Using the creativity support index to evaluate a product-service system design toolkit

Abstract

The design of product-service systems is one of the more recent evolutions in the field of design and innovation. The approach for designing products and services in an integrated way holds the opportunity for developing more value for the user and the entire value chain. Despite the existence of various PSS design tools and methods to optimise this creative development process, it remains unclear to what extent the full array of tools supports the design team in their creative work. In this paper, we present the results of four years of iterative evaluation of a PSS Design Toolkit deployed in a graduate education setting, using the creativity support index (CSI), a psychometricallyvalidated instrument. By using the CSI longitudinally, the results enabled us to iteratively improve the PSS Design Toolkit to better support future generation designers for the challenges that come with designing these product-service systems.