Integrating Service Design Prototyping into Software Development

Customer-driven service design is becoming an integral part of continuous software development. The fulfilment of needs is manifested through customer behaviour patterns that are often difficult to identify and validate for R&D. This paper investigates how customer involvement in software development can be achieved through experience prototyping. First, participatory action research with four cases is presented. As a result, the benefits, challenges and critical factors for successful service prototyping are identified. Second, a practical model is proposed for integrating service design as sprints within the software development process. Based on the study, the deployment of these methods can be adopted through an organisational culture that invests in the needed mindset, expertise, timing and placement. Contextual and motivating user involvement is important throughout the software development process. A number of important subjects that need further studies, such as service design performance measurement and customer data management, were also identified.