Lauren Currie is the Director of Snook and Mypolice. In the past she has worked for DesignThinkers, Deutsche Telekom and Future Gov but is now focused on changing the lives of the people of Scotland through service design and practical action. And apparently she often wears tartan tights which is understandable. Lauren is so passionate and excited about Service Design. I really enjoyed our chat.
How did you first learn about Service Design?
I studied Product Design at Dundee University. One of my lecturers left the University and started with live|work. He came back and gave us a talk about his new job and my jaw hit the ground. From that moment on I knew that’s what I wanted to do. And from then on I’ve been on a crazy mission. I tried to absorb everything and anything I could. But I was in Product Design environment and my tutors wanted me to do that. It caused some conflict and they found it hard to support me. I found that teachers from other courses supported me better.
When I graduated I got a freelance job with Design Thinkers in Amsterdam. Arne is one of a kind. He taught me so much and made me believe I could do it. He really embraced how much I really wanted to learn.
When I came back, my University asked me to come do my Masters. They gave me the opportunity to define myself as a Service Design practitioner in Scotland in 2009 and to really see if there is a space for this. It turned out really well. They let me go. I did placements, I got good tutors, I presented at various events. As part of my Masters, I developed “Making Service Sense” which deals with the relationship between Service Design and education. It’s a service to help graduates and educators. It contains a book, a pack of case study cards and a website. This month Snook (Lauren’s company with Sarah Drummond) has started a revisit of Making Service Sense.
What have been some of your favourite Service Design projects so far?
In the middle of my Masters I met Sarah Drummond. At the time we were “rivals”. We were both female voices getting a lot of attention in Scotland. Sarah entered Social Innovation Camp with Mypolice and she won. She emailed me and asked to set up a Skype chat. She asked me if I wanted to be Director of Mypolice.
My Police is online feedback tool for the public and the police to have a conversation. It’s a completely neutral platform which provides a space for these convesations to happen. From the police perspective, it’s an advice tool. From all the data we gather on Mypolice we give them advice on where they can improve and target their resources. At the moment many of the communications is very one-way, broadcasting is used much more than listening. In November 2009 we had our funding secured. Now we have a great web developer who works full time. She’s so clever, really entrepreneurial. She’s building it at the moment. I’m going to go up and down to all the police forces in the country and show it to them, show them how it’s going to make their lives easier. We’re also looking at a Mypolice Lite version so we can put it out there and get people’s feedback.
What’s your current focus?
My current work is really socially focused. I’ve been working on ALISS (Access to Local Information Support Services) with the Long-term Conditions Alliance. We’re designing a new service for people with long term health conditions to help them find information and support services in their local area. We’ve spent time with people who have conditions, their carers
and we’ve run three co-design events. We asked people “If you had a cheque for 100 pounds and you could change what happens after you get diagnosed, what would you do?”.
What are you planning for the future?
We’re looking to change the way services are designed and delivered in Scotland. We want to turn the pyramid upside down and change the way people feel about being a citizen. We want to prove that this way of doing things actually works. Mypolice is the way we’re going to prove it. We’re Scotland focused at the moment. When I was a student, I was told if you want to do this type of work you have to move to London. But I didn’t want to move to London. We want to put our city on the map.
What are the biggest challenges in Service Design projects?
In some projects you need to be sensitive to the ethical and moral responsibilities around your work. Sometimes we go into disadvantaged communities and get everyone really excited about things that might happen. How do we deal with the ethical and moral responsibilities of that? How can we make sure our solutions are sustainable? Sometimes it’s like designing yourself out of a job. You need to make sure the process can be sustained once you are gone. Another challenge can be convincing people of the value of what of what we do. Also, trying to make the intangible, tangible. For the ALISS project, to make a big information engine tangible for people, we pulled together four big desks and got someone to dress up as a train driver. We got people to tie wool from their table to the train and asked them to imagine the train was the ALISS engine and then to tell me what the inputs and outputs would be. It can be really tricky to visual and conceptualise things for participants. Once, we were going to dress up as social media tools. I was going to dress up as Twitter.
What would be your ideal Service Design project?
We’ve got a new coalition government in Scotland now. They are a hot topic at the moment. There is the “Big Society” concept which is all about changing the mindset of what it means to be a citizen. It’s exciting and I’d love to do a project around the Big Society in Scotland and try and help citizens understand what the government means by it, maybe test different ways we could implement it, or explain the value of it to people so they aren’t so cynical. It’s just a concept at the moment. We really need to look at the implications. Would it mean some public sector workers would become redundant? For example, if some locals get together to clean the community centre on a Saturday morning, does that mean the janitor is out of a job?
How do you explain your job?
I give examples to help explain it. I might ask them “Did you get a coffee on your way to work this morning?” and when they say “yes, from Starbucks”, I tell them a Service Designer looks at the whole journey – every single tiny detail of getting a coffee from Starbucks. When I tell people I’m a designer they might ask “clothes? websites?” and I tell them it’s more socially focused design and give them an example about turning all the chairs around in a medical waiting room because the layout was making patients anxious.
What advice do you have for people interested in working as a Service Designer?
Be a sponge, soak it all up, speak to as many people as you can. You’ll never get a toolkit or a how-to guide because there will never be one. That can be uncomfortable but I think that’s the beauty of it. Get out there and speak to people, learn by doing. Go and sit in McDonald’s and draw a journey map. Then, that’s it, you’ve done it, that’s a tool that Service Designers use. Live, eat and breath it. It’s a really great space to be in and an amazing field to work in.
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