The Q’WIK 15 is a boating system for junior sailors and families. Many boats, especially those with high performance characteristics, are prohibitively expensive for many families. This high cost is a major barrier to entry into the sport of competitive sailing and the primary issue addressed by the Q’WIK 15.

With a modular deck and hull system users are able to switch out the deck (the center area of the vessel) changing the functionality all together. Within 30 minutes Q’WIK 15 can go from high performance racing sailboat to family powerboat or rowing shell.

The Q’WIK system also combats the high price of traditional composite vessels through manufacturing. Rather than using expensive composite materials, Q’WIK employs the use of rotationally molded polypropylene for the hulls and thermoformed polypropylene for the deck, both over foamed aluminum sub-frames for structural support.

The design of the Q’WIK 15 is targeted to solve a great number of problems including ones of a cultural nature to economic issues and those concerning usability.

Culturally, sailing has two main issues. The first being retention.  Annually there are 500,000 youth sailor ≤15 years old registered in the Optimist Dingy class. After these sailors age-out of the class, following their 15th birthday, they are presented with a choice: chose another sailing class, or another sport. 95% of Opti racers chose the latter and never race sailboats again. The second problem is one of attraction. Many individuals see sailing as a leisure activity and somewhat exclusive to wealthy individuals. Neither is the case in reality, but that is the general perception held by of much of the potential market.

The notion that sailing is exclusive to the upper classes is not unfounded, as the sport tends to be quite expensive. These problems were tackled mainly though developing new, inexpensive and highly automated manufacturing techniques that retained the structural integrity of techniques traditional to the field. The result is a relatively inexpensive boat, at less than $10,000. Not only does Q’WIK provide a more financially attainable sailing platform but it also introduces an element of simplicity through its deck mounted control mechanisms, which lowers the learning curve into high-performance boat racing.

Achieving a balance between price and performance was the main goal for this design project. There were emerging technologies like canting appendages, hydrofoils, and ridged wing foils, which are exciting but had to be passed on because of costs. However, the Q’WIK 15 aims to develop sailors at a higher level so that when they reach more technical classes, they are fully prepared and will excel above those who trained on other boats.

ReStor is a conceptual department store that promotes a stylish life, while building a community around sustainability and responsible consumption. At ReStor, departments are organized by the items’ provenance. Present, the ground floor, offers sustainably manufactured goods. Past, the sub-level, presents a wide range of curetted vintage products. Future, the second floor, employs the latest technology to produce bespoke items to suit customer needs, from 3D printed objects to the premium service of customized refurbishing tailoring.

To enhance the shopping experience, or if you’re just looking to enjoy some time immersed in nature without leaving the city, ReStor includes an outdoor café serving fair trade, free range and locally sourced meals. Many of the ingredients are grown in the ReStor community garden. Customers can earn in-store credit for volunteering their time toward taking care of the garden.

The inspiration behind ReStor was driven by brand and business performance analysis. Through our brand performance audit and ACCID test we determined that department stores are doing a very good job of pedaling others’ goods, but they are lacking in their own identity. From a brand perspective department stores are generally homogenous. There are tiers within the sector ranging from luxury to affordability, but within those tiers there is very little differentiation. For instance, what is the difference between Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus? From the consumer point of view, they all seem the same.

The business performance audit identified three main gaps in the quality of service provision within the department store sector. These gaps include the service quality gap, service delivery gap, and a knowledge gap. What department store management needs to understand is that consumers are not simply looking for goods, but they want a partner in their shopping experience. Friends are not always available to shop with one another in today’s fast paced world, so it is the responsibility of the department store to become not only a partner in shopping, but an authority on individuals’ style. Doing so helps meet customers’ needs and increase service value.

These insights lead to the development of ReStor and many of its innovative facilitating and enhancing services. To name a few, these are mobile self-checkout, information and history of items beyond-the-tag, and personalized styling and curation. Detailed customer profiles allow ReStor stylists to inform customers of not just deals and sales, but about items they will cherish.

At the core of the ReStor philosophy is sustainability. Items in the Present section of the store are new to the world, but sustainably produced with locally sourced materials by local manufacturers. Items produced in the Future section are repurposed from customers’ existing worn out clothes, as well as 3D printed using recycled and recyclable plastic. Items of the Past include quality luxury clothes and housewares that might be found in a consignment shop on the Upper East Side. By using customer profiles, ReStor stylists are able to find these items new appropriate homes where the items will be used rather than collecting dust in a warehouse. Through these methods, ReStor constantly strives to achieve triple bottom line productivity and provide Good Shopping Karma.

Due to tight non-disclosure agreements and out of respect for the client none of the project outcomes or visuals can be shared at this time. 

In the Spring of 2015, eight design students were given the opportunity to conduct two projects for Chick-fil-A through the SCAD Collaborative Learning Center. The multidisciplinary team, comprised of service and graphic design, design management and creative writing students conducted research around the topics of alternative distribution points and in-store family experience. Synthesis of this research produced insight into the behavior of users and major cultural trends. Aided by graphical depiction and storytelling techniques, students reframed the previously identified problems and presented the new vantage points to teams from Chick-fil-A. Armed with a new perspective of the problems at hand, students and Chick-fil-A corporate team members participated in student-led innovation workshops; one for each topic. The structure of the workshops followed the D.E.S.I.G.N. Innovation methodology developed for over thirty years at Motorola by Bruce Claxton. 

Due to tight non-disclosure agreements and out of respect for the client none of the project outcomes or visuals can be shared at this time. 

In the fall of 2014, SCAD Collaborative Learning Center and BMW Design Group offered thirteen SCAD students the opportunity to present their vision of how owners of the BMW 328i will interact digitally with their vehicles in three to five years. The collaborative effort of industrial, graphic and service design students in concert with advertising and motion graphics students produced a dynamic vision of not only what to expect from the digital integration of vehicles, but of how to a premium automotive brand can be a conscious participant in the ever transitional digital market.

This vision strategically positions BMW with competitive advantage over other comparable auto brands by shifting digital integration to a service dominant model, where the company would no longer have to compete with technology companies that greatly outpace them in iterative software and hardware innovation. All the while, the proposed concept adds value to the brand offering by connecting customers and their vehicles with internet of things products they already own and by greatly increasing the safety of drivers and passengers alike.

Overview

The primary focus of this project was to address the growing concern of supplying urban populations with healthy, organic and locally sourced produce. A secondary objective was location specific to the area of New Orleans and South Louisiana, hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. The combination of these two wicked problems presented an interesting opportunity where any number of the possible solutions for either could help solve the other. The trick was designing a viable and sustainable business ecosystem where all players could firmly stand on their own, yet support the other players. The proposed ecosystem will be explained further down in this section.

Background

There are currently a plethora of problems plaguing the farming industry in the United States. These include but are not limited to traditional farming being soil depleting, toxic, marred by politics and not local.

When farmers continuously use the same land for generations, it goes from being fertile to being depleted in terms of nutrients. This makes them less and less arable and more dependent on external nutrients. This causes a missing feedback loop. With current methods, nutrients that could be recycled back into the system are instead lost and run off to the sea, where they in turn cause devastation for the sea fauna.

The prevalent methods used by agribusiness are toxic. From pesticides to nutrients, what current farming adds is dangerous for people and planet. For people, the pesticides used to kill the bugs that affect crops today end up being ingested by the final consumer. Furthermore, pesticides loose their effectiveness since pests adapt to them, and have to be made even stronger and more toxic in order for them to make an impact at all. For the planet, both the nutrients and the pesticides sprayed on crops find their way into our natural ecosystems and destroys them. Nutrients wash off crops, flow through the rivers and into the seas. There they impact life systems by creating an overgrowth of algae. When this happens the algae consumes more oxygen, leaving too little left for fish to live. This phenomenon of lack of oxygen is called Hypoxia and manifests in coasts throughout the world in what are called “Dead zones.”

In terms of politics, the votes that are tied to the current farming business and the pressure that farming lobbyist exert on the US government creates some unintended consequences. The different lobbies have their interests centered around a few crops that get quite a bit of the subsidies. This creates incentives to prioritize their production. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates the US food supply. The influence of lobbies can be felt in the changes to their regulations and specific nutritional recommendations, which in turn influences both consumers the public officials.

Solution

Identified advantages to New Orleans as the epicenter of our project include population density and geographic location. Contemporary urban development studies and environmental sciences argue for urbanization as the way of the future if we continue to embrace the health of our planet. However, for this to work agrarian activities must move closer to urban centers to reduce the environmental costs of transportation.

From a geographic perspective, New Orleans’ tropical biological ecosystem is positioned to have the most naturally fertile ground in the United States. Historically, the Mississippi River would flood the marshlands and change direction every so often, leaving behind nutrients it carried from its path through the center of the United States. After years of farming sugar cane and cotton, and due to the damming of the river to direct its path, these lands are no longer as fertile as they once were. However, the Mississippi River is contains more nutrients than ever as it carries the same nutrients it always has, but now with the addition of those from runoff for farming activities in the American Northwest. Let’s use the nutrients for farming activities and prevent them from entering the Gulf of Mexico watershed, where they cause hypoxia each summer, killing fish stocks and hampering recreational tourism.

Urban Farming technologies make a different use of nutrients and, done carefully, do not cause run-off to our seas and other environments. Aquaponics, for example, supplies nutrients directly to the roots of the plants, which means less nutrients are needed and are contained to a small area. Urban Farming can take care to not disperse these nutrients in the environment.

Urban farming does not add to the current crisis of Dead Zones around our costs. If done carefully, urban farmers can keep nutrients from reaching the sea and killing the sea fauna.Urban farming generates a much smaller Eco-footprint that traditional farming. The jobs it generates are also local. The activity becomes more economic for farmers, so the jobs are better paying.

With current technological advancements, we are seeing these technologies are becoming more accessible. They do not need pesticides and make a more rational use of nutrients and have higher yields. The fact that it is done locally means that there is a much lower transporting cost. In the balance, urban farming can be much cheaper and make healthy produce much more accessible to consumers.

Process

This project was taken on as a part of the MFA Service Design program’s “Service, Innovation and Enterprise” course at the Savannah College of Art Design. During the beginning of the course, we read and reviewed  Innovation Design, by Elke den Ouden. The purpose behind this was to learn the methodology and utilize it to design an ecosystem that would successfully provide value according to the Value Framework.

We began this project by exploring wicked problems where an ecosystem is a necessary solution. Our team compiled a list of wicked problems and systematically went through the list with a decision matrix to select the best option for an ecosystem based solution. After rounds of research and analysis, urban farming was selected as the best option.

Professor den Ouden’s Value Flow Model examines the flow of four types of value between actors and stakeholders in an ecosystem. This tool proved useful to examine the balance of an ecosystem in addition to check for reciprocity among members.

The value flow model can get quite complex and as Professor den Ouden describes, it becomes a “spaghetti mess” quite quickly. For this reason, we have simplified the complex flows of value to focus around seven stakeholders key to the functionality of the ecosystem.  Though these actors are no more “important” than any others, an understanding of how value is transfered to and from them is paramount for the communication of the ecosystem concept. Professor den Ouden’s Value Framework was used to check the value propositions of various ecosystem scenarios against the value perspectives of different social sciences and perceived value for four levels of agents. After establishing the status quo in a value flow model, two others were developed: Scenario 1 & 2.

Scenario 1 focuses on the establishment of massive environmental controlled agricultural (ECA’s) centers. It was found to be highly unstable and established non-reciprocal relationships between ecosystem members because of dominance established by ECA urban farms. Scenario 2 was also low in reciprocity and stability but the main negative factor was eco-effectiveness. Scenario 2 failed to address a main concern of the region: hypoxia in the gulf.

The final scenario focused on establishing a balance between the two, establishing an ecosystem where actors of comparable size engage to create a long term sustainable urban farming eco system with closed loop systems for key resources and flows of value.

Benefits

The New Orleans Urban Farming Ecosystem consists primarily of four distinctly new to the world services. These include an urban farming social platform, an urban farming food producer, a waste and water reclamation company and a delivery service. Please reference attached business model canvases as descriptions make mention of them.

Urban Farming Social Platform

As a digital social network, the urban farming platform is crucial in the ecosystem by building relationships between customers and service providers. In this business model canvas, the core value for the platform is to promote urban farming technology and to increase public participation, through community activities and economic assistance.

Urban Farming Food Producer

To imagine a full-blown re-frame to Urban Farming, we are creating an archetypal Urban Farming company. This does not mean there would be only one such company, but that the ones created and bore by the market would be likely to resemble the one we describe here. The Urban farming Business model we propose uses different technologies available where they are most advantageous and operates from the locations that make sense economically. It provides services to smaller scale farms and to food resellers.

Waste and Water Reclamation Company

Waste & Water is a crucial part of the New Orleans Urban Farming Ecosystem. Waste & Water is actually more of an ecosystem within the ecosystem rather than one massive company. Businesses in this ecosystem work to close the nutrient and hydration systems required to sustain life within the city. They also closely monitor the city’s output in efforts to mitigate hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico.

Delivery Service

The role of the delivery service in this ecosystem is to provide the capability to deliver local produce and compost to customers. In this business model canvas, the value proposition highlights sharing the core values of the entire ecosystem by stating that the produce is local, sustainable, and affordable. A key component will be the central distribution system to make this solution cost effective for a local market.

Scalability, Desirability, Feasibility & Viability

In some locations, locals might be less willing to participate directly in Urban Farming. In others, a grass-roots approach, where bigger scale companies are not as central, might be stronger because of a culture of participation. Every city will have different “sensible” areas where an urban farming development might or might not be welcome. It is essential for the promoters of the ecosystem to create goodwill.

This ecosystem is heavily dependent on technology and know-how. There should be consideration to the value of the knowledge and how actors will transact with it. An Urban Farming ecosystem requires a high level of acceptance at the city government level. The permanence of its support is essential to the success of the ecosystem.

In certain climates, intense cold or high temperatures might make impede outdoor urban farming. In this case ECAs might be the solution. Resident urban farmers might not be able to participate, since ECA Urban Farms are more complex technologically. One of the benefits for Urban Farming is its being local. If, however, water has to be brought from outside because it is not readily available, it might make the growing of plants too expensive. Within the city itself, it makes sense to verify that affordable real estate that is suitable for farms is available in proximity to water sources.

Overview

Understanding users, their goals, expectations and motivations, is at the core of management for every service based business. This chart examines the positioning and provision of Savannah Hearse Tours through the experience of a persona, who represents a likely user group. The eight journey mapping techniques examine user experience on various attributes. When used together, strategists, managers and service business employees gain an insightful view of where their business can be optimized and scripted to ensure a higher quality of service provision, as well as better manage customer expectations. 

Service Blueprint

The goal of the service blueprint is to provide a comprehensive visualization of the current state of a service or the potential service encounter from the perspective of consumer actions.This is probably the most straight forward service mapping tool. A basic visualization of the service encounter from the consumer’s perspective can be realized very quickly for evaluation of interactions and pain-points. It has the ability to examine a service at a high or low level. However, the basic service blueprint lacks backstage evidence. Practitioners should be careful not to rely too heavily on this one technique, because even though it tells a good basic story, it does not tell the whole story of services; especially when they get complicated. 

Enhanced Service Blueprint

The enhanced blueprint focuses on taking the original service blueprint developed in the early 1980s and adding additional elements. The significant enhancement suggested by Sparagen is the addition of visualizing customer frustration and trust levels. This mapping technique can be used to identify where services are good at establishing trust and making the customer happy as well as where it does a poor job, signifying where the service has room to improve. The enhanced blueprint is excellent at telling a complete story of the entire service encounter step by step from both the customer and service provider perspective. It is also an effective internal tool to ensure service employees understand their responsibilities and roles. Frustration and trust levels can be substituted for other variables. This is one of the more complicated service mapping techniques and is generally not suitable for rapid service visualization. 

Customer Decision Journey

The consumer decision journey map aims to visually depict the decision making process of a customer in what Court et al. argue is a more accurate representation of reality than the traditional funnel. Using this tool, key decision points in the customer journey can be examined in detail. Advantages include: steps leading to decision making can be evaluated and show areas for innovation, market positioning can be visualized along side the customer journey in the same map, and the consumer decision journey map gives a relatively high level view of the service, which makes it easy to identify areas for innovation. However, where this tool falls short is in its assumption that evaluated services have a loyal customer base and actively attempt to encourage repeat encounters. 

Customer Journey Through Channels

This mapping method examines the customer journey and service provision through the lens of channels involved during each point of contact and how those channels relate with one another. Focusing on channels can present strategists the opportunity to streamline the service more easily, especially for digital services or businesses with omnichannel points of sale. It also indicates points where new channel implementation or facilitated interactions could be implemented or improved; areas for innovation within channels. On the negative side, too much focus on the channels can over shadow the service provision and customer steps. For this reason, this map should be used as a stand alone analysis, co-design or instructional tool. When paired with other journey maps or used for ideation however, it can be very effective. 

AT-ONE Cards

AT-ONE Touchpoint Card Sorting is a tool for mapping the user journey through actors, touchpoints, offerings, needs and experiences to be used in structured co-design sessions for identifying sources of innovation. Steps are loosely defined so cards can be sorted in whatever fashion makes sense to the participant. The way participants sort the cards, not only the moments where they place them, can be a valuable source of insight. AT-ONE is a great tool for team building and co-design within cross-functional and interdisciplinary teams. Touchpoints are limited to those that are on the cards, which may not accurately reflect the service. For this reason, decks must be customized for different services. The inclusion of “wild cards” or blank cards where participants interject their own touchpoints could be helpful for identifying points for innovation. 

Goal Driven Decisions

This technique forces designers and strategists to delve deep into the mind of the target group. The aim of goal driven design decisions mapping is to visualize customer thought process at key moments in the service provision. It does an excellent job of balancing low level and high level consumer goals, motivations and how those goals are accomplished, showing both where the service helps with goals and fails to help consumers achieve even minor facilitating tasks. This mapping technique gets very low level into the decision making thought process of the user. Doing so does not provide a very good picture of the over all service and its offerings. However, it can still be a powerful tool when used in unison with others. 

Moment Mapping

Moment mapping aims to identify each moment of the service encounter including white space where Shaw and Ives suggest there is significant room for service innovation. The technique also indicates customer expectations, threats to those expectations and suggests how they can be exceeded at each moment in the process. Moment mapping encourages the participants in the mapping exercise to consider how the service could innovate at every moment of the service encounter, including and especially for moments of white space. The tool does not work to evaluate the current service provision particularly well except for identifying moments of white space that are open for innovation.

Customer Centered Innovation

The goal of Bettencourt and Ulwick’s customer centered innovation map is to identify potential opportunities for innovation at each of eight steps they suggest every job has. Areas for innovation are considered at each step in the jobs process. When seeking holistic service innovation, this tool a bit broad. The map does not provide a detailed picture of the holistic service, and all of its intricacies and interactions. However, when applied to individual moments in the service encounter it can be highly effective. 

Overview

With this challenge, Team SCAD SERV set out to create a comprehensive user experience that enhances each of the four key areas of interest identified by TARGET. Through contextual research we developed insights into problem areas and breakdowns in the TARGET shopper experience. With these insights we identified three pillars forming the backbone of our service design: Prepare, Locate & Connect. Our mobile app based service aims to create symbiosis between the three pillars with the intention of enhancing and extending the user experience, thus increasing brand loyalty for TARGET. 

Prepare

Shopping has never been solely an in-store experience. Consumers constantly think about what they need and want. Most go to the store with the intension of purchasing specific items. Many develop shopping lists. Why isn’t TARGET a participant in this process. The TARGET PLC app enhances the customer preparation process and encourages them to shop at TARGET for all their needs by providing an easy to use shopping list. In addition to keeping track of items the customer needs and wants, PLC allows customers to view where list items are in their “home store” with a plan view map so they can better plan their shopping journey. 

Locate

In addition to being able to view all of their items in the plan view map, customers using the PLC app are able to pin point the location and availability of specific items in the store as well as themselves as a reference point. Items in the users shopping list are ordered by what is closest to their location in the store at the top and the rest are listed in an order that will optimize their trip through the store. Shopping takes less time with PLC because customers no longer have to rely on association based product layout and they no longer have to “pinball” through the store. With PLC everything in the store is easy to find. 

Connect

PLC increases the connection customers have with TARGET in-store and anywhere else they go. In-store, customers are better equipped to find what they are looking for. With PLC, they can scan their items as they place them in the shopping cart and pay from their phone without having to check out traditionally. Physical in-store touch-points, such as employee assistance posts and bagging centers, become more accessible, and shopping carts with a rest for mobile devices work with the customer instead of slowing them down. They can connect to TARGET Live from PLC where they chat live with other in-store customers as well as TARGET representatives. 

Design toolkits are always fun and exciting to examine. Generally, as designers we have our own variations of relatively similar design processes, and when new tool kits come out everyone uses them as a buffet of items to interject into what their already comfortable with. But not every project requires the same process or the same tools, so when we get stuck, we have to go back and re-strategize. 

To combat against getting stuck in the first place, using the same tools over and over again for the wrong job, and to help ourselves and other designers chose the best course of action from the beginning, a team of service design students studied ten popular design toolkits and compared them against one another. Additionally, we mapped each of the toolkits against the double diamond design process so that people can see where each has its strengths and they know where to look to find just the right tool. This wall chart is a visualization of that study and can be used as a tool in itself as a project planning glossary.