The Prototyping Service Experience as a Tool of Empathy and Research: from Finland to Chile

Abstract

This article shows the journey of exploring a Finnish service prototyping laboratory with the purpose to create a similar environment in Chile with an emphasis on empathy. Service prototyping is one of the important stages of the service design process where all ideas converge and make visible the opportunities to improve services. Making ´the ideas visible´ happens through building collaborative mockups to shape and test possible solutions or service journeys. In Chile, service design is not widely developed and the prototyping stage is more common for the development of products than services. The article dive into the question ´How service prototyping can bring empathy and enhance research based on collaborative practice to improve people's experiences?´ The main conclusions highlight the characteristics of service prototyping as a key moment to incorporate empathy in the research stages to visualize the opportunities to improve services, results and user experience.