Akasaka, F. Mitake, Y., Watanabe, K., Nishikawa, Y., and Ozawa, J. (2023)Digital Future Design: Designing Digital Service Systems based on Future Visions. ServDes.2023, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

1. Digital Future Design: Designing Digital
Service Systems based on Future Visions
Fumiya Akasaka, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST),
Japan, fumiya.akasaka@aist.go.jp
Yuya Mitake, The University of Tokyo, Japan, mitake@race.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Kentaro Watanabe, AIST, Japan, kentaro.watanabe@aist.go.jp
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Yuri Nishikawa, AIST, Japan, nishikawa.yuri@aist.go.jp
Jun Ozawa, AIST, Japan, ozawa.jun@aist.go.jp

2. ServDes2023 | 11th-14th, July, 2023. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Background
● Focus on “social innovation” (e.g., Manzini 14; Mulgan+ 07)
○ Design for social innovation is required to achieve the sustainable society
● “Digital tech” in service systems (e.g., Pekkala&Spohrer 19)
○ Integrating advanced digital technologies with services is becoming important to
increase the value and competitiveness
○ Digital service also provide opportunities to address complex social issues
● Smart city
○ It originally aimed to overcome (urban) social issues using digital tech and services
○ However, there are many criticisms on its technocentric approach that lacks a
human-centered and social perspectives (Andreani+ 19)
© 2023 AIST 2

3. ServDes2023 | 11th-14th, July, 2023. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
SD focusing on “social” & “digital” aspects
● Design for social transformation
○ Transition Design (Irwin 18): design approach to achieve social transformation toward a desirable future.
Stakeholders are involved in future visioning and the long-term interventions
○ Transformative SD (Sangiorgi 11), SD for social innovation (Yang&Sung 16): a participatory action
research to implement the transformative interventions for achieving social change
● Service System + Digital tech
○ New system concepts: Smart service system (Lim&Maglio 18), Smart PSS (Valencia+ 15), Digital
service system (Watanabe+ 20)
○ Design methods: Developed mainly in Sys. Eng. and PSS research arena (e.g., Halstenberg+ 19; Li&Lu
21; Tsunetomo+ 22)
Research gap:
These two approaches, design for social transformation and DSS design, have been dealt
with separately and rarely intersected, although they are key to social innovation
© 2023 AIST 3

4. ServDes2023 | 11th-14th, July, 2023. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Objective and research approach
● Approach: Design Research Methodology (Blessing&Chakrabarti 09)
1. Develop a design method: “Digital Future Design Method” to support the creation of the
DSSs for realizing the social transformation to a desirable future vision
2. Apply the method to a design practice: the design of next-generation smart mobility
services in the Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City in Japan
3. Reflect the application results: discussion on the usefulness and limitation of the
proposed method based on the application results
© 2023 AIST 4
Objective of this study is…
To develop a new design method that integrates the social transformation
approach with the DSS design approach

5. ServDes2023 | 11th-14th, July, 2023. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Digital Future Design Method (DFDM)
© 2023 AIST 5
Designed from the
comprehensive perspectives of
the socio cyber-physical-
system (Rijswijk+ 21)
<Core principle>
DFDM begins with visioning the
desirable future society, and then
embodies the DSS concepts.
Digital
Social
Physical
Collaborative Design
Design Models
Refer
Support
Designed with collaborative
approach supported by
several design models

6. ServDes2023 | 11th-14th, July, 2023. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Proposed design process and models
© 2023 AIST 6
Detailed design, Prototyping,
Experiments, etc.
Step1: Multi-perspective
context analysis
Collaborative
Model-based
Step2: Future visioning
Collaborative
Model-based
Step3: Vision-based
concept design
Collaborative
Model-based
Digital Future
Hexagon
for the analysis of
Socio-CPS context
Future Life
Snapshots
for ideating ang
analyzing possible
future life scenes
Vision-Life-
Function Model
to structure the
relations between
vision, life scenes,
and DSS functions

7. ServDes2023 | 11th-14th, July, 2023. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Application case
● A project to design next-generation smart mobility services (MaaS) in the Kashiwa-no-
ha Smart City (incl. Level-4 automated buses, various personal mobility vehicles, etc)
● How to design future mobility services in relation to various components such as user
values, urban resources, vision, and other domain services ?
© 2023 AIST 7
Restaur
ant
Shopping
center
Street
Mobility
data
City
vision
Mobility
vehicles
Automated bus
Personal mobility vehicle
Kashiwa-no-ha smart city
Users

8. ServDes2023 | 11th-14th, July, 2023. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Social
Physi
cal
Digi
tal
Step1: Multi-perspective Context Analysis
● DFDM begins with Digital Future Hexagon, a multi-perspective context analysis based on the socio-
CPS domains: (social, physical and digital) before future visioning and DSS concept generation
© 2023 AIST 8
Life with various
shared mobilities to
allow comfortable
transportation without
private cars
Walkable
city
Comfortable
city life without
a private cars
Shopping/resta
urant services
Shopping
center
Personal
mobility vehicles
Eco-friendly
transportation
Mobility
reservation
Mobility
management
system
Personal
mobility
availability
Personal
mobility
occupancy
data

9. ServDes2023 | 11th-14th, July, 2023. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Step2: Future visioning
© 2023 AIST 9
● Images of desirable future society (future life snapshot) are envisioned based on the hexagon; then,
the snapshots are summarized to created a future vision.
Ideating the future
life snapshots
Integrating to
create a future vision
1
2

10. ServDes2023 | 11th-14th, July, 2023. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Step3: Vision-based concept design
© 2023 AIST 10
● Designers explore and describe DSS concept (as a set of key functions)
Vision
Life
DSS
Functions
Abstract
Concrete
Zig-zag
thinking

11. ServDes2023 | 11th-14th, July, 2023. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Findings
● Usefulness
○ DFDM is useful for the integrated design of two systems that have
different levels of abstraction: future vision and DSSs
○ The hexagon’s six perspectives provide “constraints” and “clues” in
DSS idea generation -> effective in supporting creative thinking to
explore new opportunities
○ The design models was useful in supporting co-creation by
visualizing and managing the results of workshops and discussions
● Limitations
○ This study only covers the early phases (i.e., the conceptual design)
○ We need to apply it to other cases for verifying general usefulness
© 2023 AIST 11

12. ServDes2023 | 11th-14th, July, 2023. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Concluding summary
● We propose the DFDM, a novel design method that supports the designing of
DSSs for realizing the social transformation to a desirable future
○ Design models (Digital future hexagon, VLF diagram) and design processes
● The method was applied to a case of smart mobility service design
● We found the method is effective in …
○ Supporting integrated thinking of different levels of abstraction: future vision and DSSs
○ Providing stimulus (constraints and clues) in DSS idea generation
○ Supporting co-creation activities by visualizing and managing the results of workshops and
discussions
● Future works will include …
○ Development of additional method for designing more detailed DSS architecture
○ Application to other domain cases
© 2023 AIST 12

13. Thank you !! / Obrigado !!
Do not hesitate to contact me at:
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fumiya.akasaka [at] aist.go.jp
https://www.fumiyaakasaka.com/
https://www.facebook.com/fumiya.akasaka