Modern Service Design Thinking on Traditional Culture-Based Services: A Case Study of the Service Businesses in Suzhou Old Town Areas

摘要

This paper presents a case study that utilizes modern service design thinking techniques to investigate culture-based service businesses. The study is carried out in two heritage sites in Suzhou, which itself is a historical city located in the south of Yangtze River in China. Ethnographic methods are used to explore and collect the data. Service design thinking principles and methods are then applied to analyze the observed service businesses and identify common thematic issues and design opportunities. Service prototyping techniques are also used to review and rearrange a customer's journeys in the services. The result shows that modern design thinking concepts such as the user-centered approach can provide fundamental transformations to those services. It also illustrates a more cross-cultural development with the cross-cultural encounter between the modern design techniques and the traditional culture-based services.