When Birgit Mager was appointed as a professor at the KISD of the Technical University of Cologne in 1995, she also established the field of service design at the university – that is, the systematic, customer- and user-oriented design of services and the associated systems. Prof. Mager has now bid farewell as she enters retirement with the conference ‘Service Design Now – Celebrating Service Design at KISD’.
Service design was, and remains, a response to the economic shift towards a service-based society. ‘We live in complex systems in which, essentially, everything can be regarded as a service. What, for example, would a car be without petrol stations, insurance, driving schools, the police, maintenance or car washes? Service design is the systematic approach to choreographing processes, technologies and interactions within complex systems in order to jointly create value for the various stakeholders,” explains Mager.
“With Prof. Mager, a pioneer of her profession is leaving our university. She has played a decisive role in shaping the theoretical foundations of the discipline and has advanced the state of research in service design through various externally funded projects at the KISD. The fact that companies today practise a consistent user-centred approach is also to her credit,” says Prof. Dr Sylvia Heuchemer, President of TH Köln.
During the conference marking Mager’s retirement, around 100 members of the service design community reflected on changes within the discipline, exchanged perspectives from both practice and academia, and explored future development opportunities. Topics included the application of service design in human resources, the increasingly important role of service design in the public sector, and how artificial intelligence is influencing service design education.
Mager has taught as a visiting professor worldwide and carried out various research projects in her field, for example for the Federal Ministry of Research and Science and in collaboration with national and international partners such as Deutsche Bank, Siemens and Telekom. She is also co-founder and president of the International Service Design Network, editor of the international Journal of Service Design ‘Touchpoint’, an honorary member of the German Design Club and a recipient of the Sir Misha Black Medal.
Pictures © Patrick Schwarz / KISD Photo AG