Service design and product ideas have a huge impact on how happy a customer or user is going to be. Hence, they also determine how successful a business is in the long term. With information overloads prevalent these days, it is not easy to capture the attention of the audience. The audience is not too keen to be convinced. They want to be fascinated and swept off their feet. Things have to be done differently now. According to Smashing Magazine, ‘ Product design is the process of identifying a market opportunity, clearly defining the problem, developing a proper solution for that problem and validating the solution with real users.’
Service and product design is an area of opportunity. It could help create inventive and fun experiences for the audience. As a result of the pandemic, service-based businesses that require very little person-to-person contact have had an opportunity to thrive like never before. Given below are examples of successful service design and product ideas that have successfully re-engaged the targeted audience.
1) Face shields - An effective result of the effort of designers all over the world has been to assuage the need for face shields. Manufacturers have leveraged their collective resources to offer innovative solutions that lessen the strain on medical equipment and ensure the safety of frontline workers. This led to Operation PPE. Operation PPE was launched by Cornell University professor Jenny Sabin, and distributed specs for 3D-printed face masks. Furniture designers and installation artists Kristen Wentrcek and Andrew Zebilon, transformed their Bushwick studio into a small factory to produce some 3,000 face shields. Their efforts helped the medical staff at one of New York’s most overburdened healthcare facilities, Elmhurst Hospital in Queens.
