Alexander Burdett

I am a Service Designer, futurist and creative catalyst, with a passion for working with people. I collaborate with stakeholders and members of the public to craft projects that empower people to navigate complexity and think differently about the future. I combine the rigour of my academic background with the "if this, then what else" of design to explore, rather than justify, ideas and discover unseen problems. Service design is about exploring new systems and ways to experience the future.

Education

• MA Service Design

Royal College of Art (2022)

• BA(Hons) History

King's College London / University of St Andrews (2015)

Experience

I have previously worked as a analyst for Multiverse (UK/US), now a "unicorn" reinventing education and reskilling in the face of technological change; also Second Home (London,LA,Lisboa) an international creative workspace, using design to create post-WeWork environments that fragment siloes and help companies grow 10% faster while bathed in natural light; interning as IP analyst at Founders Factory Africa (US/SA), structuring the massive expansion of Nigerian, South African and Kenyan entrepreneurship in the world's fast growing continent.

Exhibitions

• Work in Progress Show, RCA, January 2022

I love how good service design transforms people, places and organisations. Good quality design creates real impact on all scales big to small and dynamic changing environments: from relationships to embedded carbon in supply chains to strategic design. At RCA my practice has evolved through exploring and prototyping new end-to-end services with three industry partners on urgent problems:

Brompton Bicycle: Interaction design and imagination infrastructuring to generate safety in cities on bicycle school commuting.

HM Department for Transport + PA Consulting: Experience design and charging grid design for electric vehicle chargepoint surging to improve the user experience of the next electric vehicle charging grid.

NHS Transformation Directorate (NHSX): Behaviour design at the early intervention stage with Binge Eating Disorder in 18-21 year olds and prevent Severe eating disorders in later life.

Imagination infrastructuring for children to learn city literacy to improve cycle safety in cities, while riding as junior passengers on the new generation of Brompton cargo bicycles. P o e i s i s_ is an exploratory methodology for children to learn situational awareness skills designed to build safety awareness on urban roads. through a user-tested game that helps children to discover their environments, through task-orientated mapping of surroundings according to colour, typology and materials and then generating unique, shareable tokens of their journeys. Our design intervention uses a no-screen, offline interface design and printer to gamify a child’s commuting experience as early Brompton users, synchronously generating new “warm” data on cycling school commutes for Local Authorities on children's experience of risk while cycling in cities.

In Collaboration with:

Brompton Bicycle

Medium:

Service Design

TIMO

TIMO is a human-centred data platform that connects drivers and communities across a dynamic network of 25,000 local UK chargers. Our service reshapes charging time experiences and fosters zero-carbon communities, shaping a smooth transition to EV worldwide.

We created a plug in service called Timo on google and Waze that create a custom and personalised EV travel database. The idea is to disperse a powerful and simple small intervention across an already existing mass user base. TIMO is designed as a data platform so we can integrate across all competing services as one single source of truth.

These are some most important parts for integrating EV into our future lifestyle:

Here is Wilfred. He links his car to Waze easily. Timo will automatically remind him to charge the EV car when it has low battery, by message or voice notification. And Timo also will intelligently recommend, books and plan charging points in advance to meet his requirements, bringing the chargepoint to him. In the video, Timo helps Wilfred find a charger which has a flower shop nearby.

When Wilfred drives to the charger, offline users with no digital capability can also use the chargepoint lighting by observing the coloured lights and timer screen that signals the charge points availability. If someone occupies the charger, Wilfred will get a new booking in advance automatically.

Timo also introduces nice activities nearby the chargepoint for Wilfred based on his learned data. He can find the Brightside nature mindfulness event to join on his anniversary day. We believe these different events will help to build long-term communities and enable people to engage in healthier activities.

The Lights and anti-ICE sensors of the charger can reduce friction for using EV charging services. These physical designs also aim to avoid some disruptive behaviours of more EV cars, by dispersing use across the grid and avoiding traffic and queues.

Data gathered will help people choose what works best for themselves. In order to make meaningful behavioural design - we allow people to choose what's best for themselves. People need help finding chargers - so we use the GPS on your phone. You choose the destination, you choose your preferences. we shape the choice architecture to promote more longterm activities.

Medium:

Department for Transport

Pausible

Pausible is a service designed to help you manage your unhealthy cravings and improve your lifestyle choices.

Now, there are approximately two thousand NHS in-patients with Binge Eating Disorder in a user segment sized at over two hundred thousand non-hospitalised sufferers. With this group growing annually by 7%, there is a huge unmet demand for health services in this sector.

With Pausible, we aim to capture 10% of this market through our service which is based on proven methods for prevention and reducing propensity to BED and save costs to the NHS and other health services.

We realised through combined user surveys and clinical research that binge eating is a vicious cycle of eating and regretting that can quickly spiral into a severe eating disorder if left untreated. It is easily triggered by internal and external stimuli, it becomes an escape mechanism to manage emotions of discomfort and stress.

Since cravings are separate from hunger and are specific learned behaviours, our focus is on the early prevention stage.

Our entire concept is based on clinical frameworks that scientifically evidenced that urges or impulses when triggered can last anywhere from 90 seconds to 20 minutes.

We have adapted this theory to design an intervention in a way that it works as a "nudge" to convert environmental, social and physiological triggers into positive actions and responses. We have used cognitive behaviour therapy to design activities that build resilience, self-awareness and confidence and find better ways to manage their life stresses.

Our core value proposition is to help people who struggle to control their unhealthy food cravings by reducing impulsive behaviours and enabling conscious decision making such that does not become a lifestyle limitation.

Alexander Burdett

In Collaboration with:

Medium:

Medium:

Social

About

Royal College of Art