New paradigms related to community building and identity in service design: Exploring global and local design initiatives

The paper concerns how service design is developing as a field, and calls for new paradigms for social organization as well as new models for human-to-human interaction. The authors present and discuss the key themes and contributions presented at the conference ServDes 2018 concerning the role of community building in service design (track 7). We reflect on expectations for the call in light of the contributions received. The paper provides an overview of different perspectives in the contributions, including case studies on local and global design experiences and theoretical issues. A main concern is the changing role of the designer in terms of fostering community and identities through meaning-making in service design practice. In conclusion, there is a review of the challenges facing community-oriented designers, along with discussion on the changing paradigms for service design and humanto- human models of interaction.