At the end of our service design block we all presented our final video’s and presentations, as i have already posted. But for a little extra Ana-Camila who had been helping throughout the five weeks put together two amazing booklets documenting all our work…she did a fantastic job!  The booklet outlines the course and each project produced. This is what we wrote for the travel global ¦ read local section of the book!

What is it?
Travel Global | Read Local is a library service for hotels and their guests. It aims to promote Danish culture & knowledge to visitors of Denmark by giving them access to library materials and services. At the same time, Travel Global | Read Local allows hotels to serve their guests in new ways by arranging to have library materials delivered directly to their rooms.

Who is it for?
Travel Global | Read Local is for hotels and their guests. Many visitors to Denmark are eager to find local knowledge about sights, activities, books, music and other things that suit their personal interests. Few places in Denmark provide such information to help people experience the local culture in a meaningful way.  Hotels are interested in meeting the needs of their customers and providing them a comforting and welcoming stay.

Why is it valuable?
Hotel guests are able to explore Danish culture through the library and have books, CDs and DVDs waiting at their hotel room when they arrive, all for free.

Hotels that partner with the library will have a unique service that allows them give their guests a personalized experience.

The library can continue it’s mission of providing free access to culture and information while at the same time lead the way in promoting Denmark as a country which places a high value in the sharing of knowledge.  Possible business opportunities exist for both the library and hotels to offer paid subscriptions and premium services.

How does it work?
A special library website promotes materials and information relevant for visitors and guests in Denmark. When a visitor books a room with a partner hotel, they are given the ability to reserve materials from the library website. The library will arrange to deliver the materials to the hotel and the hotel will manage the rest. A hotel guest has many options for returning books, reserving more books, etc.

What were your key learnings?
People coming to stay in Copenhagen all begin by following a very similar travel process. In general, many people who are new to an area often seek the local library because its universal services make it reliable. Many people visit a country to learn about it’s culture yet they have different tastes and interests. There is a need for local and trustworthy information that can be tailor made for specific people.

A little about our process…………

Week 1: The Context
Finding a design domain and building a user research plan was the primary focus of week 1. We had visits at several libraries to help generate a broad understanding of the existing system and services. We spoke with experts to gain knowledge in current trends, challenges and other issues facing libraries.

By the end of the week we chose ‘foreigners’ as a user group and made research plans to further refine this as a design domain.  We were interested in how library services could play a role with people who are visiting Denmark or who have just moved to Denmark. Plans for the following week included visits to the airport and other places where we might be able to find foreigners just arriving in Denmark.

Week 2: User Research
We conducted user research in the field and turned insights into design challenges. Most of the research took place at the airport and tourist information office where we conducted video interviews with tourists and foreigners living in Denmark. We were interested to know how they prepared for their trip and what resources they accessed once they arrived in Denmark.

Card Sorting activity in the library

After this we had the enormous task of finding the best quotes and observations from all our notes, videos and photos. For each insightful quote or observation we collected (we collected a lot), we had to answer “what does it mean?” Once this helped us understand the value in our insight, we then had to ask “so what?” As a group this really helped us figure out what was interesting and if it was useful.  The goal of this process was to create 3 well thought out design challenges that we could then create concepts for.

Week 3: First Concepts
We looked at three design challenges and created as many concepts as possible. We conducted many brainstorming sessions which included classmates not involved with our project. At the end of the week, we had literally hundreds of concepts. Most were purely inspirational but they provided material to develop several solutions and begin the process of planning how to execute an initial experience prototype.

After presenting three concepts to the class, we decided to move forward with one that involved incorporating library and hotel services. In a matter of days we were able to make a short video that communicated the idea.

Initial video scenario props

Week 4: Experience Prototyping
We were fortunate to havel Hotel Fox in Copenhagen help us test our experience prototype with their guests. We prepared brochures, order forms and mini catalogs for the receptionist to distribute to guests when they check in to the hotel. We also brought 20 of our own books that the guests could borrow. The books were a mix of novels, guide books and design related photo books. Almost all of them had something to do with Denmark. We also included DVDs and a few other items in the catalog even though we did not bring them to the hotel. If a guest would like to borrow a book, they just need to fill out a small order form and give it to the receptionist. We also included questionnaires so that the guests could give us feedback about the service. Inside each book is a bookmark with recommendations based on that particular book. These include sights, other library materials and places to visit (i.e. The Danish Design Museum). For the sake of this prototype, the role of the library is not important. However we still included books and print material

Books we gave Hotel FOX

We spent a few hours each day hanging out in the lobby and observing guests as they receive the brochure when they check in. The idea is to see if hotel guests, who generally only stay 2-3 nights, are interested in looking at new books and bringing them back to their rooms. We would also like to know what types of books are most popular and how the receptionists are able to manager the service.

Guest recieving welcome pack whilst checking in.

Week 5: Solution Concept
We refined our hotel/library concept based on the insights from our experience prototypes and produced communication pieces to help make the concept clear and understandable. These included a concept video, service blueprint and system diagrams. We also began thinking about future scenarios based on the service we created and how a larger system could give travelers access to books all over the world.

Welcome pack contents

Personalised travel maps

‘Copenhagen Design’ map

‘Just for children’ Book bundle

“travel global ¦ read local” is a service concept that Adam, Sid and myself developed during our 5 week service design course. During this time we explored how we could design new experiences for the Danish Public Libraries. After conducting research we decided to focus on designing for visitors and tourists to Copenhagen. We thought this was a challenging and exciting opportunity as currently the only people that can use all of the great resources that the libraries provide are people registered as living in Denamrk, who have a social security Number. So after our research phase of our project we set ourself this design challenge:

“Foreign visitors and new residents are interested in local knowledge and Danish Culture that matches their own interests and tastes. The library is seen as a trustworthy source of information, and for the the new foreigners that visit the library it makes them feel part of a local community. But for the most foreign visitors, the library plays no role in exploring Dnemark.

How can the library bring its services to foreign visitors and guests so they have access to Danish Knowledge and Culture that is both personalised and trustworthy? “

Throughout the project we used a number of tools to gain insight and to develop our ideas ranging from inital interviews, voxpop’s, experience prototyping, persona’s and experience prototyping. The presentation below shows what we presented along with our final video on Friday.  The Presentation is a combination of using the key elements of our process that led us to our final concept along with tell as story about our experience as well.

Below is our final video for our concept video. It is filmed in a documentary style, to try and capture all sides of the service.

If more information on the project look here.

An overview of our experience prototyping… will probably appear in our final presentation again!

Today Sid, Adam and I  spent the day filming scenes to create a concept video for our service. I won’t give too much away just now..but our travels took us to the library, Hotel FOX, the laundromat cafe and tomorrow we will be heading to the airport. Once we present the video on tuesday, i will post it here. In the mean time here are some shots of us in action!

The last week has been super busy, so i’ve not had time to up date my blog on our progress with our service design project, so i will give a brief overview now of what we have been up to. For the last week we have been conducting experience prototyping, to test out assumptions about our service concept. Some of the questions we wanted to address were:

are hotels willing to implement a book service for their guests?

are hotel guests interested in looking at books they did not bring with them from home?

what  material would be most useful or what type of books would guests like to see available?

what sort/style of hotel would this service suit?

does the library have a problem charging the hotel money for the service? (creating a business model)

After some initial informal visits to a variety of hotels and speaking to their guests, we planned an experience prototype at a boutique hotel in Copenhagen called Hotel FOX. A massive thank you has to be given to them for their cooperation and support they have given us in testing the idea!

To test our service we provided the hotel with a selection of 20 books. These books were focused around danish culture and design, in each book there was a recommendation bookmark that provides the guests with places to visit within Copenhagen, that were related to the book they had chosen. We also prepared welcome packs for the hotels to give out to their guests as they checked in. These packs had a small introduction to the service, a catalog of books they could choose from, an order form to request books and a feedback card so we could find out what they did/didn’t like about the service etc….

the super trendy hotel FOX

the selection of books we provided the library with

bookmark with the recommendations for the guests

welcome packs

welcome pack, with the order and feedback form….

brochure explaining service and the books available

After dropping all the material off at the hotel, we spent a few hours each day at the hotel, during check-in times to observe the reactions of the guests, how they responded to the service and how the receptionists introduced the service to their customers. So far the receptionists have been great at explaining the service and trying to promote, one guest has even checked out a book on danish architecture! so we are super happy about this! We will leave the books their for a few more days and see if we get any more response!

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Over the weekend we have been building low fidelity video prototypes to best convey our new service concepts for out Library and tele-medicine projects.  My group choose to use an animated  storyboard with a voice over,  featuring three characters telling their story of using a new service the library is offering to hotels within Copenhagen. Today we spent the day presenting these concepts to the rest of the class, to gain feedback and develop a plan for experience prototyping this week.  Here is our video….

We also have been working in an initial service diagram, which isn’t quite a blueprint yet….but here it is anyway…It will give more explanation to what our idea is about!

The past two days has been a little bit crazy! After our brainstorming sessions we had 100’s of ideas to sort through, cluster into groups and then try to decided on which ideas to use as inspiration or develop further.  Our sorting process was a combination of setting aside any ideas that we didn’t think would bring value to a visitor to Copenhagen and the library, or any ideas that didn’t make us excited! After our initial first cut we categorized the ideas in clusters such as “user generated content” “services based on personal interest” “out of library services”

Clustering the ideas into categories

We then used 5 votes each to choose ideas that we would like to work on. Surprisingly all had similar interests in the direction we thought we should take.

Adam thinking about using his votes!

Some of our ideas!

After discussing why voted on our specific choices, we chose the three ideas to develop further…..creating a simple user scenario, a persona and looking at the user value and stakeholders involved in the service.  We then presented our ideas to the faculty for discussion. A couple of these were….

1. A service that promotes “wandering” around new cities and serendipitous learning and discovery. Location tracking would be used to inform you of when you were about to walk past something culturally significant in Copenhagen,a and a message sent to your mobile phone/Iphone/Blackberry etc. Further Related Information would then be sent your mobile. For example if you were at the opera house, you might be sent a famous danish opera song, or information on the performances that will be their soon, as well as telling you how to buy tickets for them.

2.”Book your books” In a nut shell a service that allows you to pre-order books from the library to the hotel you are staying in. Meaning you have the ease of traveling lighter and the option to find out more about danish culture by using the resources of the library.

After our group meeting with Simona, Ana Camila and Brian we decided to develop our idea for a library service for hotels further. So today we spent the day developing a service blueprint using a user scenario, thinking about the role of the service provider, the touch points needed, and the backstage operations necessary for the service to work. Tomorrow we will go on to develop further scenarios with different users, and think about the “worst case scenario” situations. Over the weekend we will then develop a further service diagram and a low-res video to show the core of our idea.

Working out the service touchpoints

Rough service blueprint starting to take shape

Part of the user scenario (illustrations by sid)

**photographs on this post were taken by Adam**

Some more photographs from the workshops we hosted and facilitated…

Sid facilitating one of the sessions

A lot of ideas!!

Marcin thinking hard

Brainstorming tools!

For the last two days at CIID we have had a brainstorming extravaganza!!Each group has facilitated three brainstorming sessions around their design challenges they developed last week and attended another 4 sessions! Over the two days we followed the Ideo process for brainstorming, which is strict but super effective. Having this methodical process has definitely paid off in our ideas. Each group produced hundreds of ideas over the two days! For those of you who are unfamiliar with this process, here is an outline……

1. A well framed question to tackle..

The question you want to brainstorm around has be…not too broad and not too narrow. For example

“how might be design a web based social network for German people to meet new friends” is far to narrow, but “how can we use innovation to help teach children” is far too broad.  The opportunity you want to create must be framed correctly to inform and inspire the ideas.

2. A good facilitator

This more challenging than you would think…even though you are not responsible for coming up with the ideas, you have to keep your group focused, motivated and energized…and when the ideas start to fade you have to be quick on your toes to approach your question from a new angle that will start the ideas again. Some of the great tips we were given from Brian were…

• Ensure ideas are captured and everyone behaves.
• At this point, we are focusing on IDEA GENERATION, not evaluation. That comes later. Keep the group generative.
• Make sure everyone gets heard and that everyone is listening, Groups are more powerful because they BUILD on each other’s ideas.
• Encourage WILD ideas, it’s fun and can trigger great innovations.
• Try to keep ideas to a SOUND BYTE or a headline, Encourage catchy titles and drawings.
• Have fun!

3. A set of rules to follow

And finally the Ideo rules to follow, which will help greatly!

• Defer Judgment, no criticism in anyway, verbally or in body language
• Encourage Wild ideas, the might inspire more practical ones
• Build on ideas of others
• Stay focused on the topic
• One conversation at a time
• Be Visual  “Draw a crazy picture, put something silly in the world that ain’t been there before” - Shel Silverstein
• Go for quantity  “The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas” -Linus Pauling

So after putting all of this into practice this is what we got…..A lot of ideas, around 300!!!

Tomorrow we will be clustering ideas, refining ideas and deciding which one to develop into a service story before creating a video scenario to show the user experience…which we will present on monday! A busy weekend ahead

After some last minute research visiting the tourist information and the Manager of Knowledge at the library yesterday we set to organising all our insights and inspirations from the week back in the studio. We had to turn all our observations into design challenges that we can brainstorming concepts around for next week. However to get to this stage there were many steps along the way…..

writing all our observations and quoates down on the classic post-it as well as making character profiles of everyone we spoke to and picking out key quotes from our video interviews.

We then identified all the insights that we thought we most relevant and  interesting enough to work with. The insights we thought we would be able to creat “how might we statements for”

Sid and I deep in thought about our process

The picture above shows us mapping out our research process, thinking about the methods we used, who we talked to and how they were effective.

We then took all our insights and worked out “what they meant” and then created  a “how might we statement” for each one. This took a very long time as we had at least 25 key insights that we wanted to use! But in the end is was definitely worth it as it allowed us to have a far clearer idea and see links and clusters between insights.

All of our insights, meanings and how might we statements!

After we had our  “how might we statements” we then voted on them to see what to carry forward and turn into design challenges! After much dicussion this is what we decided on!

Challenge 1. People coming to stay in Copenhagen all begin by following a very similar travel process. From researching their trip before they leave to visiting the top tourist attractions. During this journey they use a large number of existing services and pass through many public places, however throughout this journey the library rarely plays a role in aiding or improving their experience.

Currently ‘library services’ are mainly kept within physical buildings at centralized locations, our challenge is to give the library presence in other public and private places throughout the visitors travel experience. How can giving library services this presence help visitors become more acquainted with what copenhagen has to offer or simply provide a practical service in a more remote location.

Challenge 2. Many people who are new to an area seek the local library because its universal services make it reliable. The space makes them feel in touch with the community it serves. Internet access and other basic services are available for free. A special charm makes it a surprising place to meet strangers. At the same time, people visiting a new area
greatly value the advice and knowledge of local people.

Our challenge is to create a service that uses the library’s knowledge and visitors to help guests and new residents of Denmark feel like a local.

Challenge 3. People are constantly interested in learning about new countries and cultures, and are inherently different in that they chose to engage with them in different ways. In ways that interest them on a personal basis be it in the films they watch, literature they read, poems they enjoy, music they listen to or even food they relish. The library as an institution is a powerful source of content and information that people value as honest and truthful.

Copenhagen is a major port of entry for thousands of travelers everyday. Most of them stay to explore Denmark but a large number also transit to other places within Scandinavia. With this regard Copenhagen is a major source of content and knowledge for the entire region, and also a major factor into the insight into Scandinavian culture.

How might the library provide a service for visitors not from Scandinavia to explore cultural content within their area of personal interests?