Customer Experience and Design Thinking

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)

• 9. Industry, innovation and infrastructure
• 12. Responsible consumption and production

Objectives

COURSE DESCRIPTION 
 

This course is designed to introduce students to the fundamentals of design thinking within the new customer experience framework which is nowadays carrying profound implications for marketing practice. Design Thinking is currently experiencing a surge of interest because it is a pivotal tool for building an organizational culture that fosters innovation on a large scale. The course explains the key elements, stages and tools of design thinking which is leading to a customer-centric, research and prototype-driven approach to innovation. Students will explore this methodology within the complexities of service innovation which is emerging as a crucial differentiator in the mind of consumers and is enhancing change, growth and brand image. Within this hands-on and interactive course, students will take part in an immersive, real-world project to actively explore new creative territories, learn to embrace ambiguity and go outside of their comfort zones to discover new approaches to the creative process of innovation. The course is delivered through a mix of theory, case analysis, written assignments, and group and class discussions.

COURSE OBJECTIVES 

• Expose students to the design thinking methodology and its iterative process and principles that enhances innovation activities in terms of market impact, value creation, and speed.
• Provide an interactive space for exploration and development of the creative capacity of individuals and firms within the new principles of Experiential Marketing. Enhance the use of multiple research tools that help understand people, their motivations, and their behaviours.
• Help students to develop the ability to combine divergent and convergent thinking and embody the dynamic mindset necessary for effective design thinking.
• Identify which is the best design process that adapts to the problem that needs to be solved, and not the other way around.
• Get immersed in unfamiliar areas or subjects, try to move beyond assumptions and empathise with the people they design for.
• Foster students' ability and curiosity to generate ideas as a creative team within an organizational context, encouraging all members to participate and conclude the idea generation, prototypes, and evaluation with an implementation process, that includes how to build, launch, and roll out the final offer.
• Identify important aspects and elements of a new service concept and design and explore different alternative solutions.

Learning outcomes

The students take part in an immersive, real-world project to actively learn the methodology of design thinking which leads to a human-centred, prototype-driven approach to innovation.

This active participation in different ideation sessions, creation of prototypes and iteration through tests and implementation,  helps them realise that design thinking / service design is an excellent method to innovate or improve.

Competencies

General skills

• Be able to analyse and summarise.
• Be able to communicate orally and in the languages of the community.
• Be able to organise and plan.
• Be able to use information: seek, analyse, select, organise and exploit information effectively.

Specific skills

• Be able to analyse and understand the operation of the market and its influence on the activities of a company.
• Be able to apply market research theory and instruments to implement business strategies.
• Be able to apply theoretical knowledge, skills and communication tools to create an integrated communication strategy for an organisation.
• Be able to devise and implement integrated marketing plans.

Basic skills

• Students can apply their knowledge to their work or vocation in a professional manner and have competencies typically demonstrated through drafting and defending arguments and solving problems in their field of study.
• Students can communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialists and non-specialists.
• Students have demonstrated knowledge and understanding in a field of study that builds on general secondary education with the support of advanced textbooks and knowledge of the latest advances in this field of study.
• Students have developed the learning skills necessary to undertake further studies with a high degree of independent learning.
• Students have the ability to gather and interpret relevant data (usually within their field of study) in order to make judgements that include reflection on relevant social, scientific and ethical issues.

Core skills

• Be a critical thinker before knowledge in all its dimensions. Show intellectual, cultural and scientific curiosity and a commitment to professional rigour and quality.
• Become the protagonist of one's own learning process in order to achieve personal and professional growth and acquire all-round training for living and learning in a context of respect for linguistic, social, cultural, gender and economic diversity.
• Display professional skills in complex multidisciplinary contexts, working in networked teams, whether face-to-face or online, through use of information and communication technology.
• Exercise active citizenship and individual responsibility with a commitment to the values of democracy, sustainability and universal design, through practice based on learning, service and social inclusion.
• Interact in international and worldwide contexts to identify needs and and new contexts for knowledge transfer to current and emerging fields of professional development, with the ability to adapt to and independently manage professional and research processes.
• Project the values of entrepreneurship and innovation in one's academic and professional career, through contact with a variety of practical contexts and motivation for professional development.
• Use oral, written and audiovisual forms of communication, in one's own language and in foreign languages, with a high standard of use, form and content.

Content

1)      Introduction to innovation and creativity

2)      Design Thinking methodology

3)      Service Design versus Product design

4)      Experiential Marketing

5)      Understanding stage

6)      Empathizing, observing and researching stage

7)      Defining point of view stage. The Business Model Canvas

8)      Ideation stage

9)      Prototyping stage

10)   Testing, repeating, reflecting and redefining stages

11)   Implementing stage

Evaluation

A) Learning assessments 

The overall grade of this course will be the weighting of the grades of the following summative assessments:

1) Design thinking group report: 65% of the total grade. Students must develop a Design thinking group project about a current and real company, organisation, product, brand or business activity. 

a.     Final submission of a Design thinking group report (30% of the final grade) at the end of the course and during the final exams period (1st call) according to the established guidelines. Students are required to develop a professional design report addressing by implementing all the stages. Within this report students need to conduct independent research focusing on the key developments related to innovation inside and outside of their selected case organization.

b.     Final presentation and oral defence of the Design thinking group report (10% of the final grade) at the end of the course and during the final exams period (1st call) according to the established guidelines.

c.     Ongoing evaluation and follow up of the Design thinking group report (25% of the final grade). Students are required to prepare and submit different briefings or task briefs of the design report on Moodle. Each briefing corresponds to several specific phases of the design report project elaboration:

                                                  i.    Task brief 1: Case selection, the phase of exploring and understanding and the pase of empathizing, observing and researching (10% overall grade)

                                                 ii.    Task brief 2: Phase of point of view definition (10% overall grade)

                                                 iii.    Task brief 3: Phase of ideation (5% overall grade) 

2) Final Exam (written in class): 25% of the total grade. This is an in-class written exam testing students' understanding, knowledge and application of the theory, materials and information covered during the course. Students will only be able to take the resit exam at the given time/sessions organized by the Academic Secretariat. Students not attending this exam will be graded with 0 (zero) in this assessment. Pass grade is 5 or more.

3) Classroom practice (written and submitted in class): 10% of the total grade. This will consist in in- class written assignments based on different case studies that students will analyse and prepare for submission on Moodle. These cases are designed to helps students apply the different concepts, monitor their learning and provide ongoing feedback that can be used by students to improve their performance. Cases not submitted are graded 0 (zero). Pass grade is 5 or more.

B) Assessments requirements 

-  In order to pass the course, it is mandatory that students pass separately each one of the three learning assessments with a minimum mark of 5 over 10. The overall grade of the subject is then an average of the grades of the different learning assessments. In case that a student fails one of these three assessments, his/ her overall grade is capped at 4 (which means that the student fails the subject) 

-  Those students who have failed the final exam will need to take a resit exam. The resit exam grade will be capped at 5. Those students who have not passed the classroom practice or/ and the group report will need to resit one or both assessments according to the professor instructions with the grades being capped at 5. 

-  Please take into account that the dates and times of the submissions, presentations and final exam that are specified in the working plan cannot be moved or changed by any circumstance. For this reason, students will need to plan their extracurricular activities according to the planned schedule.

-  In the oral presentation sessions, the professor will assign the order of presentations 

-  Class assignments and briefings must be submitted on Moodle no later than the deadline set by the professor that is specified on the Moodle platform. All works submitted after the deadline will not be marked and the formal grade for the piece of work which will go on the grade sheet will be ZERO. All students are expected to submit assignments in a Word format

Methodology

This is a hands-on, interactive course in which students will explore their comfortable creative territories, and then learn to embrace ambiguity and go outside of their comfort zones to discover new approaches to the creative process. Emphasis is placed on Design Thinking as a process for research and innovation while students are engaged in the practice of its methodologies and tools.
In the theoretical sessions, the basic contents and concepts will be provided in the form of a master class and classroom debates with the whole group, emphasizing the various aspects of experiential marketing and design thinking methodology.
In the practical sessions and through professor's guidance and support, the students groups will:
 
-       Discuss, prepare and submit several case studies to apply and reinforce their learning.   
-       Take part in an immersive, real-world project to actively learn the methodology of Design Thinking to elaborate in teams a design Thinking Project that has to be submitted and orally presented at the end of the course. For this purpose, weekly workshops and hands-on and guided sessions will be organized in the co-working rooms to allow students teams to elaborate their own design thinking projects. In these progress sessions, the students teams will have to complete different task briefs that will be graded. Through these sessions and task briefs, the professor will also provide all the necessary feedback to enhance a learning by doing methodology
 
The weekly distribution of the lessons is divided up into a theoretical part (1.5 hours) and a practical part (2.5 hours) that are alternated

Bibliography

Key references

• Curedale, R. (2019). Design Thinking Process & Methods (5 ed.). Design Community College Inc.
• Kumar, Vijay (2013). 101 Design Methods: A Structured Approach for Driving Innovation in Your Organisation. New Jersey Wiley.
• Ostewalder, Alexander,Pigneur,Yves (2017). Generación de Modelos de Negocio (17 ed.). Deusto.
• Solomon, M (2019). Consumer Behaviour: A European Perspective (7 ed.). PEARSON.
• Stickdorn, M., Hormess, M. E., Lawrence, A., & Schneider, J (2018). This is service design doing: Applying service design thinking in the real world. O'Reilly Media, Inc.

Further reading

Teachers will provide complementary bibliography and compulsory reading throughout the course via the Virtual Campus.