becoming a thinkist.

This section illustrates the adventures of the conferences I have attended, places I have visited and influential people I have met during this project. These ventures have been critical to my development as a designer, how I interpret the design process, the design of services and design thinking.

I believe I have embraced the notion of design thinking and I have put it into practice as well as explored the concept as a subject. This section aims to illustrates my intense interest in the field of Service Design and how my understanding of the subject has evolved.

It is important to highlight the link between my dissertation that explored "The Evolving Field of Service Design."my attending conferences to learn more about my role as a designer, becoming service minded and my ability to understand complex systems.

Intersections07.

This event was a two day conference exploring what designers need to know for the future. Many themes explored how new times demand new know-how.

Design is transforming as it adapts to a world in transition. Design has expanded into new terrain and the boundaries between disciplines are breaking down. As it changes so do the skill-sets needed to practice it; to stay competitive designers are adapting to the new landscape, by acquiring new know-how.

Many developments in the nineties were driven by the integration of computer skills into the designer's toolbox. Now the emphasis is on acquiring more multi-disciplinary and contextual skills.

Groundbreaking designers from different disciplines told stories at Intersections about what they have learned lately, what they expect to learn next, and why. The conference also featured lively debate between path-finding designers and thinkers with different views on how designers should prepare for the future.

This experience was genuinely eye opening and I met many influential people. I am proud of the fact I was the only undergraduate student there and I arranged to go and gained sponsorship using my own initiative. Meeting and chatting with John Thackara was a great opportunity and he really helped me focus my thoughts with regards to service design.

 

dott festival 07.

This festival was an important landmark for the world of service design. The exhibition illustrated a year of community projects, events and exhibitions based in North East England that explore what life in a sustainable region might look like - and how design might help get us there.

This visit was really important as it let me see how others had depicted their service design projects in an exhibition space. This is a huge challenge as services are such complex systems. This event inspired me as to ways to portray touchpoint etc.

ISDN 3.

ISDN3 two day conference researching emerging methods and practices within Service Design: placing people in the middle of a designed outcome and the process. Held at Northumbria University School of Design that has an international reputation for design education, innovation and real-world creativity.

This event was very insightful as it was focused on people centric systems. This was an interesting event as I got to learn more about real life service design projects and it made me aware of the issues being explored in the field. It was also a unique opportunity to chat with experts about my service concept.

sharing knowledge.

I was asked to share my insights from Intersections with the 2nd year Product Design/Interactive Media Design students. This was a new experience for me and interesting as it forced me to reflect on how my thinking had evolved in the past four years. I helped them identify key skills designers need in order to be successful in this new design climate. I designed a 'creativity tool' that involved writing continually for one minute all the skills and qualities they regard as critical for success. We then cut these words up and arranged them in a hierarchy - this enabled the students to create a tangible outcome to the session of design thinking.

"design thinking comes in all shapes and sizes."peter higgins

I believe passionately that research can help us reach a better understanding of people - their needs, desires, habits and perceptions - and that this will lead to better design decisions about how things get designed and put into the world.

I have been grappling with questions such as: How can you find out what is going to matter to people if it doesn't exist yet? How do you discover what kind of people might use a service/product?

This project has taught me that effective research is not just about analysis of objective evidence - as in most cases there isn't any directly applicable data anyway; it's also about the synthesis of evidence, recognition of emergent patterns, empathic connection to people's motivations and behaviours, exploration of analogies and extreme cases, and intuitive interpretation of information and impressions from multiple sources.

Design research both inspires and informs intuition through a variety of methods with related intents; to expose patterns underlying the rich reality of people's behaviours and experiences, to explore reactions to probes and prototypes, and to shed light on the unknown through iterative hypothesis and experiment.

These findings have left me motivated and curious to explore. Therefore, I felt it was necessary to get out of the studio and be where customers and real people are. This led to me becoming aware of and sensitive to social trends and the broad ecology of stakeholders.

My strongest and richest phase throughout this project has been generative research: gaining insights and opportunities - research that provides human- centered insight, revealing new ways of framing opportunities and inspiring new ideas. possible new offerings are informed and inspired by in - depth understanding of people's aspirations, attitudes, behaviours, emotions, perceptions, processes, and motivations within their prevailing and evolving social, cultural, and technology context.

Evaluative or formative research has also been crucial in terms of learning and refining - research that provides continual learning throughout the process to determine the what, how and to whom of the offering. Although, the fact my research never really 'stopped' perhaps hindered the physical outcomes of my project yet enhanced the thinking behind it.

Towards the end my project became more about consolidating and less about process, which is a natural progression I need to train myself towards so I adapt to it more naturally.

The vast and varied amount of literature I absorbed during this project and my blog that consists of 200 entries has led to me immersing myself in my own project brief and becoming a design thinkist , and defining to myself what the role of a designers as a facilitator is.

I am very proud of the way my journalistic attitude has matured during this project. The way my writing skills have developed is evident in my article analysing Intersections. The article was published in the January edition of Networks magazine.

These events have inspired me and left me enthusiastic for conversations, people, the future, everyday life and emotions.

This project has shed light on my strengths as well as weaknesses, but most importantly has paved the way for my future as a designer.

I am good at conceptualising and understanding and finding abstract patterns within research. As I have a creative and expressive mind, I am a confident communicator and insightful into processes and the way people think. I intend to better my skills in relation to refining the outcome from these initial skills and creating tangible aspects to my thinking.

"There is an urgent need for professional exchange in order to better and faster develop the field of Service Design."Birgit Mager

I truly believe I have greatly contributed to the development of the field of Service Design over the past year. The people I have met have been invaluable in terms of opinions, conversations and opening doors of opportunity for me in the future.