DSGN 382-1: Service Design Studio I
Quarter Offered
Fall : Tues/Thurs, 9:00am-12:00 pm; Ford Hive Annex, 2.340 ; Amy O'Keefe
Prerequisites
DSGN 106-1,2 or DSGN 208.
Description
Services represent nearly 80% of the US GDP and the best of them are intentionally designed. Today, uses of “agentic AI” dominate most every conversation about design of new products and services. AI Transformation and integration of agentic services will change the way services are designed and delivered in the future dramatically.
The Fall 2026/Winter 2027 Human-Centered Service Design Studio sequence will draw on established tools, methods, and mindsets of Service Design practice to explore design of AI Agents and Agentic Services as they become integral to our everyday service experiences. We will leverage and adapt tools, methods, frameworks, and mindsets of Service Design (Løvlie et al., 2025; Downe 2020; Risdon and Quattlebaum, 2018) to understand user needs, design and test concepts for agentic service interventions, and communicate future-state integrated agentic services.
About the Course
As Service Designers, our lens for designing agentic services will center users, their needs, and ways to help them complete necessary tasks. To amplify our service design work, we will augment our learnings with:
- business strategy and context from our partner
- explorations of emerging AI and agentic technologies along with potential data sources and integrations from leaders in the field
- lenses that allow us to explore the systems and ethics in which our services work
with the goal of helping people use integrated agentic services to accomplish specific goals and tasks of daily life in ways that support and align with their individual values.
Working with a cohort of 15-20 students, 3-5 teams each explore different areas within a larger challenge prompt from our partner. Students work in team-based, multidisciplinary settings that challenge them to apply design thinking skills to a diverse set of real problems and people. Final deliverables include an explainer video demonstrating their service intervention and service design tools including journey maps, service blueprints, stakeholder/ecology understanding, along with other relevant supporting documentation. By the end of the sequence, every student will have a design portfolio piece that serves as a valuable and practical resource for showcasing their work to prospective employers and project collaborators.
If you are interested in enrolling, please complete this form to receive a permission number. Priority is given to 4th year and 3rd year students in the MaDE and Design Certificate programs and student who have taken DSGN 395 Designing with AI. This course will be particularly useful for students interested in exploring roles related to Service Design, Experience Design, AI Experience, and AI Transformation.
About Professor O’Keefe
Amy O’Keefe is the Faculty Director of Northwestern University's Master of Science in Engineering Design Innovation (EDI) program. She has co-instructed the EDI Human-Centered Service Design Studio for the past 14 years and taught the undergraduate Service Design sequence since 2019. During Winter 2026, Amy co-taught Northwestern’s first agentic service focused Human-Centered Service Design Studio in partnership with the JP Morgan Chase | Payments team. She regularly serves as Faculty Lead for Kellogg MMM student teams working on projects with client partners in the Business Innovation Lab (BIL) course. In industry, Amy has led product management, service design, experience design, and design of integrated multi-channel initiatives for healthcare, Fortune 50 retail and global professional services clients. Recent studio project partners have included: Amazon, The Art Institute of Chicago, Feeding America, JP Morgan Chase, Lurie Children’s Hospital, Microsoft, Northwestern Medicine, Procter & Gamble, and Southwest Airlines.
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