Designing for Service Systems
Lindsay Tabas,
Designing for Service Systems,
School of Information, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, California, UCB iSchool Report 2007-008, March 2007
Information technologies are ubiquitous in the domain of services, whether it be services offered by hairdressers or those
offered by hotels and airlines. Every instance of a service is the product of a services chain within a service system, where
information about the service is aggregated from start to finish, to the benefit of both consumer and provider. Understanding
the larger service system and the way br in which information flows through its structure is a crucial foundation to effectively
applying a service design methodology. We have yet to reach the critical point at which all disciplines of services science
are effectively integrated to produce a holistic approach to services design. This paper proposes a services design methodology
intended for the renovation of existing, information-intensive services. The methodology considers the often competing interests
of the front stage, consumer experience of services, with the back stage, hidden processes and information technology driven
services.
