What do We Design with the Public Sector? Disentangling Service Design Deliverables in Education

Núria Solsona Caba, Martina Čaić, Tuuli Mattelmäki

The landscape of service design is expanding and includes multiple layers of complexity. These dynamics influence how we teach and practice service design, particularly when designing with the public sector. The topics under investigation increasingly address relationships and broader societal challenges, the interplay between intangible and tangible, and visible and invisible materials in the design process. This inherent complexity can introduce ambiguity, leading to confusion among both design students and public sector partners. This paper centers on service design education in projects carried out in collaboration with the public sector, analyzing the components forming the final outputs at the delivery phase–namely, the service design deliverables. This is done by reviewing 45 student reports from a practice-based service design course in collaboration with a local municipality. Our findings show that while the intangible outputs have a significant role in defining the design proposal, the tangible gives an actionable form to the intangible through design interventions. Our proposed framework presents how intangible and tangible outputs work together in cycles shaping the service design deliverables. Our study further highlights the significance of creativity, adaptability, and systems design as core competencies in service design education and public sector practice.