Service design is addressing increasingly complex challenges. Service design is taking place within our planetary system that has shifted into Anthropocene; being impacted by human action. At the same time digitalization and disruptive technologies have changed again and more the marketplace and how we create the service offerings. These two shifts have a huge impact on service designers’ job, their tool pack and moral compass

For service design to develop and remain relevant, it’s essential to acknowledge not only the neoliberal system, but also planetary and life-centered needs that challenge service production and delivery. Service design has created added value within private and public service systems by discovering and responding to human needs. The role of service designers has been to advocate for human-centeredness, usability, accessibility, a holistic approach, functionality, and logic in service delivery. They have showcased tools and processes that respond to these needs. They focus service production on creating offerings that fit into everyone’s everyday context and deliver direct, in-use value.

Satu Miettinen is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Art and Design at the University of Lapland in Finland. She has been in this position since 2018. She is also a Professor of Service Design at the same university.  Satu Miettinen is recognised as one of the pioneers in the field of service design.

Her work around bioart is inspired by visits to the close-by forest that are her living laboratory. She is also inspired by a variety of natural environments when she and her colleagues are constructing embodied performances with nature utilising improvisatory methods.