Service Design for Memory Care

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Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis

Date

2020-12-16

Department

Major/Subject

International Design Business Management

Mcode

BIZ40006E

Degree programme

Master’s Degree Programme in International Design Business Management (IDBM)

Language

en

Pages

58+8

Series

Abstract

Nowadays, in the context of an increasingly serious global aging situation, dementia has become a problem that any society must face. The best way to fight dementia is to prevent memory disorders’ progress towards dementia from its early stage. A multi-disciplinary team formed by Master’s degree students from Aalto University (Finland) and Jefferson University (The U.S.) created an innovative service concept of an early-stage memory daycare center for people who suffer from mild memory disorders. Using the memory care center case as an opportunity, this thesis raised two research questions to study how to design a service. Research questions are: RQ 1: From the service design and its customer’s perspective, how to define a service concept that the design team can describe the elements of the service and its usage to the potential customers. RQ 2: How to apply service design theory and its related techniques into the service design process. During the memory care center case, the author of the thesis took the responsibility of a designer, utilized contextual interviews and participatory observation to understand the users, organized brainstorming session to analysis data and capture user's needs, co-designed with the users to create the design concept, and used usability testing to evaluate and improved the design concept. This thesis will first present an overview of new service development and user involvement theories. Then by showing the entire design process, describe how to apply user involvement techniques according to the different design stages in practice. At the end of the thesis, by presenting the service concept of the memory care center service to reveal the definition of the service concept.

Description

Supervisor

Vartiainen, Matti

Thesis advisor

Vartiainen, Matti

Keywords

service design, user involvement, service concept, memory care service

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Citation