22st DMI: Academic Design Management Conference
Impact The Future By Design
Toronto, Canada, 5-6 August, 2020
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Apply and Curate the Object-Process Methodology (OPM) and the
Human-centered Design to Solve the Systemic Challenge – Use
Campus Tour Experience Design as an Example
Sheng-Hung Lee
*a, b
, Chaiwoo Lee
b
, John Rudnik
b
, Olivier L. de Weck
c
, Joseph F. Coughlin
b
, and Jonathan
Chapman
d
a
MIT Integrated Design & Management (IDM);
b
MIT AgeLab;
c
MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems;
d
Carnegie Mellon University's School of Design
The purpose of the study is to solve the systemic challenge on campus—“How might we create an informative
yet delightful campus tour experience for students, visitors and university in the lens of service design?” by
applying Object-Process Methodology (OPM) in the field of the system engineering and human-centered
design. This study contributes to design research through the seamless combination and comparison of select
methodologies from the system engineering and design thinking fields to solving the challenges faced by
university campuses. In particular, the study utilized OPM to decompose the whole campus tour system into
four main components: object, process, link and status, which helps analyze the system in the lens of inside-
out perspective. The results showed that using OPM inspired the individuals to revisit and to clarify the internal
organization structure and its relationships in the context of the service provider – the university. Within the
sub-systems, the study utilized a human-centered design: target group interviews, journey mapping, concept
prototyping, scenario experiment and service design refinement to identify the core cause and recommend five
key touchpoints and its design suggestions across the campus tour journey. In a way, applying a human-
centered design is to view the challenge in the lens of the outside-in perspective, which underlines the user
needs in the context of service receiver – visitors, students, and investors. The example not only successfully
redesigns and improves the existing campus tour experience from both the service receiver and the service
provider, but also perfectly curate OPM with the human-centered design to scale the impact of the project.
Keywords: Object-Process Methodology; OPM; Human-centered Design; Design Thinking; System Engineering; System
Thinking; Participatory Design; Campus Tour; Experience Design; Service Design
*
Corresponding author: Sheng-Hung Lee | e-mail: shdesign@mit.edu