Breaching-through-Service: Accounting and Shaping Social Order with Service Design

Abstract

This article proposes a novel approach called breaching-through-service (BtS) that integrates the microsociological approach of ethnomethodology and field-based design experimentation. BtS is service-in-action that is embedded with incongruity. It provides an operational and analytical framework for researchers to breach a social situation by designing and delivering a service, accounting for what occurs in that context, and then acting based on the ensuing interaction. In this way, it enables inquiry and service delivery simultaneously. The BtS approach enriches the practice of studying and harnessing micro-interactions with and for service design. With this, it advances the investigative and transformational capacity of service design.