This article contributes a novel approach to public service design in the age of digitalization. Termed 'design for experience', this approach builds on developments in the fields of digitalization, user experience, and service design, as well as the integration of the service ecosystem concept. 'Design for experience' aims to facilitate value propositions that support public service users to co-create value in their lifeworlds. Achieving this requires a multi-level approach because a user's value creation process is embedded in a multi-actor configuration and governed by institutions. A conceptual framework is offered, alongside guidance in applying the 'design for experience' approach.

This mixed methods study investigated how value is created in the physical retail space and how the customer experience is influenced by digital technology. A cross-sectional survey, with both qualitative and quantitative components, was distributed across a heterogeneous sample of 832 customers. The results revealed an overarching model comprised of three interrelated clusters: customer, service provider, and digital technology. We propose that this model can be understood as a valuescape, where customers' specific goals, needs, and desires drive them to interact and co-create value with service providers in the physical retail space, with digital technology either enhancing or disrupting this value co-creation process. The results also show that the importance of aligning digital solutions with customers’ drives increases at the same pace as reliance on technology. The findings offer guidelines on how to utilize digitalization to leverage customer experiences and thus strengthen the attractiveness of physical retail spaces.

This aim of this study is to enhance the understanding of customer behavior and customer experience in the context of city centers and peripheral shopping centers and how the use of digitalized services affects this experience. In this paper we adopt a qualitative approach to explore consumers´ activities when visiting a city and/or a shopping center and the experiences connected to the visit. The study is based on data from 832 (55% female) with a M age = 48 years (range 17-91 years) consumers.

When visiting a city center and/or a shopping center, customers engage with a variety of different touchpoints (Socchi, Hart and Haji, 2016). From a customer perspective these touchpoints create experiences that generates many types of values. In recent years, the mass media has warned for the demise of city and shopping centers commerce. This purported demise is mainly due to the strong growth of e-commerce. To meet this competition, the retail and hospitality industry has developed strategies to create new customer experiences and thus attract customers back to the city center’s physical places. As a consequence of the technical development, companies frequently try to influence customers’ experiences through various digitalized services, where these digitalized service have the potential to improve customer experience by providing superior and personalized services (Roy et al. 2016). The question is what impact such services have on customers’ experiences and how this, in turn, affects the profitability of the retail and hospitality industry as a whole.

In order to shed light on the activities and experiences of visitors to city and shopping centers regular consumers were approach during a regular visit to such an area and asked to answer a few open ended questions.  The data was analyzed using thematic analysis. Thematic analysis aims to identify and report on thematic patterns across the sample, which allows researchers to make interpretations of the data that reflect the reported reality of participants (Braun and Clarke, 2006; Hayes, 2000; Ruane and Wallace, 2013).

The preliminary analysis of the data shows a variety of activities and touchpoints when visiting the city and shopping center. Seven themes emerged in our analysis of the participants´ responses: Relationship, Goal fulfillment, Experiences, Physical venue, Milieu, Practical usability and Non-intrusive.

In order to make more sense of the seven themes a model were developed. In this model three of the themes were connected to the customer, two connected to the service provider and the last two connected to digital technology. These three clusters interact in different ways.

The customer cluster contains the themes relationships, goal fulfilment and experiences. The themes in this cluster describe and vivifies the customer. The customer is not just a “shopping robot” jumping from touchpoint to touchpoint along a customer journey. The customer instead is a person with goals to fulfil but at the same time someone who has a great need of relationships on different levels and a person who will and want to experience things.

The service provider cluster contains two themes. One were named physical venue and this is where the service provider, be it a storeowner or a restaurant owner for example, has the most direct control. It is also where the customer will go to fulfil his or her goals. Here the direct contact between customer and service provider can and will take place. The second theme in this cluster were named “milieu”. The milieu can be the space the customer needs to pass in order to get to the physical venue or other factors that the service provider do not have control over (e.g. public spaces and weather)

The third and most interesting cluster concerns the digital technology, named practical usability and non-intrusive. Digitalization is highly interesting when it comes to the relationship between the customer and the service provider. The first theme described the importance of the usefulness of digital technology, and  in regards to digitalization the results indicates that digitalized services mostly fulfill utilitarian needs and works best in functional touchpoints. The theme called non-intrusive describes the relation between the customer and the digital technology. It may be somewhat drastic to talk about a two edged sword but on the one hand digital technology makes life easier and sometimes more joyful and at the same time the technology may disturb goal activities which leads to negative experiences.

These findings is important because it offers help to those managing city and shopping centers in identify touchpoints that need to be digitalized and those who need to be reinforced through social activities This knowledge could also help managers develop strategies to create new customer experience, i.e. create good valuescapes, and thus tease customer back to the city and shopping center´s physical places.

REFERENCES

Braun, V. and Clarke, V., (2006), 'Using thematic analysis in psychology’, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3 (2) 77-101

Hayes, N. (2000), Doing Psychological Research, Open University Press, Buckinghamshire.

Ruane, L. and Wallace, E., (2013), 'Generation Y females online: insight from brand narratives', Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 16 (3) 315-335

Roy, S. K., Balaji, M. S., Sadeque, S., Nguyen, B., and Mlewar, T. C., (2016), 'Constituents and consequences of smart customer experience in retailing', Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 124 257-270

Stocchi, L., Hart, C., and Haji, I., (2016), 'Understanding the town centre customer experience (TCCE) ', Journal of Marketing Management, 32 (17-18) 1562-1587

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the usability of different design methods in understanding the customer experience from a contextual and systemic standpoint.

Design/methodology/approach

Three design methods (i.e. personas, observations and collaborative service mapping) were applied to analyze customer experiences in two service settings. These methods’ usability was compared across the two settings.

Findings

Personas, as informed by phenomenological interviews, provide insights into the customer’s broader lifeworld context. These insights assist in connecting with and understanding the customer experience from a dyadic customer-firm perspective. The involvement of the customer in service mapping activities supports the validation of findings and gives access to experience dimensions beyond the immediate service setting.

Research limitations/implications

The analysis is limited to three design methods and is based on small samples. Future research should systematically review design methods to provide a basis for a more comprehensive

evaluation.

Practical implications

To successfully capture the contextual and systemic nature of the customer experience, managers should apply interpretive approaches and actively involve selected customers as “experts of their experiences”. The study provides guidelines on how design methods can be combined and applied to a more holistic customer experience analysis.

Originality/value

The paper shows that design methods, when applied in a combined form, can support an analysis that captures both in-depth insights into the customer’s lifeworld and the complexity of value constellations.

To understand children’s experiences of their daily travel, and the consequences of these experiences, it is essential that we directly address children. The Satisfaction with Travel Scale (STS) is a self-report instrument consisting of nine items divided into three subscales – two reflecting affective travel experiences and one reflecting cognitive travel experiences. The present study has two aims: (i) to examine the psychometric properties of a child version of the STS (referred to as the STS-C), and (ii) to test a potentially positive relationship between travel satisfaction and life satisfaction among children, something which has been found among adults. Three hundred and forty-five children completed the STS-C, life satisfaction scales, and sociodemographic variables. Analyses using Partial Least Square structural equation modelling revealed that the STS-C was internally reliable, had a sound construct validity, and confirmed a one-factor second-order measurement model with three first-order constructs (subscales). Furthermore, children’s satisfaction with school travel was also significantly related to their life satisfaction as measured by their satisfaction with: themselves, school experiences, friendships, family, and living environment. The relationship between travel satisfaction and life satisfaction varied between modes, whereby it was stronger among those who traveled by active modes than those who traveled by school bus or car. Younger children and boys were more satisfied with their travel to school, something which also had an indirect effect on their life satisfaction.

We investigate whether travel mode, travel time, and travel activities influence children’s satisfaction with their travel to school, their current mood, and their cognitive performance after arriving at school. A sample of 344 children (165 girls) between the ages of 10 and 15 were recruited at five public schools in Värmland County, Sweden. Directly after arriving at school, the children rated; how they felt on two scales ranging from very sad to very happy and from very tired to very alert; filled out the Satisfaction with Travel Scale adapted for children; reported details about their journeys; and took a word-fluency test. The results showed that traveling by school bus and walking or cycling were experienced as having a higher quality than traveling by car. Children who engaged in conversation during their journeys reported a higher quality and more positive feelings than children who were passive during their journeys. A shorter journey was experienced as having a higher quality and resulting in more positive feelings. Children traveling for longer durations, and using their smartphones or doing a combination of activities during their journeys, performed better in the word-fluency test.