Join us at Cumulus Johannesburg working group meeting!
27 November 2025
Time: 16:00 – 17:00
All times are local SAST. (UTC+2) Johannesburg, South Africa
Empathetic Service Design Working Group for Creating Forward-Looking, Emotion-Oriented and Relevant Services
Through case studies from across the globe, this working group helps designers understand how forward-looking service prototyping, analysis and tools can promote and create empathic, emotion-oriented and relevant services. The workinggroup is based on a book called “Empathic Service Design: Challenges in design, analysis and services” by Eds. Melanie Sarantou, Satu Miettinen and Titta Jylkäs. Please see: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/empathic-service-design-9781350476400/
The working group will feature a series of presentations related to the book and provide a discussion forum for sharing experiences.
Presentations:
– Introducing the Empathetic Service Design, Melanie Sarantou, Satu Miettinen & Titta Jylkäs
– User Empathy in the Early Phase of Product–Service Systems Development: Challenges with User Research, Service Blueprinting and Service Prototyping, Thomas Abrell
– Design for Longevity: An Empathic Service Design Framework, Sheng-Hung Lee
– Role of Empathy in Reliving Indigenous Cultural Heritage: Insights from Arts Ceduna, South Australia, Amna Qureshi
– More-Than-Human Empathy in Arts-Based Material Research Processes, Jenny Bergström, Heidi Pietarinen
– Empathic Development for Service Prototyping: Challenges and Opportunities that Emerged During Design Thinking Workshops with Analogue and Digital Tools, Kiwoong Nam
– Using Service Design to Create Smart Jewellery Low-Fi Prototypes for Pandemic Challenges Virve Inget, Mari Suoheimo, Manuela Quaresma, and Jonna Häkkilä
Would you like to stay tuned with the Service Design Cumulus Working Group and other related topics? If so, please leave us your email address so that we can keep in touch (contact@cumulusassociation.org).
Join the Cumulus Working Groups meetings at the Cumulus South Africa 2025 conference!
Design Intelligence and 5IR
Time: November 26-28, 2025, Johannesburg, South Africa
On-site: University of Johannesburg
Online: Zoom (free for all interested representatives of Cumulus member institutions) to be added later
https://cumulussouthafrica2025.uj.ac.za/
CWGs are communities of practice created by and for our members to share expertise and engage on a diversity of topics that matter to our disciplines.
Through an evolving process of knowledge development and sharing, CWGs create a year-round space for virtual and in-person focused sessions to regularly increase engagement and communication on a variety of relevant and timely interests.
