Dr Bill Hollins is the principal of Direction Consultants twhicht he started with his wife in 1985 after twenty years designing and managing design in industry.
He has a doctorate in Design Management from Strathclyde University and now specialises in Service design. He has been actively involved in British Standards on design management and the UK Design Council website on Service Design. He had the first book on service design management published in 1991 and his fifth book was published in 2006. He has over 120 other publications.
Bill and also teaches at various universities and has worked in twenty five countries. He is interested in how to make systems work better.
So what is Service Design?
One example is changing how people understand processess. Guzman Y Gomez had an overhaul of all it’s restaurants so that people walked in understood how to order – the process involves Service Design.
Service Design isn’t something which many people would even think of – we don’t usually see or understand what goes in to creating smooth, efficient services.
According to Wikipedia, Service Design is the activity of planning and organizing people, infrastructure, communication and material components of a service, in order to improve its quality, the interaction between service provider and customers and the customer’s experience.
But it isn’t just about food: Service Design is essential in creating smoother services for people.
In the UK, one project in North East England, called Dott07, looked at creating more accessable and efficient systems. Service design re-evaluated the way that the communities engaged in farming, reducing carbon emmisions, public transport, education, aged care and sexual health accessablility.
‘Low Carb Lane’ is a project where one street in Northumberland looked at a range of ways to make their homes more energy efficient, cut their carbon emissions and reduce their demand on the National Grid by up to 60%.
Service Design Management Specialist from the UK, Bill Hollins, will be a keynote speaker at Live Futures 2020 Festival.
Bill says that innovation is essential to Service Design:
“Generally, innovation, being an important subset of the design process, is poorly applied in the service sector. Innovation can occur in all stages of the whole life of a product, especially (and increasingly) at the service end when customers are more likely to be directly involved with the delivery of the service.
Innovation is generally easier with services as there is less of an existing infrastructure to be replaced than with manufacturing, so customers more readily accept changes brought about through innovation.”
Having worked on numerous projects from education, health, transport, manufacturing, and government services, Bill will be sharing the importance, the challenges and the future of Service design.
With Service Design being so powerful, how can and how will Service Design change our world? Find out at Live Futures 2020.
See Bills Hollins at Live Futures 2020 in 2009.
10.30am, in E Block of COFA UNSW, room EG02.
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Resources:
http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/en/About-Design/Design-Disciplines/Service-design-by-Bill-Hollins/
http://www.designcouncil.org.uk
http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/en/Live-Issues/Can-we-use-design-to-improve-how-people-live/
http://www.directionconsultants.co.uk
