Remote ed experience informs students’ designs for new services
Technical glitches, lack of interactions and the disappearance of routines are some of the problems young people around the world experience with distance education. Recently, in the Advanced Service Design course at KTH, students got the rare opportunity to apply some of their experience toward remote learning concepts that work better for both students and teachers.
In doing so, they not only drew on their individual experience, but also broadened their perspective to include all users of such services, says Magnus Eneberg , the head of the course. In the end, the students created a series of short films that illustrate how their concepts for learning services could advance equality, diversity and lifelong learning – and meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal no. 4 , Quality Education.
Eneberg says that students taking the Advanced Service Design course are typically excited about the chance to work for the first time with client-centered service design. The autumn 2020 term’s assignment didn’t disappoint: the client was the KTH Department of Learning in Engineering School of Industrial Technology and Management ; and the brief provided an opportunity to build on what students have learned from experience during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Empathizing with teachers and others
“I think the students succeeded in distancing themselves from their own experiences of online learning during spring 2020,” he says. “They accomplished empathizing with other students who were not necessarily from KTH, and in taking into account the teachers’ perspective.
“In this way they succeeded in avoiding preconceptions, but added new perspectives on a subject that was so close to their personal experience.”
Focus on sustainability
The product development process included discussion of all three dimensions of sustainability –environmental, economic and social sustainability – and how these could be applied in the service concepts. In the end of the course, they learned how to visualize the final concept for a short film/animation.
While the completed projects remain conceptual, student from the course have in the past gone on to develop their ideas further. “I don't know yet if some of the students decide to do that this year,” he says, adding: “This is the first course that students experience working with service design and it usually creates a great interest in the subject.”
Eneberg says that other departments at KTH have expressed interest in the project and asked for more information about the insights the students developed in working on the assignment.
David Callahan