Blogs
Lauren Chapman Ruiz
Six lessons for service blueprinting
Posted: Mon, April 20, 2015 - 8:38:39
Learning about customer experience, and how to leverage the service blueprint as a research tool, is essential for researchers and designers, as this will help them stay ahead in this rapidly changing world. This March, I was lucky enough to facilitate a Thinkshop with 25 designers attending the AIGA Y Design Conference. We left with some interesting conclusions around how…
Service blueprints: Laying the foundation
Posted: Wed, September 10, 2014 - 1:01:14
This article was co-written by Izac Ross, Lauren Chapman Ruiz, and Shahrzad Samadzadeh. Recently, we introduced you to the core concepts of service design, a powerful approach that examines complex interactions between people and their service experiences. With this post, we examine one of the primary tools of service design: the service blueprint. Today’s products and services are delivered through…
Inside the empathy trap
Posted: Mon, August 11, 2014 - 12:43:17
It’s not uncommon to find yourself closely identifying with the users you are designing for, especially if you work in consumer products. You may even find yourself exposed to the exact experiences you’re tasked with designing, as I recently discovered when I went from researching hematologist-oncologists (HemOncs) and their clinics to receiving care from a HemOnc physician in his clinic.…
Service design 101
Posted: Mon, July 21, 2014 - 1:04:06
This article was co-written by Lauren Ruiz and Izac Ross. We all hear the words service design bandied about, but what exactly does it mean? Clients and designers often struggle to find a common language to define the art of coordinating services, and frequent questions arise. Often it emerges as necessary in the space of customer experience or complicated journey…
Designer’s toolkit: A primer on using video in research
Posted: Wed, March 19, 2014 - 1:00:17
In our last post, we explored a variety of methods for capturing user research. Yet a question lingered— how can you effectively use video in your research without influencing the participants? Here are some tips and tricks to minimize the impact of using video in research engagements. Keep in mind, these tips are focused on conducting research in North America—the…
Designer’s toolkit: A primer on capturing research
Posted: Sun, February 23, 2014 - 5:32:11
You’ve been preparing for your research—recruiting, screening participants, devising schedules, testing discussion guides—and now you are deciding the best way to capture your research. But how? If you’re busy scribbling down notes, you might miss a sound byte. If you film the interview, you might unknowingly influence the conversation. These are all serious considerations. Properly capturing and documenting each research…
So you learned stuff. Now what?
Posted: Mon, April 22, 2013 - 11:44:47
I recently returned from a trip in which my team and I conducted a series of contextual inquiries with over 75 people on the topic of spinal cord injuries. We spoke with patients, caregivers, doctors, and nurses. It was one of the most humbling experiences of my life. My team’s ability to develop empathy and interview with honesty was critical,…
What’s empathy got to do with it?
Posted: Fri, March 22, 2013 - 10:26:36
A strong human-centered designer has a keen sense of empathy for his or her users. The more fieldwork I perform at MAYA, the more I find the need to stress that empathy is not sympathy. Often these words are used interchangeably, but there is a distinct difference. Empathy is the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes and actually imagine…
The start of an exploration
Posted: Tue, February 26, 2013 - 12:00:11
Welcome to my first blog post for the interactions website. I am honored to have the opportunity to contribute, and my aim is to bring a unique perspective among the amazing contributors already posting here.I’m a designer and researcher for the Human Sciences Group at MAYA Design in Pittsburgh, and I fell into design by accident. Through a variety of…
Reader Tools
Top 10 Bloggers
