Longing for service: Bringing the UCL Conception towards services research

There has been an increase in the relevance of and interest in services and services research. There is a acknowledgement that the emerging field of services science will need to draw on multiple disciplines and practices. There is a growing body of work from Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers and practitioners that consider services, but there has been limited interaction between service researchers and HCI. We argue that HCI can provide two major elements of interest to service science: (1) the user centred mindset and techniques; and (2) concepts and frameworks applicable to understanding the nature of services. This second option is of major concern in this paper, where we consider Long’s work (undertaken with John Dowell) on a Conception for HCI. The conception stands as an important antecedent to our own work on a framework that: (a) relates the various strands of servicer research; and (b) can be used to provide high-level integrative models of service systems. Core concepts of the UCL Conception such as domain, task, and structures and behaviours partially help to relate systematically different streams of services research, and provide richer descriptions of them. However, if the UCL Conception is moved towards services additional issues and challenges arise. For example, the kinds of domain changes that are made in services differ; services exist in a wider environment; and that effectiveness judgements are dependent on values. We explore these issues and provide reflections on the status of HCI and Service Science.