Help finding scenarios

I’m organising a project on tracking systems for elderly people. The scenario is as follow:

Elderly people, their relatives, friends and assistance personnel living in a specific area can carry a GPS device (it maybe their own mobile phone) which make it possible to visualise their position on a map (maybe google maps). They can also send short messages as in Twitter or Google Latitude. The visualisation may be possible both on a mobile phone screen or on a computer at home, possibly using applications like facebook (or any other application that support any kind of social interaction).

I’m trying to figure out how this scenario could define new services for 

• functional use (i.e. telemedicine, assistance services, ask for help)
• Persona use (i.e. reassurance when living alone)
• Social networking (i.e. inviting people for lunch, going out for a walk)

 

So, this is a call for contribution: any idea about how to use this opportunity?

I promise that I will publish a list of all the possible scenarios on this blog. We may also think of an award for the best idea, but if I promise for instance a trip to Aalborg I’m not sure I will have too many contributions.

Open innovation in bank service (and some thoughts on design)

While designers are discussing about how they would design services, services are changing by themselves. This is the case of bank and financial services, which of course are not living a happy period. In 2005 a new system of social lending was funded in UK and is now developing in other countries (USA; Italy). The initiative is called Zopa. Social lending is basically a system in which some people lend money directly to other people without the mediation of a bank. The role of the service provider (Zopa) is to create mechanisms of trust and warranties

Acting use cases

In the last few days my students have been developing use-cases for their service design semester. We are trying something new: acting the use cases.

The co-creation spectrum

The co-creation spectrum is an interesting reflection on different form of user involvement in value-coproduction processes, from mass customisation to community product design

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Final considerations on video sketching

At the end of the Ludinno worksop I would like to add some final considerations on how videos have been used in a user-centred design activity. In the workshop we experimented videos for: analyse the context and the user, interpret the context and user’s behaviour, test hypothesis, develop concepts, and even for proposing discussions about concepts and points of view…

Video Sketching

Video Sketching is a very effettive technique to support communication between designers and customers during the concept development process, rather than at the end. Here videos are used instead of paper and pencil sketches, to give customers and clients a clearer idea of the concept to develop. This technique may prove particularly useful in service design and in any cases in which users are involved in the co-production of value….

Video for User Driven Innovation

In this period I’m quite busy, working in the Ludinno workshop, a workshop on user driven innovation. The workshop is part of the project funded by the Nordic Innovation Centre (NICe).

The first week of this workshop was on using video to get information and involve users in the analytical part of the design process. Users have been observed, filmed in their own working/life context, and interviewed. At the end of the week students and companies (some of the companies were in fact organisations representing the users themselves) discussed the video and generated a patterns of relevant themes for the following design phase.

The second week is about developing a concept. However, unlike usual design processes, here paper and pens are banned. Students have to express and develop their concept through videos. They can use any kind of video technique (from stop motion to chroma key, from 3d animation to simulation using lego briks) and they must shoot videos until they define a concept that can be presented to the industry partners. On Friday they will discuss the video and the followin week they will have the chance to refine the concept in a final video.