Case Study #2

IDEO-U Service Design Course Project

 

Project Objectives

When my position at Marriott was eliminated in early 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I took the opportunity to learn new things.

I’ve always been attracted to the holistic approach of service design. After all, how can we truly create a great experience unless we orchestrate all of the moving parts, both on- and offline, front and backstage, for all parties? In reality, I had already been thinking this way for Marriott.

For the IDEO-U Human-Centered Service Design course, I learned IDEO’s processes, developed my own project idea, observed and interviewed users in the real world, and worked with peers and teaching assistants for feedback.

I focused on the problem of coordinating the complex medical care of a special needs child.

Human Centered Service Design Process

Human Centered Service Design Process

IDEO’s service design process contains elements of their larger design-thinking process: Inspiration, Ideation, and Implementation. It also contains steps specific to designing across actors and channels, like mapping key moments, creating a journey map, role-playing the service, and creating service blueprints.

Portrait of the Ideal Customer

Creating a portrait of an ideal customer builds empathy and reminds the design team that we are designing for someone other than ourselves.

Customer Journey Map

The customer journey map is a blueprint of the customer’s current experience. We can use it to identify the key moments which, if redesigned, would make the biggest difference to the customer.

Defining Moments that Matter

These moments are pulled from our work on the customer blueprint and give us focus for the first round of design.

Idea Generation

Sketching the ideas with pictures and words: If we spend several hundred dollars/night at a hotel, we have access to a concierge service. But in the medical world, if we are spending thousands of dollars on care for a medically fragile child, parents are often left to coordinate all of the care themselves and must quickly become experts while also dealing with the grief of diagnosis and their regular life duties.

I feel that a concierge service independent of the medical group and insurance company could help acclimate them to a new reality and then assist with ongoing care.

Role: Parent of Special-Needs Child
Function: Care for the child while juggling the rest of the family’s needs, plus a career, spouse, etc.
Character/Personality: Mama Bear, but also overwhelmed, tired parent.

Role: Personal Care Assistant / Concierge and team
Function: Help the parent manage all aspects of care.

  • Answer questions about the condition.
  • Help find emotional counseling for parent, siblings, child.
  • Connect parent to non-profit organizations, support groups, and mentors.
  • Coordinate care with doctors, therapists, educators, specialists.
  • Assist with appointment scheduling (including specialist recommendations), reminders, and transportation if needed.
  • Manage prescriptions (refills, deliveries), medical equipment procurement and repair, and supplies.
  • Contact the medical team quickly with questions and arrange tele-health visits if needed.
  • Navigate social services and school IEPs.
  • Arrange respite care.
  • Monitor wearables, sensors, etc. for signs of distress.
  • Be reachable via phone, email, home visits, and an app.

Character/Personality: Mary Poppins, delightfully helpful, soothing

Role: Augmented Intelligence
Function: The brain behind the concierge team.

  • Medical records available and transferable via blockchain.
  • Diagnostic system that can take inputs from wearables, sensors.
  • Has access to databases of peer studies, medical knowledge, to determine via probability if new symptoms are likely to be co-morbid, typical progression.
  • Walks concierge team through questioning process with parent to determine best next step.
  • Access to databases of qualified professionals who demonstrate proficiency in care of this condition.
  • Access to laws, IEP recommendations, social services, and can act as recommendation engine for next step.
  • Augmented reality capabilities to show parent care techniques, physical therapy, etc.

Service Blueprint

The service blueprint brings together all of the actors in this particular scenario – parents, the medical concierge and their team, and both visible and backstage systems.

Course Completed

After I completed the course, one of the parents I interviewed was inspired to create a bill to protect the rights of medically fragile children during custody battles.