises across three different countries; UK, USA, and Armenia. It has evolved to be delivered through different modes; one‐to‐one, one‐to‐many, face‐to‐face and on‐line. Further, it has been developed in such a way that postgraduate students, or ‘novice facilitators’, can take an active role in its delivery. Facilitation teams have invariably included at least one facilitator with a design background. Participants were enterprise founders or leaders. In this study a mixed‐methods approach is used, combining thematic analysis of participant surveys, co‐reflection and semi‐structured interviews with participants and facilitators. Findings suggest that this design‐led approach delivers different benefits from typical business innovation readiness assessment and audit tools. It involves a form of co‐creative, speculative knowledge venturing that supports enterprises in not only understanding their innovation readiness, but also in creating and mapping strategic innovation opportunities, thereby priming them to engage in design‐led innovation practices. This co‐creation of knowledge leads to both new knowledge about the innovation readiness of the enterprise and new innovation opportunities. It is revealed as a fundamental, catalytic aspect of the programme irrespective of mode, or location, of delivery. This paper will be of interest to researchers and practitioners who are seeking to develop innovation support programmes working with SMEs and MSMEs.
Openly shared design knowledge and open‐to‐participate design processes present potential for democratising innovation through diffuse value creation networks that can diverge into different directions and design outcomes. This potential mostly concretises through the distributed production paradigm that localises production, closes material loops and empowers communities to meet their specific needs. This paper argues that there is a need for formalising truly alternative ways of doing open design‐led businesses that can establish distributed value creation networks. In an attempt to enable and facilitate envisioning such alternatives, this paper presents a novel conceptualisation of stakeholders and framing of their ever‐shifting roles and responsibilities in complex value creation networks suggested by distributed production through a systematic literature review of 131 journal articles at the intersection of open design, distributed production and business models. The analysis revealed two main categories of stakeholders namely value‐creation‐for‐self and value‐creation‐for‐others, with a total of six sub‐categories presenting varying capacities to participate in networked value creation processes. The article concludes with a discussion on how this conceptualisation can enable envisioning novel, open design‐led business models in terms of collaborative value creation, managing distributed value networks and a layered approach to design and value offerings.
Organizations are transitioning from a product mindset to services as their primary customer offering. Service organizations today have complex processes spread across physical and digital spaces involving several stakeholders. IT organizations help these organizations by building products and services and providing advisory to achieve their strategic objectives. IT organizations are hence well‐positioned to introduce this shift towards a service mindset and encourage the adoption of service design. IT organizations need to first decide whether they want to proliferate service design. However, there is a predicament about how to approach this ‐ should they start by designing the services for their customers first, or focus on their own organizational internal services? Once they decide it then next dilemma is about whether to follow top‐down or bottom‐up approach. We have utilized an ‘Inside‐out’ approach for proliferating service design to address these dilemmas. The approach of ‘inside‐out’, in essence, is about gradually proliferating a new process by experiencing its benefits within the organization first and then subsequently applying it to their customers outside the organization. In this paper we advocate the mix of top‐down or bottom‐up approach for the proliferation of service design.
