Interdisciplinary Service Design Approach to Promote Sustainable Solutions in Social Complexity: Case Study on Korean Elderly Residential Stability during COVID-19

Abstract

This study introduces Action Research to present a service program through an interdisciplinary service design approach for promoting the residential stability of elderly people. We extracted design elements (1) “things to do” and (2) “community” and “strategies”, and then made a design framework. According to the framework, we developed a service design program, named “Small Daily Life: “Small Daily Life Tasks”, which provided opportunities to share the elderly people’s daily life via online videos “Small Meeting”, which helped develop a network of relationships outside the home by informing neighbors regarding elderly people’s know-how, and “Small Sharing”, which delivers the results of previous activities to those who need help in the community. Finally, we describe our reflective case study on the presented service program and examine the relationship between social infrastructure and design and their respective roles. This study will expand service design methodologies as presented research procedures, generalized frameworks, and conceptual models that can be referenced in multidisciplinary collaborations.

Keywords

• service design
• interdisciplinary approach
• social complexity
• social innovation
• residential stability