Exploring distributed cognition as a conceptual framework for service design

Abstract

Service Designers envision, systematically plan and choreograph unique solutions. Design is a creative activity of problem solving to create desirable solutions. Service design is the natural extension of the design activity where multidisciplinary collaboration extends over a period. Hutchins developed a theory of distributed cognition, which redefined ‘information’ as the propagation of representational states of mediating structures of any complex system. This research paper presents observations from the organizational recruitment service case study, which displays the use of distributed cognition concepts in the service design process for a multidisciplinary team collaboration and recognizes the influence of non-human agents on service. During the case study, working in a team on the same artefacts, the artefacts played a role in supporting each other’s thought process through a mental structure of problems and solutions. It has implications on the design process and the artefacts generated.