Service design tools to explore financial services for poor microbusiness owners Heloisa Candello, Claudio Pinhanez, David Millen, Silvia Bianchi hcandello@br.ibm.com IBM Research, Brazil Abstract This paper presents a case study where a research team applied service design tools through the design process of new financial services for the poor. Service design tools were applied to immerse the research team into the reality of small business owners, which were also microcredit customers, living in poor neighborhoods of Northeast Brazil. Such tools were helpful not only to enforce a user-centered approach for the project but also to understand the stakeholder’s expectations and aims. Design activities consisted of contextual interviews with small business owners and research team interaction and ideation, including: fieldwork debriefing with pictures; journey maps; personas; scenarios; service design blueprint; wireframes and mockups. We present lessons learned from the application of this user- centered design process supported by service design tools. KEYWORDS: service design tools, design process, field research, collaborative teamwork, financial services Introduction Financial transactions are fundamentally embedded in a multi-person context and involve the coordinated action of multiple actors. For example, basic payment systems involve a buyer and a seller. The transaction, however, is completed within the context of a financial system that includes organizations (e.g., banks, governments) and the coordination of a rich network of other groups (e.g., competitors, suppliers, transportation providers). Understanding awareness of this larger context is required for project teams involved to design new service innovations that are expected to be readily adopted and provide benefits to the greater financial ecosystems. The first step into this journey, from a Design Research perspective is to explore the context by understanding final users. Insights gathered from 192