Accelerate Experience Design with Design-driven innovation and Human-centred design approach Accelerate Experience Design | Page 5

to tangible products, they are orchestrated via the concept of product-service-system.

CHAPTER 1 CONTEXT

Product-service system (hereafter PSSD) is an innovation strategy, shifting the business
focus from designing (and selling) physical products only, to designing (and selling) a sys-

It is not enough that we build products that
function, that are understandable and usable, we
also need to build products that bring joy and
excitement, pleasure and fun, and, yes, beauty to people’s
lives.
Donald Norman

tem of products and services which are jointly capable of fulfilling specific client demands
(Manzini, 2003)2. It is a system of products, services, supporting networks and infrastructure that is designed to be competitive, satisfy user’s needs and have a lower environmental impact than traditional business models (Elima, 2005.)
As Pine & Gilmore has emphasized, “Commodities are fungible, goods tangible and service intangible, experience are memorable.” During the master program of Strategic Design, whenever we initiated a new project, we would soon come to the discussion of
user journey to discover, to be precise, to empathize how our subject user might feel,
think, fear or desire. What we design is not only to construct a product service system as

From Service Economy to Experience Economy

as pain killer, furthermore the strategic intent is to design for user’s emotion, pleasure,
meaning and memory. We use services as the stage and goods as props to engage an

Almost more than a decade ago, Joseph Pine and James Gilmore brought up the con-

individual: the result is rich with sensations and each derives from the interaction be-

cept of shifting economy paradigm. The service economy has peaked and a new econ-

tween the staged event and the individuals’s prior sate of mind and being3.

omy has arisen to increase revenue and create new jobs: the experience economy.
In another word, we are designing for experience.
Services are intangible activities customized to the individual request of known clients1,
such as daycare or consulting services. Services are not just providing labor in additional

Design /making sense/ for Experience

1

Pine, B. J., & Gilmore, J. H. (2011). The experience economy. Harvard Business Press, 17

2

Baines, T. S., Lightfoot, H. W., Evans, S., Neely, a, Greenough, R., Peppard, J., … Wilson, H. (2007). State-of-the-art in product-service systems. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part B: Journal of Engineering Manufacture, 221

3

Pine, B. J., & Gilmore, J. H. (2011). The experience economy. Harvard Business Press, 17

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