Service Design Tools

 The website “servicedesigntools.org” provides a comprehensive list of many tools which are useful within the design process. Although the tools stated are given in the context of service design they can be related and used in various other disciplines.

 The “Storyboard Tool” page offers a collection of case studies showing how this tool can be applied in service design research.

A storyboard is used within service design to map touch points and their relationship between them and users in the given experience.

One case study, The Handy Man Shop, François Jégou, Ezio Manzini (Sustainable everyday project), demonstrates how a storyboard can be used to portray different scenarios within a shop and proposed solutions.

Note: The above example uses a clever and simple orange barrier to separate each scene!

This technique could be directly applied to the Interiors design process. Storyboards are a great way of communicating how a space is occupied or for example, how a person would move through a space. The storyboard tool could be used in both the research and final proposal stages of creating a space. They could show the current uses of the existing space during a renovation project at the new proposed use of the space at the end of a project. The use of storyboards at the final proposal stage would be arguably the most relevant as it is essential to portray to clients how users will enter a space, which rooms they arrive at first and the general layout of the building in context.

I once used this technique in a commemorative space project in first year. I used simple line drawings in sequence to demonstrate how the monument was viewed from different positions around the site.

The tool would definitely be useful in my current project, designing a business hub, as in particular I am looking at the way users move through the building and what areas need to be linked to one another. The order in which people enter each space in this project could be clearly shown through the use of a simple tool such as a storyboard!