The Object of Service Design

Fernando Secomandi, Dirk Snelders

Introduction
Recent decades have witnessed a steep increase in service research
springing from disciplines as diverse as economics, management,
and engineering. For the most part, this interest is a response to the
1 Any attempt to provide an accurate
portrayal of a rapidly evolving field is
expansion of the service sector in the last century and the consequent
bound to suffer from incompleteness. penetration of services in almost all areas of industrial activity and
Still, as formative of the field of service contemporary life. Services now represent an undeniable force
design, the following advances originat- behind labor and value creation in the world economy.
ing within the design community should
Until recent years, however, design approached services as
be mentioned. Articles published in
if they were mere appendages to goods. It is not uncommon to still
academic journals: e.g., Nicola Morelli,
“Designing Product/Service Systems: observe in design discourse the surreptitious inclusion of services
A Methodological Exploration,” Design in expressions like “product/service” or “product (and service),”
Issues 18:3 (Summer 2002): 3–17; Carla without a deeper explanation of the meaning of these compound
Cipolla and Ezio Manzini, “Relational terms. By implication, the fixation on goods persists, which is
Services,” Knowledge, Technology
understandable considering design’s historical role in giving shape
& Policy 22:1 (2009): 45–50; Claudio
Pinhanez, “Services as Customer-
to the material culture of modernity. But since the advent of post-in-
intensive Systems,” Design Issues dustrial societies, the half-hearted integration of services into design
25:2 (Spring 2009): 3–13. Specialized discourse is increasingly out of touch with the times. Services must
research groups: e.g., SEDES research, receive the attention they deserve so as to unpack the concept and
led by Prof. Birgit Mager, at the Köln
place it in the center of design thought and action.
International School of Design (Germany).
Fortunately, there are signs within the design community of a
PhD theses of Pacenti, Sangiorgi, and
Cipolla, under guidance of Prof. Ezio movement to advance service design.1 One of the issues motivating
Manzini, at the Politecnico di Milano current research is the idea that service designers create multiple
(Italy). Networks bringing together prac- contacts, or touchpoints, between service organizations and their
titioners and academic institutions; e.g., clients, including material artifacts, environments, interpersonal
Service Design Network. Service design
encounters, and more.2 The identification of touchpoints as an
consultancies; e.g., live|work and Engine
(Great Britain). Dedicated conferences
object of service design is a clear step away from the imposition of
in North America (Emergence 2007, the goods-centered paradigms of the past. However, touchpoints
USA), Europe (Service Design Network remain poorly conceptualized from a design perspective. At best,
Conference 2008, The Netherlands), and their origins in service research are traced back to the notion of service
Asia (International Service Innovation
evidence introduced in the seminal writings of G. Lynn Shostack in
Design Conference 2008, South Korea).
marketing.3 Unfortunately, as we argue below, such a portrayal of
Books and chapters in edited books:
e.g., Gillian Hollins and Bill Hollins, Total touchpoints places service design on the wrong track, because it
Design: Managing the Design Process turns the design of services into a peripheral activity—namely, that
in the Service Sector (London: Pitman, of “accessorizing” an essentially intangible relation between service
1991) and Bill Moggridge, Designing providers and their clients.
Interactions (Cambridge, MA: MIT
The lack of clarity over the object of service design is
Press, 2007). And other Internet-based
resources: e.g., Jeff Howard’s “Design for
aggravated by the superficial treatment in design scholarship of
Service,” available from: http://design- the alternative concepts and theories found in the service literature.
forservice.wordpress.com/ (accessed In addition to Shostack, researchers from multiple backgrounds
June 19, 2010).
© 2011 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
20 Design Issues: Volume 27, Number 3 Summer 2011
 have proposed conceptual handles for thinking about services in
the context of their development, commercialization, and use.
However, their contributions are rarely recognized as relevant for
design and remain scattered across the literature, often obscured by
different disciplinary discourses. The purpose of this article is to
analyze these various service models in order to locate and ground
the object of service design in the broader field of academic research
on services.

Alternative Service Models

In this section, we introduce alternative service models discussed in
the literature from distinct disciplinary perspectives. Our exposition
is based on an extensive survey of academic publications on services
and is organized in four subsections, roughly corresponding to the
disciplines of service marketing, management, engineering, and
2 Cf. Birgit Mager’s entry on service design economics. The purpose is not to provide an exhaustive overview
in Michael Erlhoff and Tim Marshall, of all the literature we consulted, but to focus on original contri-
eds., Design Dictionary: Perspectives on butions that can impart knowledge about our topic of interest and
Design Terminology (Basel: Birkhäuser,
are widely applicable across service sectors. As such, there is a
2008).
certain bias in our selection toward older publications over recent
3 G. Lynn Shostack, “Breaking Free
from Product Marketing,” Journal of restatements of comparable ideas. Where appropriate, commentaries
Marketing 41:2 (1977): 73–80. about related work are added in side notes. We present each model
4 Ibid. separately in an attempt to preserve their internal coherence and
5 Ibid., 75. conceptual integrity. Our descriptions thus remain observant of
6 Ibid.
the authors’ intentions and terminologies. However, this approach
7 In the complete molecular model,
Shostack later included three outer should not be taken to mean that we fully endorse each of these
layers representing strategic marketing service conceptions. Rather, the goal is to explain relevant concepts
decisions in terms of distribution, and theories in sufficient depth, and to invite readers to reflect upon
price and cost, and advertising and a number of received views of services and design. In doing so, we
promotion. See G. Lynn Shostack, “How
highlight special features of the texts that are pivotal to the argumen-
to Design a Service,” European Journal
tation developed in the section that follows, where we interpret the
of Marketing 16:1 (1982): 49–63. Along
similar lines, Booms and Bitner sought content introduced and explicitly address the question of the object
to expand the traditional 4P marketing of service design.
framework (product, place, promotion,
and price), by incorporating three novel Shostack’s Evidence
elements (people, process, and physical
In Breaking Free from Product Marketing, Shostack claimed that
environment) into an upgraded 7P
marketing mix for services. See Bernard marketing’s disregard for services could be attributed to an inability
H. Booms and Mary J. Bitner, “Marketing to deal with their intangible nature.4 According to her, services
Strategies and Organization Structures are impalpable and non-corporeal and, therefore, “cannot be
for Service Firms,” in Marketing of touched, tried on for size, or displayed on a shelf.”5 The “dynamic,
Services, ed. James H. Donnelly and
subjective, and ephemeral” nature of intangible elements in services
William R. George (Chicago: American
prevents them from being described as precisely as products.6 The
Marketing Association, 1981), 47–51.
Also consider Lovelock and Wright’s introduction of her molecular modeling approach, illustrated in
addition of an eighth “p” representing Figure 1, was intended to provide a framework for dealing with
service productivity and quality). See intangibility.
Christopher Lovelock and Lauren Wright, In a molecular model, goods and services may be represented
Principles of Service Marketing and
as combinations of discrete tangible or intangible elements, with
Management (Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall, 1999). their identity being determined by the relative dominance of each

Design Issues: Volume 27, Number 3 Summer 2011 21

 Automobile Airline
(product) (service)

Options
Vehicle & Service Transportation In-Flight
Extras Frequency Service

Advertising Uniforms

Pre/Post Food and Drink

Transportation Aircraft
flight services

Figure 1 (above)
Molecular models describing cars (left) type of element.7 Shostack argued that most goods and services lie
and airlines (right). Circles represent intan- along a continuum from tangible-dominant to intangible-dominant.
gible elements; squares represent tangible
In Figure 1, for instance, cars would be deemed products because
elements; dotted squares represent essential
evidence; and peripheral evidence is scattered
they are mainly physical objects with tangible options and extras;
around the other elements. even so, they also have a service dimension, as they incorporate
the intangible element of transportation, which may be marketed
independently. On the other hand, airlines can be identified as
service providers because of the preponderance of intangible
elements.
Although intangible elements are the defining features of
services for marketers, Shostack also realized they do not represent
their total “reality” for consumers. She argued that because of the
abstractness of services, consumers cannot experience them directly,
but only through their peripheral tangible clues, or evidence. She
therefore defined service evidence as comprising everything “the
consumer can comprehend with his five senses.”8 In the airlines
example in Figure 1, this evidence includes the aircraft, advertising,
tickets, food and drinks, and other such items. Moreover, staff often
stands as the main evidence of services because the way they dress
and speak, their hairstyles, demeanor, etc., “can have a material
impact on the consumer’s perception.”9 Because service evidence
is so important, Shostack believed that it “must be [as] carefully
designed and managed as the service itself.”10
Shostack distinguished between two types of service
evidence: peripheral and essential.11 Peripheral evidence refers to
the tangible elements consumers can possess but that have little
independent value, such as tickets for airline services. In contrast,
essential evidence, such as an aircraft, has an important role in
the evaluation of the services purchased but cannot be owned
8 Shostack, “Breaking Free from Product by consumers. Although essential evidence was paramount in
Marketing,” 77.
Shostack’s conception of services, she considered such evidence to
9 Shostack, “How to Design a Service,” 53.
10 Ibid., 52.
represent “quasi-product elements”12 that could not have the status
11 Ibid., 51–2. of true tangible elements because, as such, they would have been
12 Ibid., 52. evidence of goods rather than services.

22 Design Issues: Volume 27, Number 3 Summer 2011

Figure 2
Frame of reference for new service
development with service prerequisites
detailed.

Primary Core
Service Concept Needs Services

Su

s
co

Se
po

ds

ce
n d ary N ee i
rti n g S e r v

p
Customer
Process
Service
Prerequisites Service Process Act. 1 Act. 2 Act. 3

Customer
13 The service blueprint initially was Outcome
presented in Shostack, “How to Design
Staff
a Service,” and later again in G. Lynn
Shostack, “Designing Services That Service System Organization & Customers
Control
Deliver,” Harvard Business Review 62:1
Physical
(1984): 133–9. Environment

14 Ibid., 138.
15 G. Lynn Shostack, “Service Positioning
through Structural Change,” Journal of
Marketing 51:1 (1987): 34.
16 Shostack, “Designing Services That
Service evidence came to play an important role in Shostack’s
Deliver,” 136.
17 Several scholars later adopted service development of “service blueprinting,” a flowchart technique to aid
evidence in their own service models. in systematic service design.13 In service blueprints, items of tangible
Worth briefly mentioning are Berry and evidence usually become departure points for examining “hidden”
Parasuraman’s identification of physical production activities that are internal to companies and beyond
environment, communications, and price
direct customer contact, or in Shostack’s words, below their “line of
as crucial kinds of evidence, and Bitner’s
visibility.”14 Shostack’s work on service blueprinting, not presented
similar reference to people, process, and
physical evidence. See Leonard L. Berry in detail here, ran alongside the growing focus of her thoughts on the
and A. Parasuraman, Marketing Services: notion of process, which she eventually saw as the service equivalent
Competing through Quality (New York: of a product’s “raw materials.”15 Nonetheless, even as her views on
The Free Press, 1991) and Mary Jo Bitner, the role of service design centered more and more on blueprinting
“Managing the Evidence of Service,”
processes, Shostack maintained that companies should always
in The Service Quality Handbook, ed.
Eberhard E. Scheuing and William F. “incorporate the orchestration of tangible evidence.”16, 17
Christopher (New York: AMACOM,
1993), 358–70. More recently, the terms Edvardsson and Olsson’s Prerequisites
“clues,” used by Pullman and Gross, and Edvardsson and Olsson’s service conception is an amalgam
“touchpoints,” by Zomerdijk and Voss,
of views commonly circulating in the broad area of service
were intended to convey Shostack’s
management studies.18 These authors were concerned that the
notion of evidence from an experience
design perspective. See Madeleine E. quality shortcomings faced by many companies were “built into”
Pullman and Michael A. Gross, “Ability their services at an earlier design phase. In response, they sought
of Experience Design Elements to to develop a frame of reference for new service development that
Elicit Emotions and Loyalty Behaviors,” would help companies to improve service quality by design.
Decision Sciences 35:3 (Summer 2004):
According to Edvardsson and Olsson, the service construct
551–78 and Leonieke G. Zomerdijk and
Christopher A. Voss, “Service Design for comprises three elements, as seen in the left side of Figure 2. In the
Experience-Centric Services,” Journal of first place, there is the service outcome, or what customers perceive
Service Research 13:1 (February 2010): and value as the result of service production. Service outcomes can
67–82. be tangible or intangible, temporary or lasting. A haircut would be
18 Bo Edvardsson and Jan Olsson, “Key
a tangible, temporary outcome for customers, whereas an insurance
Concepts for New Service Development,”
policy would represent an intangible and lasting outcome. Service
The Service Industries Journal 16:2
(April 1996): 140–64. outcomes are formed by customer processes on the one hand and

Design Issues: Volume 27, Number 3 Summer 2011 23

 service prerequisites on the other. Customer processes refers to the
19 Other researchers have also regarded active participation of customers in production processes, which
higher levels of customer involvement Edvardsson and Olsson saw as a distinctive characteristic of services
in production processes to be the most
as opposed to goods.19 Customer processes do not exist in a vacuum
important variable in characterizing
service operations and in setting strate- but depend on the service prerequisites, which are the resources
gic directions for the design of service needed to make the service possible. By engaging in production
systems. See R.B. Chase, “Where Does
the Customer Fit in a Service Operation?”
processes, customers use service prerequisites and co-produce
Harvard Business Review 56:6 (1978): outcomes for themselves. Edvardsson and Olsson thus argued
137–42; Urban Wemmerlöv, “A Taxonomy for understanding services from a customer perspective: “It is the
for Service Processes and its Implications
for System Design,” International Journal customer’s total perception of the outcome which ‘is the service’
of Service Industry Management 1: 3 … what the customer does not perceive does not exist—is not a
(1990): 20–40; Scott E. Sampson and
customer outcome.”20
Craig M. Froehle, “Foundations and
Implications of a Proposed Unified If outcomes can represent the whole service for customers,
Services Theory,” Production and Edvardsson and Olsson held that prerequisites are closely associated
Operations Management 15:2 (Summer
with the company perspective: “the service company does not
2006): 329–43; and Pinhanez, “Services
as Customer-intensive Systems.” provide the service but the prerequisites for various services.”21
20 Edvardsson and Olsson, “Key Concepts They organized new service development activities around the
for New Service Development,” 145.
21 Ibid., 147.
three prerequisite components: service concept, service process,
22 Elsewhere, Edvardsson named the and service system (see Figure 2, right side).22 The service concept23
service process and system components is a brief description of the service package24 (core and supporting
the servuction process and system,
respectively. See Bo Edvardsson, “The services) that answers different customer needs (primary and
Role of Service Design in Achieving secondary). It is the departure point for specifying all other prereq-
Quality,” in The Service Quality
uisites. The service process represents the chain of activities necessary
Handbook, ed. Eberhard E. Scheuing
and William F. Christopher (New York: for service production. Edvardsson and Olsson explained that the
AMACOM, 1995), 331–46. Servuction service process is a prototype for the activation of customer processes
is a neologism combining the words
“service” and “production” to denote
upon each unique customer encounter. Finally, the service system
the simultaneity of production and comprises the resources the service process requires to realize the
consumption in services. In line with the service concept: company staff, customers, physical/technical
original servuction system, customers
interact with the “visible” part of a environment, and organization and control.25
service organization, which consists It is at the level of service system resources that Edvardsson
of the physical environment, contact and Olsson address service development activities in more detail.
personnel, other customers, and
customers in person. See E. Langeard et They considered company staff to be a key resource because
al., Services Marketing: New Insights many services depend on the tangible encounter between the
from Consumers and Managers, vol. 81
staff and customers. Companies should aim to have motivated,
(Cambridge, MA: Marketing Science
Institute, 1981). knowledgeable, and committed staff, partly by devising attractive
23 The service concept is a term commonly jobs and hiring and training the staff properly. Second, customers
encountered in the literature. Clark
et al. presented an elaboration of the
themselves could take part as prerequisites of the service system
service concept in terms of value, form by contributing their own knowledge, equipment, and capacity to
and function, experience, and outcomes. assimilate information. According to Edvardsson and Olsson, the
See Graham Clark, Robert Johnston,
and Michael Shulver, “Exploiting the service system should be designed to facilitate the engagement of
Service Concept for Service Design customers in co-producing the outcome. Marketing could also help
and Development,” in New Service
to establish relations between companies and their customers, for
Development: Creating Memorable
Experiences, ed. James A. Fitzsimmons instance, through the design of invoices and information materials.
and Mona J. Fitzsimmons (Thousand The third resource, the physical/technical environment, pointed to
Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc, 1999),
71–91. See also Susan Meyer Goldstein
the organization of the facilities, equipment, and other technical
et al., “The Service Concept: The Missing systems located on the service company’s own premises or those of
Link in Service Design Research?” its suppliers and customers. Finally, organization and control involved
Journal of Operations Management 20:2
(April 2002): 121–34. several activities: putting in place administrative systems to support

24 Design Issues: Volume 27, Number 3 Summer 2011

Figure 3
Breakdown of an entire restaurant Restaurant Services
service process.
Processes Inputs Outputs
24 The service package, sometimes called
bundle, or offering, is a multifaceted Ordering Customer Recieves Meal is Delivered
Menu
concept. Lovelock proposed a basic sepa-
ration between core and supplementary
Customer Service Activities
services, to which Lovelock and Wirtz
Service Operation Activites
later added delivery processes. See
Christopher H. Lovelock, “A Basic Toolkit Order is Delivered Order is Prepared Order is Collected
to Kitchen in Kitchen from Kitchen
for Service Managers,” in Managing
Services: Marketing, Operations, and
Human Resources, ed. Christopher H. Dining Meal is Delivered Customer Requests Bill
Lovelock, 2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice-Hall International, 1992),
17–30, and Christopher Lovelock and Billing Customer Requests Bill Payment is Collected
Jochen Wirtz, Services Marketing:
People, Technology, Strategy, 6th ed.
(Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/
Leaving Payment is Collected Customer Departs
Prentice Hall, 2006), 22–5. Grönroos
departed from this conception of a basic
package and described an augmented
service offering. See Christian Grönroos,
Service Management and Marketing: planning, information exchange, finance, and resource allocation.
Managing the Moments of Truth in Furthermore, the company’s interaction with customers and other
Service Competition (Lexington, MA: partners needed to be controlled by planning such aspects as how
Lexington Books, 1990). In a second
to gather feedback and how to handle complaints. In addition, the
line of thought, Sasser et al. and
company should also consider its organizational structure, with
Fitzsimmons and Sullivan defined the
package as comprising physical items proper definition of roles, responsibilities, and authority.
and facilities, sensual benefits (or explicit
services) , and psychological benefits (or Ramaswamy’s Processes
implicit services) . See W. Earl Sasser, Ramaswamy turned to the key notion of process, making it the
R. Paul Olsen, and D. Daryl Wyckoff,
centerpiece of a comprehensive framework for the design and
Management of Service Operations:
Text, Cases, and Readings (Boston:
management of services.26 His framework is so methodical and
Allyn and Bacon, 1978) and James A. formalized that it can be seen as a forerunner to several service
Fitzsimmons and R. S. Sullivan, Service engineering approaches.27 From his elaborate work, we highlight
Operations Management (New York, NY: the stages where service processes are conceptualized and detailed
McGraw-Hill, 1982). Normann further
for implementation because these phases are particularly relevant
synthesized these latter insights with
for design.
the previous separation between core
and supplementary services. See Richard For Ramaswamy, services are fundamentally “nonphysical”
Normann, Service Management: Strategy entities.28 A service process is a sequence of activities that provide
and Leadership in Service Business, 3rd functions, chronologically organized as a unity. A process may be
ed. (Chichester, NY: Wiley, 2001). The further divided into smaller sub-processes and sub-subprocesses,
service package was also considered
and is organized hierarchically, so that a higher level process is
in other hybrid conceptualizations,
such as Lehtinen’s service consumption
completely assembled from its component sub-processes. Service
process and Grönroos’s service produc- processes comprise two sorts of activities: service operations activities,
tion system. See J. R. Lehtinen, Quality which reflect the steps needed by service providers to transform
Oriented Services Marketing (Tampere, inputs into outputs, and customer service activities, representing the
FI: Tampereen Yliopisto, 1986) and
interactions between customers and service providers. An ideal
Grönroos, Service Management and
service process begins with input from customers and ends with
Marketing: Managing the Moments of
Truth in Service Competition. “visible” output for them.29

Design Issues: Volume 27, Number 3 Summer 2011 25

Figure 4 Restaurant Services
Breakdown of the ordering process
of a restaurant service. Subprocesses Design Dimensions and Alternatives Engineering Requirements

Menu reading and Screen Display Format # of menu pages

ordering 1 item/page with detailed description
# menu items
All items on 1 page with description on menu display interval
help screen
page refreshment interval
appetizers, desserts, entrees, and etc.
beverages on separate pages with brief
descriptions.

25 Service culture was later added by

Edvardsson et al. as a fifth component of Availability Verification Verification Procedure Accessing time
the service system. See Bo Edvardsson for each item upon ordering
et al., New Service Development and Inquiry time
for all items after ordering
Innovation in the New Economy (Lund,
Sweden: Studentlitteratur, 2000). Another
version of the service system briefly
contemplated some external influencing Order Validation and Verification Procedure Transmission time
Correction Waiter sends order to kitchen upon
factors. See Bo Edvardsson, “Quality in receipt;corrections are sent later, after Maximum time for
New Service Development: Key Concepts validation validation
and a Frame of Reference,” International
Waiter holds order until complete
Journal of Production Economics 52:1 validation;corrections before sending
(October 1997): 31–46. order to kitchen
26 Rohit Ramaswamy, Design and
Management of Service Processes:
Keeping Customers for Life (Reading,
MA: Addison-Wesley, 1996).
27 Although notable differences hold true,
other researchers also took process,
Figure 3 presents a sample breakdown of a restaurant
or activity, as the main building block service process, beginning with the arrival of the guests and ending
of their service models, often drawing when they leave the establishment. Note how the ordering process
on knowledge from such areas as (second row) consists of customer service activities, represented
mechanical engineering, systems
by customers’ receipt of the menu and later their meals, as well
engineering, and computer science, and
as service operations activities related to meal preparation in the
progressing toward more consistent
notation, mathematical formalization, kitchen.
and computational modeling. See, for Ramaswamy claimed that the functions of a new service
example, Qinhai Ma, Mitchell M. Tseng, process should be approached as problems guiding the design of
and Benjamin Yen, “A Generic Model solutions. In his systematic framework, solutions for new processes
and Design Representation Technique
evolve from broad concepts, associated with larger processes, to
of Service Products,” Technovation 22:1
(January 2002): 15–39; T. Arai and Y.
detailed components related to progressively smaller sub-processes.
Shimomura, “Proposal of Service CAD Figure 4 illustrates three sub-processes of the ordering process:
System: A Tool for Service Engineering,” menu reading and ordering, availability verification, and order
CIRP Annals—Manufacturing Technology validation and correction. According to Ramaswamy, solutions for
53:1 (2004): 397–400; Robin G. Qiu,
the sub-processes may be devised by altering key design dimensions,
“Computational Thinking of Service
or the “characteristics that can be manipulated to influence the
Systems: Dynamics and Adaptiveness
Modeling,” Service Science 1:1 performance of the design.”30 In his example of a computer-assisted
(Spring 2009): 42–55. ordering process, these dimensions included the screen display
28 Ramaswamy, Design and Management format, menu display, verification procedure, and validation method
of Service Processes: Keeping Customers (middle column).
for Life, 13.
Specifying design dimensions in different ways results in
29 Ibid., 128.
30 Ibid., 173.
various solution alternatives, as enumerated below each design

26 Design Issues: Volume 27, Number 3 Summer 2011

Figure 5
C1, C2, C3, ...Cq)
Competence
Characteristics model of services.
Characteristics

C’1, C’2, C’3, ...C’q) Y’1, Y’2, Y’3, ...Y’q)

Competence Service
Characteristics Characteristics
X1, X2, X3, ...Xq)
Technical
Characteristics
dimension in Figure 4. However, for Ramaswamy the configuration
of a new service process should be finalized only after iterative cycles
of evaluation and refinement of solution alternatives. As a result of
the final, most detailed design step, one optimal process solution
is specified in terms of the engineering elements (right column)
needed to create the process, including “the response requirements
of hardware, the look of a menu or screen, the contents of a script
to be followed by an employee, or the dimensions and weights of
parts.”31 This information, according to Ramaswamy, “is used by the
implementation team members who are responsible for constructing
the service.”32 In other words, engineering elements guide the actual
deployment of the new service process—“so far… a set of decisions
on paper”33—into a working service.34

Gallouj and Weinstein’s Characteristics

This final sub-section covers a service model from the field of
economics—more precisely, the work of Gallouj and Weinstein.35
Noting how extant research overly privileged the manufacturing of
goods, these authors sought to develop foundations for the analysis
of innovation activity in the service sector. Their approach begins
with the idea that a service seldom exists autonomously. The authors
31 Ibid., 251.
see in this departure point an important difference from a good,
32 Ibid. which upon production typically assumes a physical independence
33 Ibid., 258. from its producers and consumers: “[A service] is intangible and
34 Kaner and Karni also conceptualized does not have the same exteriority [of a good]… it is identical in
services as hierarchical systems
substance with those who produce it and with those who consume
ultimately defined by the values given
it.”36 For them, this condition underlies many of the peculiarities
to their lowest-layer components. Their
capstone model is a comprehensive, commonly associated with the production of services, such as the
five-tiered service representation, necessary cooperation between providers and clients, the difficulty
consisting of 9 major classes (including in standardizing something dynamic and multifaceted, and the
process), 75 main classes, 351 minor confusion between product (“what” is delivered) and process (“how”
classes, and potentially thousands of
it is delivered). Gallouj and Weinstein’s formal representation of
attributes and values. See Maya Kaner
and Reuven Karni, “Design of Service
services in terms of characteristic sets is shown in Figure 5.
Systems Using a Knowledge-Based Gallouj and Weinstein’s characteristics model consists of four
Approach,” Knowledge and Process interacting sets. Set [Y], on the right, represents the service charac-
Management 14:4 (2007): 260–74. teristics. These are characteristics of services as seen from the user’s
35 Faïz Gallouj and Olivier Weinstein,
point of view—in other words, the utilities provided by services to
“Innovation in Services,” Research Policy
clients. Examples include the user-friendliness and the deposit and
26 (1997): 537–56.
36 Ibid., 540. withdrawal functionalities of an automated teller machine. Set [X]

Design Issues: Volume 27, Number 3 Summer 2011 27

 represents the technical characteristics that supply service charac-
teristics, which can be divided into tangible technical characteristics
(e.g., information technologies, logistic technologies, chemical
products in cleaning services, etc.) and intangible technical charac-
teristics (e.g., financial models, business execution methods, etc.).
According to Gallouj and Weinstein, technical characteristics can also
be divided into product and process characteristics by referring to
the interface between providers and clients. Thus, product technical
characteristics would refer to “front-office” production activities
in close proximity to customers, while process technical character-
istics would be the “back-office” activities that don’t entail direct
customer contact. Although the authors believed in the validity of
this distinction, in the end they assumed that both product (front-
office) and process (back-office) technical characteristics could be
tangible or intangible, and could all be bundled in the same set [X].37
Gallouj and Weinstein further added competence character-
istics as a way to separate technical characteristics from human
capabilities. Set [C], according to the authors, represents provider
knowledge and skills embodied in individuals (or clearly delimited
teams), which are not easily dissociable from the people themselves
and therefore cannot exist autonomously or become part of organi-
zational knowledge. To highlight co-production by clients as a major
feature of services, Gallouj and Weinstein added client competence
characteristics (set [C’]) to represent knowledge embodied in
clients.
The complete model provides an integrative rationale for
37 Gallouj also briefly considered the inclu- service production: Service (Y) characteristics are obtained by the
sion into the same set of spatial and direct application of competence characteristics of providers (C)
geographical organization character- and/or clients (C’), in combination with mobilized technical (X)
istics (e.g., restaurant décor, proximity
characteristics {[C], [C’], [X], [Y]}. The model also takes account of
of service establishment, etc.). See
a particular class of “pure” services, such as consulting or massage
Faiz Gallouj, Innovation in the Service
Economy: The New Wealth of Nations therapy services. In such cases, providers and clients co-produce
(Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, service characteristics without the involvement of any technical
2002), 53. means {[C], [C’], [Y]}.38 However, Gallouj later observed that the
38 Based on the model, the authors use of even unsophisticated technologies (e.g., a towel for the
were also able to describe self-service
massage therapist) could represent an intervention of technical
situations, where service character-
istics are created through the client’s characteristics.39
engagement with technical character- Based on the characteristics model, Gallouj and Weinstein
istics alone, without the participation of operationalized service innovation as “any change affecting one or
the provider competence characteristics more terms of one or more vectors of characteristics (of whatever
{[C’], [X], [Y]}. In another publication,
kind—technical, service, or competence).”40 The authors further
Gallouj also identified “pure goods”
noted that innovative changes might “emerge” as a result of “natural
situations, where there is no involvement
of competences embodied in humans learning mechanisms,” but they might also be “programmed,” or
{[X], [Y]}. See Ibid., 59. “intentional, the product of R&D, design, and innovation activity.”41
39 Ibid., 56. Unfortunately, they did not explain how intentional innovation
40 Gallouj and Weinstein, “Innovation in could be attained specifically through the manipulation of charac-
Services,” 547.
teristics sets.42
41 Ibid.

28 Design Issues: Volume 27, Number 3 Summer 2011

 Locating the Object of Service Design
Having introduced representative service models in the extant
literature, in this section we articulate a conceptual framework
for locating the object of service design. Whereas previously we
described each model individually, now we adopt an interpretive
stance that engages with that same material. Our conclusion builds
up progressively in the following subsections.

Exchange Relations
One of the most fundamental aspects of service production is the
intertwining of stakeholders—most notably, providers and clients—
in exchange relations. As Gallouj and Weinstein noted, services are
not easily set apart from providers and clients as an independent
entity; they seem to exist to a substantial degree within this
context of economic exchange. Edvardsson and Olsson, as well as
Ramaswamy, also point out the necessary involvement of customers
in service co-production. Even when left implicit, as in the case of
Shostack, exchange relations are presumed based on the recurrent
references to both marketers and consumers.
Exchange relations establish the context for attributing
42 In recent years, other authors have elabo- particular roles to the stakeholders involved in service
rated on the characteristics approach co-production. Typically, providers devise and market services;
to service innovation. De Vries noted clients purchase and use them. Furthermore, an investigation of the
how Gallouj & Weinstein’s model falls circumstances of exchange relations reveals a host of sociotechnical
short when representing innovation in a
resources that are required for service production. For Gallouj and
network of organizations, where clients
co-produce a service by using their own
Weinstein, service innovation could be linked to changes in terms of
technologies. He reformulated both human competences, plus tangible and intangible technical charac-
the technical and competence charac- teristics. Other authors who were more prescriptive about service
teristics sets to account for multiple innovation developed ideas about the planning and organization
organizations, and added the novel
of these resources. Following Edvardsson and Olsson’s framework
client technical characteristics set. See
for new service development, companies should develop the right
Erik J. de Vries, “Innovation in Services
in Networks of Organizations and in prerequisites, which can then be processed by customers, leading to
the Distribution of Services,” Research high-quality outcomes for them. Similarly, for Ramaswamy, service
Policy 35:7 (September 2006): 1037–51. providers should engineer new production processes, whereas
Windrum and García-Goñi, writing in the customers should provide inputs and evaluate the outputs of such
context of health care, also pointed to
processes. Finally, Shostack advises marketers to carefully manage
the need for representing innovation in
a multi-agent environment, and included
all the tangible evidence that can affect the consumer’s experience of
policy-makers as new stakeholders a service. In principle, then, design in services can be related to the
alongside providers and users. They coordination of a varied set of sociotechnical resources, leading to
further diminished the importance of innovative forms of exchange between providers and clients.
technical characteristics, proposing
instead that innovation in knowledge-
Interface Versus Infrastructure
intensive services is better captured as
the negotiation over competence and An analytical distinction introduced by many researchers is to
(newly-added) preference characteristics, separate service production activities into two domains: the
which are possessed by all agents. See interface, which focuses on the sociotechnical resources immediately
Paul Windrum and Manuel García-Goñi, associated with exchanges between providers and clients, and the
“A Neo-Schumpeterian Model of Health
infrastructure, which accounts for resources less directly related
Services Innovation,” Research Policy
37:4 (May 2008): 649–72.
to that exchange. One criterion for distinguishing these domains

Design Issues: Volume 27, Number 3 Summer 2011 29

 suggested in the literature is their dislocation in time and space.
This is apparent in Ramaswamy’s restaurant example, where meals
are first ordered from and later served by waiters (the interface
comprises the customer service activities), while between ordering
and serving, the meals are prepared in the kitchen, out of the sight
of the customer (the infrastructure comprises the service operation
activities). A slightly different criterion was proposed by Shostack,
who introduced the concept of the line of visibility. This line
separates what is tangibly evident to the bodily senses of consumers
(interface) from what is hidden from them in the form of intangible
elements or processes (infrastructure). In addition, Gallouj and
Weinstein allude to a possible distinction between “what” results
for clients from product characteristics in the front office (interface)
and “how” this results from process characteristics in the back office
(infrastructure).
The interface and the infrastructure are inextricable
counterparts of the sociotechnical resources involved in exchange
relations, and both can be considered a concern for service design.
In Edvardsson and Olsson’s account, the company should plan the
interactions between customers, staff, and physical environments
for the exact moment of service co-production. But they should also
consider other necessary prerequisites, including those that must be
in place months before service provision begins (e.g., administrative
systems for the allocation of financial resources).
A characteristic of the interface that merits attention, but that
has not been sufficiently stressed in the literature, is the particular
way in which the interface actualizes the co-production of the service,
as it conveys the infrastructure and brings to fruition the exchange
relation between providers and clients. Continuing the previous
example, for Edvardsson and Olsson the development of prereq-
uisites extends to infrastructure resources, but the goal is to influence
customers’ perception of the services. And this perception is created
at the interface, when the customers process the prerequisites into
outcomes. Also, for Ramaswamy the design of new service processes
includes the infrastructure, yet results in a working service for
providers only after implementation, when inputs and outputs
are actually exchanged with customers in service activities at the
interface. The relevance of the interface is acknowledged by Shostack
when she observes that service reality, at least for consumers, could
only be known through the tangible evidence. In sum, exchange
relations between providers and clients require the mobilization
of infrastructure resources but, ultimately, are realized through the
interface. For this reason, the interface becomes subtly prominent as
the end-point of all service design deliberations.

Materiality
In this subsection, we conclude our investigation by highlighting
the materiality of the service interface. Despite the emphasis on

30 Design Issues: Volume 27, Number 3 Summer 2011

intangibility encountered throughout the service literature, many
researchers have commented on certain tangible aspects of the
service interface as well. For example, Shostack deems services
inherently abstract and founded on processes. But she observes
that they could only be experienced by consumers through what
marketers make tangible to them. Ramaswamy, too, places as
building blocks in his framework nonphysical processes, but he
later elaborates on them in terms of concrete engineering elements,
such as screen displays and other hardware in his restaurant service.
Gallouj and Weinstein also include tangible technical characteristics
in their characteristics sets. And for Edvardsson and Olsson, the
physical/technical environment constitutes an important element
of the service prerequisites processed by customers.
That the service interface includes material artifacts and
systems can hardly be disputed. At the same time, one of the
strongest convictions of researchers has been that services are
something more than—or, indeed, anything but—a simple physical
“thing.” Can it be concluded that the service interface, in essence or
for the most part, is immaterial?
A closer look at the literature shows several types of
sociotechnical resources in services that differ from the material
artifacts identified. For example, in their prerequisite list, Edvardsson
and Olsson include organization and control resources related to
organizational structure, administrative systems, and marketing
management. These resources are similar to Gallouj and Weinstein’s
intangible technical characteristics, which include financial expertise,
mathematical instruments, economic models, and so forth. Under
scrutiny, such resources seem to be located within the infrastructure
domain of the service provider. Therefore, as stated, these resources
need to be actualized through the service interface to affect exchange
relations with clients. Hence, Gallouj and Weinstein’s proposal that
services may be delivered by intangible technical characteristics
located at the front office appears to be unsubstantiated. The reason
is that, at the moment clients would encounter intangible technical
characteristics (e.g., in the form of mathematical instruments
in consultancy services), they would experience them through
tangible manifestations (e.g., slide projections, or words and graphs
in a printed report). The point, of course, is not to downplay the
importance of intangible technical characteristics, nor to reduce
them entirely to their tangible depictions. Instead, we suggest
that, for the production of services, intangible resources must be
actualized through an interface that is material and available to
bodily perception.
A problem area for the idea of a material interface is the
consideration of humans as sociotechnical resources, especially
where providers and clients meet face to face. As Gallouj and
Weinstein observe, in the production of “pure” services, providers
and clients interact directly via skills and knowledge that might

Design Issues: Volume 27, Number 3 Summer 2011 31

 not be easily dissociated from them. One usual way of thinking
about the organization of interpersonal encounters in services
is to conceptualize human resources as abstract and inherent to
individuals. For Edvardsson and Olsson, for example, company
staff members contribute to service production through their
knowledge, motivation, and commitment, which providers
could develop through proper recruitment and training, among
other indirect ways of influencing behavior. Another way of dealing
with person-to-person interaction has been to pinpoint human
resources of a more concrete but extrinsic nature. For example,
Shostack observes that some manageable service evidences could be
found in the way contact employees dress, what they say, and their
hairstyles. Comparably, Ramaswamy includes in the engineering
requirements of new service processes the scripts that direct the
behaviors of people.
Interpersonal service encounters cannot be removed from
human subjectivity and spontaneity. However, this reality does not
preclude personal interactions in services from being shaped, in
the absence of other material means, by the embodied behaviors
of providers and clients (e.g., gestures, uttered words). What is
implied here is neither a simple “objectification” of human partici-
pation in service production, nor an argument for manipulating such
participation in the same way one would deal with other material
artifacts. Instead, our contention is that service exchange relations
between providers and clients are grounded on the materiality of
their interfaces, even in the case of interpersonal encounters.
For design, the crux of the matter might lie not in acknowl-
edging the materiality of the service interface, but in understanding
its distinctive nature. From our literature review, it appears that
every time empirical cases are used to exemplify what goods and
services are, researchers readily associate goods with a physical
thing, yet they fail to apply an equally concrete standard to services.
As a result, services are deemed intangible (or elusive, dynamic,
multifaceted, etc.), not because they are unavailable to embodied
experience, but because what their interface conveys is predominantly
not a standalone artifact with clear object boundaries. Instead, service
interfaces seem primarily related to embodied human interactions,
such as in Gallouj and Weinstein’s massage therapy service; diffuse
phenomena appealing to the senses, such as the tastes, smells,
and sounds in Ramaswamy’s restaurant service; multiple tangible
elements organized over time and space, as in Shostack’s airlines;
and possibly more. The distinctive characteristic that stands out in
these cases is not intangibility, but the material heterogeneity of the
service interface.
Our view sits close to Shostack’s concept of tangible evidence.
However, Shostack believed that the true nature of services was
founded on intangible elements and abstract processes. Although
evidence was important for her, it represented in her view only a

32 Design Issues: Volume 27, Number 3 Summer 2011

 surrogate “reality” for consumers. Because Shostack reserves the
possibility of a genuine material existence for tangible elements,
which she associates with goods, she describes service evidence with
the derogatory term “quasi-products.” Service evidence thus came to
be inauthentic, peripheral clues of an intangible core. The implication
of this view, accentuated later when Shostack adopted processes as
the foundation of services, is that the design of evidence could now
represent just an ancillary activity, one that creates “accessories”
for immaterial services. We go beyond this view and claim that the
service interface materializes an exchange relation between providers
and clients, and that the design of the service interface, perhaps more
than anything else, is the design of the service itself.

A Pathway for Service Design

Shostack wrote three decades ago,43 and her work continues to
inspire researchers who seek to break free from goods-oriented
paradigms by stating that services are essentially intangible. Today,
this idea gains credence in the way that touchpoints are identified
as a central object of service design. The danger resides in defining
a touchpoint as a tangible interface between providers and clients
that is peripheral to an intangible service core. In stark contrast, we
claim that the client-provider interface is crucial to service design
because, ultimately, it brings new services into being. Moreover,
by highlighting the material heterogeneity of such an interface, we
present a way for letting services be on their own, neither equating
them with the kind of artifacts associated with goods, nor abstracting
them into processes, nor resorting to their socioeconomic circum-
stances of co-production for a final explanation. Therefore, our
initiative to find a suitable object for service design, as much as it
is an effort to catch up with other disciplines, is also an attempt to
further our general understanding of services in ways that favor a
“designerly” approach to the matter.
We observe a clear tendency in the literature to develop more
elaborate analyses about the design of the service infrastructures
than of the interfaces. The rare discussions on service interface design
seem to arise as tangential, after-the-fact implications of planning
the infrastructure. This neglect of the interface coincides with the
embedding of design discussions primarily in service management
and engineering discourses, but also with the timid participation
in service research of design disciplines traditionally devoted
to phenomena in the interface domain of services (e.g., product
design, interaction design, graphic design, and many others). Closer
attention to the interface would therefore appear to be a natural way
for these disciplines to take up new grounds in service research and
promote a deeper appreciation of design in services.

43 Shostack, “Breaking Free from Product

Marketing.”

Design Issues: Volume 27, Number 3 Summer 2011 33

 Acknowledgments
The authors sincerely thank Gui Bonsiepe, Petra Badke-Schaub,
Pieter Desmet, and Vera Blazevic for providing comments on an
earlier version of this article.

34 Design Issues: Volume 27, Number 3 Summer 2011

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