Designing services - the overview of basic methods

Abstract

In most national economies nowadays a sharp increase of the service sector role can be observed. The manufacturers are also required to supply services as an addition to material products, thus every business is, at least partly, service business. As well as material products, services should be designed, tested and verified before launching onto the market. Service design is a young field of research in academia and simultaneously developing professional practice in the market place. As a discipline it is not yet clearly define, however it is connected usually with service science, service management and marketing. The aim of this article is to present the basic methods of design used for services. The overview is based both on academic researchers publications and practitioners’ work.