Logical Lego? Co-constructed perspectives on service design

Abstract

In the era of 'digital by default', internet-borne services reach out into spaces and places. One example of such a service is home-based micro-payments using Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) that depends on reliable information-sharing practices between user and service providers. Traditional business modelling and brainstorming methods struggle to articulate the influences of space and place on service requirements, especially in terms of human-to human and cultural relations. Shared modelling with Lego produces three-dimensional 'rich pictures' of relational services design showing the influences of space and place upon a situated service design. However, previous studies have merely presented results as photographs without annotations explaining model dynamics. Line drawings subsequently made by the authors, based on the model, succeed in extracted recursive patterns of spatially and temporally distributed social practices. These drawings, together with the model, are prime candidates for service designers to articulate the relational spaces and the demographics of target user-communities.