Ways of seeing the design material of service

This paper contributes to the current conceptualisation of service as a design material from three different perspectives. We use: a) definitions of the term material, b) the connection to service logic and c) the techniques that service designers use, to discuss ways to understand service from a design perspective. Service designers have tools for working with components, things, locations, actions, procedures, interactions and experiences at their disposal. Service designers work with a meta-material for the most part, i.e. a material representation of the services they are (re-)designing. Unlike fields where the material is worked into a finished form, the material of service design traverses between the concrete and the abstract throughout the design process.