Research
Across six themes, we study how new technologies, ventures, and resources are accepted and become valuable when they enter the field.
In each theme, we carry the work from prototyping and testing in the field all the way to a form that organizations and communities can repeat on their own.
Details of each project are given on its own page.
The lab’s mark is a path of three cells cut from a 3×3 grid. The rows show who we work with (academia, organizations, the field), and the columns show the state of the work (0, 1, 10). The three cells run in the order of collaborating, prototyping, and handing over, and the final blue cell shows to whom, and in what state, the work is handed over. Each of the six themes has its own path, and the mark for the lab as a whole runs along the organizations row from 0 to 10 in one continuous line.
Projects under review or in planning are described only at the level of theme, field, and method. We share details in a meeting.
Theme 01 — S-D logic × human-centred designService design methods, organizational adoption, and training
We examine how Japanese companies and governments adopt service design, and where they stumble.
A design thinking adoption model for Japanese companies and governments
We interviewed experienced practitioners at large companies and design consulting firms that had adopted design thinking, and built an adoption model that organizes the areas of application, the stumbling points, and the remedies (Bulletin of JSSD 2019; Journal of Design Thinking 2021).
Technical guidance in innovation management and service design (NTT DATA MSE)
To root service design and innovation management inside the company, we provided lectures, exercises, reviews, and supervision on a yearly basis. The engagement was renewed for three consecutive years, and we also supervised a service design book for practitioners.
Designing the course "Service Design" (a new course at SFC)
We analyzed the structure of European service design programs and designed a 15-session studio course in which students experience the whole process, from interview design to an implementation roadmap. The course opens in the winter semester of 2026.
Theme 02 — Global South / circularityTurning unused resources and waste into value
We examine why the same material becomes waste in one place and a product in another.
A Value Study of Discards: unused resources in the Philippine coconut industry
Taking mature coconut water discarded in copra production as the case, four disciplines (service design, cultural anthropology, fermentation science, and ICT4D) examine the proposition that what separates waste from resource is not the nature of the material but the way society looks at it.
Product development and diffusion methods based on local resources in the Global South
We build a method that starts from unused local resources and covers everything from product concept design to acceptance evaluation. Fieldwork in December 2025 confirmed the reality of discards at processing plants and that the industry recognizes it as a problem.
WANIC: a six-year longitudinal case of a coconut spirits venture
We described, through the lenses of effectuation and bricolage, how a team with neither resources nor a market reached a new product by taking stock of what it had, forming partnerships, and learning through prototypes. The spirit won a gold medal at SFWSC 2017, and the business was transferred in 2022.
Theme 03 — Robots, digital twins, infrastructureIntroducing new technologies to the field and their acceptance
We examine what the rules, customs, and values of a workplace accept from a new technology, and what they reject.
Designing service-robot deployments in care facilities, hospitals, and facility management
At three sites we took stock of regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive institutions, selected the jobs that could be entrusted to robots, and implemented and evaluated services within two months. We compare deployment strategies across sites with different institutional complexity.
Designing community acceptance of a horizontal spaceport
We design a process and dialogue tools through which residents, government, and operators shape the acceptance of new infrastructure in advance, rather than after the fact through public briefings. We hold monthly consultations with Oita Prefecture.
Theme 04 — What to delegate and what people keepGenerative AI, LLMs, and collaboration with professionals
We examine what professionals delegate to AI, what they decide themselves, and who manages that boundary.
The boundary of professional judgment in the age of generative AI
We investigate how practitioners decide what to delegate to generative AI and what to judge themselves, and turn that boundary judgment into a methodology of guidelines, toolkits, and evaluation metrics. A preliminary study with eleven HCD experts is under review as a single-author paper.
A new-business development process that incorporates generative AI
We codify how generative AI is used at each stage from opportunity exploration, desk research, and field research planning to personas, concepts, and journeys, and publish the approach through books and seminars.
Theme 05 — Local DAOs, tokens, hubsLocal communities, Web3, and relational population
We examine what happens between digital residents, physical residents, and community managers, and what design makes such communities last.
Local DAOs and collaboration between digital and physical residents
We interviewed 22 community managers, digital residents, and physical residents across five local DAOs and analyzed the socio-technical gap between blockchain governance and place-based community practice. We also developed and evaluated service design tools that reflect the philosophy of Web3.
Designing an entrepreneur development program and a hub facility for Yamaguchi City
Based on fieldwork at co-living and co-working spaces in Japan and abroad, we designed the vision, concept, community, program, and facility. The program was launched at the facility in 2021.
Theme 06 — AR, games, disaster educationMuseums, education, and children
We design mechanisms that let children explore exhibits on their own initiative and share the experience with others.
Exhibition support design that lets museum visitors share their experience
We develop and test in museums an exhibition support system that lets children explore exhibits on their own initiative and share the experience with others. The lab is responsible for service design and the user interface.
Merapi Village Heroes: a role-playing game for children to learn volcanic disaster preparedness
We designed, through design-based research, a mobile game in which children play local roles such as the village head, sand miners, and Red Cross volunteers, and evaluated it against a control group.