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How is designed changing as a 
discipline and profession and 

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how do we face these challenges 
and opportunities as a community

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we explore these questions and 
more on design future now from 

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aiga the professional 
association for design. 

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I'm leash on Wong. 
Our guests this episode are 

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scheduled to speak on the main 
stage of the aiga design 

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conference in Pittsburgh, 
Pennsylvania, March 30th to 

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April 1st 2020. 
I caught up with them recently 

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at a gathering of design thought
leaders at NC State University 

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in Raleigh, North Carolina. 
We talked about their current 

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work and how they have applied 
an expanded their expertise in 

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communication design to The 
Wider context of services and 

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systems. 
I'm Sarah Gibbons. 

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I am chief designer at Nielsen 
Norman group. 

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I am coming from a background of
traditional graphic design and 

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then I joined IBM and work on 
their collaboration software did

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a brief stint with IBM teaching 
incoming researchers product 

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managers developers how to kind 
of think from a user-centered 

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point of view and I've recently 
been at Nielsen Norman group for

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about three years, and I've been
Been researching and presenting 

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my research around design 
thinking service design Journey 

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mapping Etc Sarah. 
Thank you so much for joining 

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us. 
You've made some pretty big 

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jumps in your career. 
What are some of the skills and 

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knowledge that have enabled you 
to make these jumps from 

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traditional graphic design to 
where you are now with service 

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design simply put probably the 
ability to continuously we learn

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and I think you have to have a 
And how you work and your 

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ability to understand context 
and make decisions and then pass

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that remove all biases and 
assumptions about the context in

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which you're working. 
So I think that transitionally I

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haven't changed that much as a 
designer, but the world in which

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I'm practicing has how have 
things changed in the world of 

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design since you've graduated 
from NC State so junior year. 

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I was interviewing and I made a 
paper portfolio. 

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Bound it the whole nine yards 
and I went and interviewed and 

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the person who is interviewing 
me said I'd like to see this 

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digitally next time you come in.
So I went home that night and I 

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scanned in everything put it on 
like a brand new iPad. 

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I think is like a first edition 
first edition and I brought it 

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back and I was flipping through 
and I think that is a really 

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small kind of micro example of 
exactly what I've done at large 

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which is going Of thing with 
whatever expertise I have and 

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then just quickly relearning 
what table Stakes are and then 

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changing what I'm producing and 
the variables that I make my 

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decisions with but that same 
girl who went home and scanned 

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everything in and is the exact 
same person that I am today. 

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I'm just applying it at 
different scales and different 

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Industries often when we gain 
something new. 

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There are also things we have to
give up along the way are there 

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things that you've had to give 
up in? 

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Your day-to-day work or in your 
identity as a designer in order 

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to make room for the new maybe 
moments. 

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I've had to abandon pieces of 
who I'd always thought I would 

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be as a designer are probably 
the pieces that I've always been

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the most confident in so that 
would be my taste when it comes 

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to kind of visual sense making 
or my pure graphic design 

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skills, but what I maybe never 
realized is that those are so 

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much more applicable when you're
not speaking through the terms 

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of Visual mediums but when the 
ability to synthesize a 

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conversation just like I used to
have the ability to synthesize 

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information into one visual 
artifact. 

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I can synthesize a lot of 
different collaborators into 

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kind of one idea of consensus or
decision. 

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That's come out of a meeting. 
So in that way I've changed my 

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identity a lot but I'm still the
kind of the exact same 

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practitioner using the core 
skills that I've kind of always 

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have made me me. 
Do you have any specific? 

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Oh geez for Learning and 
Reinventing yourself when it 

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comes to strategies for 
constantly relearning. 

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I would say a pillar in it is 
just the ability to be 

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vulnerable over and over again 
and the ability to put something

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out into the world that may not 
be perfect and may not be agreed

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upon and I may eventually think 
wasn't the best decision but 

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that in and of itself was a 
learning experience and I think 

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that designers who are able to 
be vulnerable, especially when 

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leaning into a significant 
period of The shin in their 

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career are the ones that are 
going to come out of the other 

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side with more knowledge gained 
for folks who might be new to 

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the term. 
Can you explain what service 

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design is? 
Yeah, so I Define service design

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as co-creation of value for all 
stakeholders. 

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So often times especially in 
kind of in practice and in the 

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product World a lot of teams put
so much focus on what's actually

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delivered to the end user which 
you think about kind of the 

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history that makes sense because
for a really long time products 

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haven't been usable and now 
we're in this age where it's not

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just that the experience you put
into the world is incredible, 

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but that experience making it so
then stakeholders creators third

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parties are the business 
partners all see and have value 

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in what's created that is truly 
service design. 

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So by directly improving the 
people It and how it's made 

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you're going to indirectly 
create value for end users and 

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then that of course drives 
Revenue. 

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So that's really kind of service
design at large Sarah. 

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Are there any myths or 
misconceptions about design that

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you would like to slay or 
dispel? 

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Oh man. 
I think that common to a lot of 

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people's belief, but I think 
everyone is a designer and I 

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think that everyone just has a 
different medium in which they 

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design And I think that that to 
me is kind of one of the best 

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ice breakers when I'm working 
with a new product team to refer

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to everyone as a designer and 
not that they will have the same

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rigor or bring the same 
expertise that I do to the table

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but in their own Realms and in 
their own worlds they do and 

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that if we can work as two 
designers peers both bringing 

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your expertise and matching them
together, then that's really 

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when the magic happens and 
speaking of magic Here's the 

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final question. 
Giving you life right now in 

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terms of inspiration or 
motivation what's giving me life

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right now is the idea that 
companies and organizations are 

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starting to put to put in 
tension and thought behind how 

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their design organizations 
function and I think that this 

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is tremendous operationally in 
that we can create culture 

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that's important and that 
businesses can start to embed 

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design at a strategy level. 
Oh and that I think is we 

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haven't even started to see the 
effects of and what that can 

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mean for the products. 
We create and the businesses 

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that the come Sarah Gibbons. 
Thank you so much for joining us

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now a quick break and we'll be 
back with our next guest. 

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My name is Jodi for Lizzie. 
I am the guest ski director and 

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a professor in the human 
computer interaction Institute 

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at Carnegie Mellon University. 
I am Computer scientists. 

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My training is an interaction 
and communication design Jody. 

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Thank you so much for joining 
us. 

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You've written about a concept 
you call product/service 

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ecology. 
Can you unpack what that means 

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for us? 
My research on product/service 

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ecologies tries to encapsulate 
the concept that we are no 

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longer designing one thing but 
that we're designing systems of 

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interconnected products Services
people and resources in the 

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world. 
And so that means that design 

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has really need to shift the way
that they think and the way that

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they design this work was 
inspired by my early research on

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experience design where we 
looked at how different 

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interactions with products form 
components of an experience and 

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then as digital technology took 
off and grew this expanded and 

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now I think a lot of companies 
are dealing with this idea that 

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products and services are 
linking together. 

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We need to think about Ways to 
design purposeful experiences 

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with them. 
How does the ecology part come 

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into the picture the definitions
of product and service are 

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pretty straightforward, but how 
to ecological systems relate to 

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what we are designing. 
So the ecological component of 

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the product service ecology 
means that the collection of 

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products and services and other 
resources might be different for

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each stakeholder and even 
different at any given moment. 

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It means that that for some 
people certain components of a 

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system take more importance. 
While others are less important.

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It could mean that my view are 
the way that I move through or 

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use a system could be different 
it can mean that some components

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of a system might grow our adapt
based on what a stakeholder is 

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doing at any given time. 
So it's a very flexible concept 

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and construct for how we can 
think about designing these 

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things. 
Are there specific tools or ways

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of thinking that help designers 
work at this level and scale for

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example in service design their 
service Blueprints and journey 

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maps are there new ways to help 
us incorporate this ecology 

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Dimension. 
So I view the tools of service 

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design as a jumping off point to
try to make ways to design 

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product service ecologies. 
I view service design tools like

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service blueprints customer 
Journeys and stakeholder maps to

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really be the typography of 
service design. 

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Then we can take them and we 
begin to layer that and look at 

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them at a systems level. 
We begin to draw out aspects of 

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experience or a set of products 
and services and we can do what 

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we call perturb the system. 
So we design something right 

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there and this point of the 
system and then it allows 

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designers to begin to think 
about what the impacts of the 

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other parts of the system might 
be. 

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I think another piece is very 
much storytelling and 

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representing so modeling and 
narrative to make the case first

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to understand for ourselves as 
designers what we're doing but 

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then to talk to others within an
organization to give a roadmap 

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or a representation of how we 
see things. 

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So these are the critical tools.
I think tools that desires have 

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been using all along tell us 
more about what you mean by 

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perturbing the system. 
It sounds a bit like poking the 

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bear or the beehive in a way. 
Yes, so for me, I think about 

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perturbing the system as 
changing a feature within the 

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system hopefully with an 
understanding of what might 

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happen, but also realizing that 
there may be unexpended 

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unexpected consequences. 
So for example, there was a 

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paper about a church in the 
Mission District and this was a 

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church in a neighborhood of very
different constituents. 

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The church was not viewed fondly
by the neighborhood and the 

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church. 
Did something very simple it 

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began serving of free breakfast 
to the community on Sunday 

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mornings. 
So this little perturbation a 

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free breakfast really changed 
things after this people within 

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the church membership began to 
offer free dental and medical 

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services to the community doors 
were opened the office for the 

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church was moved to the back 
from the back to the front of 

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the building iconography was 
taken down some were melted 

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formed into a chalice. 
Carried to a neighbouring 

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church. 
So there was a really nice 

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example of a perturbation that 
led to a sea change something 

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that people didn't predict and I
think we always have the 

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possibility of doing this and 
design we may not ever know or 

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understand what the outcomes of 
our work will be and I believe 

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that something that Tony 
goolsbee spiff called the 

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solution after next sort of like
trying understanding and then 

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getting ready for the next 
shift. 

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In terms of your own career in 
perturbing the system and 

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getting ready for the next 
shift. 

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What are the opportunities and 
challenges in being a designer 

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in the space of technology 
ecologies and systems? 

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So now in my role as a director 
within a computer science cool. 

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I find that I'm still using the 
skills and principles of design,

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but now I'm designing a culture 
or an organization and so I'm 

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bringing my values as a designer
to the HCI Institute. 

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I want to make sure we are 
empathic. 

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I want to make sure we apply our
work in the real world and most 

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importantly I want to make sure 
that people feel heard and they 

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feel valued within the Ization 
so really I look at design as a 

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leadership activity now in my 
life. 

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What are some myths or 
misconceptions about design that

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you want to dispel? 
So one of the myths to dispel 

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about design is that it doesn't 
come at the end. 

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It's not less important design 
should have a seat at the table 

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and design should be attended to
and respected all along. 

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So too many times. 
We have engineering driven 

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organizations. 
We have technology driven 

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organizations that still Leave 
that there's only a marginal 

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role for design. 
I think we really need to dispel

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that. 
And finally what's giving you 

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life right now Jody in terms of 
inspiration and hope that's a 

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tough one because everything is 
so Grim right now what's giving 

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me inspiration now is I've been 
working with individuals with 

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severe physical limitations and 
helping them rehabilitate 

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through yoga and much of it is a
direct match. 

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Certain apprenticeship approach.
It's looking at what they're 

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able to do and responding and 
how we teach and help them and 

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that for me is core to the work 
of design. 

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And of course, I'm excited by 
the wonderful people that work 

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with me and a lot of the 
research were doing we have a 

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whole line of research on design
and artificial intelligence. 

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We are for example working with 
a union to help their members 

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understand the effects of 
Automation and their field which

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is hotel and Hospitality work. 
So from that all distill that 

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we're able to bring design to a 
real world application really 

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improve people's lives and that 
probably has always been 

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exciting from the first day. 
I said, I'm a designer until you

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know, the last day that I say, 
I'm a designer Jody for Lizzie. 

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Thank you so much for joining us
and thank you all for tuning 

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into this episode of design 
future natl a production of 

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00:15:28,900 --> 00:15:33,800
aiga. professional association 
for design learn more about our 

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00:15:33,800 --> 00:15:39,100
design conference at design 
conference dot AIG a.org until 

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next time I'm leash on Wang