VISUAL - et visuelt språk for servicedesign

The number of services that customers and consumers have to deal with has increased, and both public and private services are becoming more complex. Services are delivered through a range of digital channels in constant change. Service innovation and -operation often involve heterogeneous groups of employee residing in different organizational silos. This makes it challenging for service organizations to develop and operate service processes. At the same time, customer and end users often perceive services as inconsistent and frustrating. Customer journeys has become a central concept in service development and -innovation. The term reflects the need to see the totality of a service process from the customer's viewpoint. Methods related to customer journeys has become a key tool to increase customer focus in private and public service organizations. However, the service industry offers a variety of approaches, which has resulted in conceptual confusion and an absence of standardized description formats. Together with the consultancy Halogen, Linköping University and the companies Hafslund Strøm, FINN.no and DIPS, researchers from SINTEF have developed a visual language for documentation and analysis of customer journeys. The aim has been to facilitate communication around customer experience in a service organization across disciplines and organizational roles through a common terminology and extensive use of visualization. VISUAL offers terminology, diagrams, methods and tools for modelling service processes. It targets the part of the service process that is encountered by the customer. The formal language (CJML - Customer Journey Modelling Language) enables modelling of service processes in terms of customer journeys and touchpoints. It makes it possible to describe services both in its hypothetical state (planned journey) and as it is experienced in a real context (actual journey). Key attributes of a touchpoint is directly reflected in the visual notation. The language supports various types of service processes, from simple business/customer relationships (B2C) to services having several end users, like sharing services (C2C). VISUAL also supports services involving a network of providers, and has developed diagrams for complex customer journeys with many actors. VISUAL was developed in close coordination with the industry partners, as a basis for continuous assessment and evaluation. The case-driven approach enabled us to uncover basic needs, test and extend functionality, and to evaluate usefulness and usability. In collaboration with Hafslund we have modelled and analyzed customer journeys linked to energy services. Analysis of actual customers' journeys provided deep insight into the customer experience and behavior over time. The study revealed the need for changes, and contributed to a re-design of the services. VISUAL has also been used in developing new energy services linked to home automation. In the eMarket company FINN.no, we have used VISUAL to analyze both B2B and B2C services. The peer-to-peer service Småjobber has been documented, analyzed and later re-launched, aided by the detailed visualizations of the customer journeys. In addition, a number of individual customers were observed while interacting with the service. Results from this study informed the re-design of the service. In the e-health company DIPS, VISUAL was used to document the referral process in a Norwegian hospital, a process which is characterized by many actors and high complexity. The process of operation planning is another complex service, depending on factors like such as the clinical case, hospital size, and health region. Here, VISUAL was used to document typical patient scenarios for supporting internal training. In collaboration with Linköping University, the Swedish Migration Board has piloted VISUAL in their effort to document processes involved in migration. Results from case studies and controlled experiments have revealed that new users quickly can adopt the language to model planned and actual customer journeys with a high precision. VISUAL has been presented at several international conferences, for example Service Design Global and ServDes, but also in more technically oriented fora such as the IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing. External partners like Oslo University Hospital has also used VISUAL for planning of patient's journeys during cancer treatment. Many service organizations perceive VISUAL as useful in raising general awareness and strengthening customer focus by serving as communication tool that unites technical and non-technical communities within a service organization.

Vi lever i en digital verden der spekteret av tjenester som tilbys stadig blir bredere, og leveres på tvers av ulike markedskanaler og tekniske plattformer. Dette er vanskelig for kunden, på grunn av de mange mulige kontaktpunkter tjenestene blir levert g jennom, men også for leverandøren som skal utvikle og vedlikeholde tjenestetilbudet. Servicedesign er et tverrfaglig felt som innebærer en helhetlig og kundeorientert tilnærming til å utvikle en virksomhets tjenestetilbud. Servicedesign tilbyr gode metode r for å utvikle idéer og tjenestekonsepter, men mangler støtte for å overføre og realisere disse konseptene innenfor rammene av virksomhetens eksisterende infrastruktur, tjenesteportefølje og organisasjon. For å utbedre denne mangelen i servicedesign vil vi utvikle VISUAL, et visuelt språk for servicedesign med tilhørende metoder og verktøy. Språket vil muliggjøre beskrivelse, implementering og videreutvikling av innovative tjenester i sammenheng med virksomheters eksisterende tjenestetilbud. VISUAL vil f orenkle kommunikasjonen rundt kundeopplevelse i en bedrift på tvers av fag og organisatoriske roller gjennom et felles begrepsapparat og utstrakt bruk av visualisering. VISUAL vil støtte design og utvikling som et verktøy for presis spesifikasjon av innov ative konsepter. VISUAL vil forenkle analysen av eksisterende og nye tjenester for å sikre konsistente og helhetlige kundeopplevelser på tvers av kontaktpunkter. VISUAL vil også muliggjøre brukermedvirkning i innovasjonsprosessen ved involvering av kunder gjennom såkalte Living Labs. Prosjekteier Halogen er en rådgivende virksomhet med servicedesign som satsingsområde. Øvrige bedriftspartner er valgt ut med henblikk på å dekke et bredt spekter av tjenester innen ulike sektorer for å sikre høy generaliser barhet av prosjektets resultater: Hafslund Strøm (strømleverandør), FINN (digital markedsplass) og DIPS (digital pasientjournal og eHelse). I første fase av prosjektet har vi startet med å identifisere sentral terminologi, definisjoner og grunnleggende v isuell utforming for å beskrive kundeinteraksjoner. Parallelt med dette vil vi gjennomføre workshops for å få god innsikt i bedriftenes brukerbehov, kombinert med gjennomgang og oversikt over brukerbedriftenes typiske kundereiser med to formål i sikte: 1. bli godt kjent med bedriftens tjenesteportefølje; 2. Legge grunnlaget for å identifisere analyser og datainnsamling i første FoU-iterasjon (Q1-Q4, 2013).