#serv216 spring2014

During this quarter, I have acquired the basic tools I need to start formulating Service Design pitches.  Using mapping processes like Service Blueprints, Encounter Maps, Desktop Walkthroughs, Service Packaging, and others, I have started to see how I can use graphic design in order to communicate ideas. I have learned how to begin to simplify a large amount of research, as I am usually mainly focused upon details and analysis. By simplifying the information, it make it easier for not only my audiences to understand, but for me to communicate my ideas to them. I have also begun to try to think of ways in which I can use Service Designs to make the world a more pleasant and less wasteful place. By collaborating and strategizing how to make not only customers, employees, and employers happier, but how to make their systems actually more efficient and productive while using the minimum amount of resources, saving not only money, but the Earth's depleting resources. It's easy to say that I think my search for a major has come to and end - I have finally found something that feels as though it is the perfect mix of the artistic and intellectual, with a little bit of compassion for humanity in there as well. I truly believe that Service Design will put me on the clear path of purpose and satisfaction I feel I have been searching for my whole life.

So I have been participating in a SCAD CLC course.  It has been a remarkable learning experience, and I am sure to use much of what I have learned in this course in the future.  As the name states in the course description, SCAD "COLLABORATIVE" learning courses offer a unique opportunity to work with a group of people from diverse backgrounds and majors.  We learned a lot from each other and are still in the process of learning how to work efficiently and pleasantly with each other. However, this quarter hasn't been the easiest.  We have struggled to pull things together at times, mostly due to lack of communication or through simple misunderstandings.  We have been forced to work with difficult time frames, and have had unnecessary stress forced upon ourselves through lack of responsibility at times.  This is completely expected in the CLC program, and is exactly why it exists.  We need to have an opportunity, as students, to succeed, fail, and everything in between. The CLC program is still very rough around the edges lending for a very unique experience for every individual CLC class.  The quality of work is largely based on the collaboration of the students given that the class structure is much looser and the teachers are more hands off.  I am ultimately very pleased that I had the opportunity to participate in such a class with so many talented individuals, but on the other hand with two other group project classes going on at the same time this has been a very tiring and stressful quarter that I am looking forward to finishing.  Its been fun, but rest is in store! 

I guess what I am trying to get to is that a quality product will more than likely have a very quality story to back up its existence and its necessity to exist.  This idea relates to our current project in a very big way.  Best Buy has lost its identity, and because of this loss of childhood humility Best Buy has lost its customers.  Of course the internet giants like Amazon are hard to compete against on a monetary scale, but Amazon can't offer a quality human interaction.  Best Buy has that opportunity to appeal to "in-person" emotion and to tug at the heart strings of its customers.  This human-store interaction MUST be capitalized upon or there is no need to have a physical store in the first place.

Our team has been working on optimizing and transforming the game and blenders section at Best Buy. We have decided to focus on finding better solutions for pre-purchase experience including what is the trigger and why they choose Best Buy as their store of choice. We've also been thinking about how to build a small community within the community that houses a Best Buy because there should be a certain level of connection between a big box store and its surroundings.

Our team has been hard at work brainstorming ideas for our multiple fidelity story boards and artifacts to represent our ideas for our two concepts for improving a competitor-to-Best Buy store.  We have decided to focus on improving the user experience by designing a new phone app system to improve product description, product location within the store and product sales on-the-spot.  We also decided to develop a new service position within the store to sell pedometers.  We want "Coach Carter" (our inspirational SCAD head of fitness coach) to represent a specialized fitness zone of our store.  The fitness coach would act as salesman, product specialist and fitness plan instructor.  This fitness specialist idea would spread to other zones, such as apparel, gaming, film & telivision, etc.

Another idea we had come up with is allowing employees more freedom with their dress, wearing/being able to try out the products they're selling, updating the product information and navigation paths to ease customer and employee stress of having redundant/seemingly obvious questions, putting only one product on display so there is less chance of theft/more time to interact with customers instead of supervising them, as well as having them use the one-floor-display system to interact with the customers by having the customer ask an employee to retrieve an object from the stock in the back. Making the employees job not only easier, but more enjoyable and psychologically rewarding will improve any service tenfold.

My team had developed an idea to incorporate music and fitness together by using headphones as a sort of connective medium. This idea originally stemmed from an error we had made - two of us, myself included, accidentally had developed ideas for pedometers and vacuums. Originally a pain in the butt to correct, it inspired many ideas that were actually pretty good (if I do say so myself). Our teacher's assistant had enjoyed this particular idea, but made one criticism - why only focus on fitness and music, why not try to incorporate headphones into more/all sections of our perspective big box retail clients. All in all, our accidental "lateral thinking method" actually turned out to be pretty helpful! Perhaps service designers could consider doing such types of exercises - i.e. thinking about how to solve a problem by looking at another problem and drawing parallels between them.