Browsing by Author "Čaić, Martina"

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Design interventions in the public sector: An analysis of public services through two course collaborations at Aalto University
(2024) Mäeorg, Helena
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Master's thesis
Governments all over the world are facing difficult problems due to globalisation, migration, changes in healthcare and education, among others. Such large-scale problems require innovative approaches to come to desired solutions. Service design has been an emerging field to potentially tackle such large-scale societal problems thanks to its human-centred approach and systems thinking. This thesis focuses on the evolution of service design in public services in Finland. The thesis is commissioned by Aalto University Department of Design and the research investigates two Academia-Industry collaboration projects between Aalto University and Finnish public sector. Master level courses organised by the Department of Design at the Aalto ARTS school: Designing for Services and Design for Government, have run for the past decade and our aim was to research the evolution of service design through industry project briefs and the proposed solutions by students through these courses. We identified that the final student reports from the courses had the most detailed information about the design interventions and decided to focus on the reports as the main research object. After analysing 100 student reports from the past decade, numerous insights emerged. These insights were grouped into 4 categories. Focus was understanding on what the proposed outputs and outcomes of design are, for whom these interventions were meant for and what the general project topics have been over time. The main insights of the research help us see that most service design interventions are meant for multi-stakeholder groups focusing on collaboration, behavioural change and improved services and most interventions use either strategic resources or digital tools to reach the desired outcome. The tangible result of the thesis is the illustration and examples of the intervention outcomes and outputs, which can be helpful when planning similar project collaborations with courses in the future and guiding students towards their solutions.
Fostering immigrant job seekers’ transformative agency in public service ecosystems: Insights from the redesign of a Finnish employment service
(2024) Hussmann, Nicole
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Master's thesis
Drawing on the pressing need for systemic change towards equity and economic sustainability in immigrant employment, this thesis explores immigrant job seekers’ capability to contribute to structural transformation in Finnish public service ecosystems. Leveraging the theoretical frameworks of transformative agency and service ecosystem design, this study aims to comprehend and conceptualize the transformative agency of immigrant job seekers as an integral element of designing and managing public service ecosystems. The thesis addresses the research objectives using semi-structured interviews with immigrant job seekers and immigrant employment professionals gathered during the redesign of a Finnish immigrant employment service. Through employing thematic analysis, the thesis unravels four emerging main themes, 1) agency emerging from informal events, 2) the psychological, temporal, and financial weight of the immigrant employment process, 3) information flows hindering the job seeking process, and 4) paradox views on immigrant jobseekers, as well as twelve sub-themes. The findings bring to the fore the usefulness and necessity of immigrant job seekers’ trans-formative agency, as well as urgent and vulnerable circumstances lowering the priority of transformative agency. Building on identified facilitators and hindrances to the realization of immigrant job seekers’ transformative agency in public service ecosystems, the thesis introduces seven practical implications for public service design and management, following the process 1) building the capacity for transformative agency, and 2) supporting the emergence of transformative agency. This research contributes to public service design and management practice, as well as theory by investigating the role of immigrant job seekers’ transformative agency in the context of Finnish public services and providing practical implications to foster transformative agency in public service ecosystems. By combining transformative agency and service ecosystem design in a specific context, the thesis also provides grounds for future research on the intersections of the two frameworks on a theoretical level.
Improving nursing careers in Finnish public healthcare: Service design for sustainable healthcare
(2024) Borgström, Daniela
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Master's thesis
Healthcare service systems globally face several challenges, including nurse shortage. The existing strategies to tackle the nurse shortage are insufficient, and the broader social context needs to be considered rather than focusing on the profession of nurses. The nurse shortage diminishes the quality of care and thus risks the sustainability of healthcare systems. The healthcare system depends on nurses’ motivation and well-being since the cocreation of the value of the treatment process is mainly created in the interface of interaction between the nurses and patients. The nurse shortage is also noticed in Finland and at thesis partner HUS Helsinki University Hospital (hereafter HUS)). This thesis aims to gather information and insights from the nurses’ perspectives and reveal motivations and positive contributors to the nurses’ long careers in the public healthcare sector at HUS. Nurses create a healing environment through their work practices for the patient. Hence, nurse motivation is central to patient experiences, care outcomes, organizational performance and success, and essentially, societal well-being. This thesis uses a qualitative research method consisting of nurse interviews combined with timelining, a visual method in which the research participants draw their organizational journey during the interviews. A human-centered and participatory design approach was adopted, focusing on factors that motivate nurses in their profession and informing employers on potential points of positive support. Furthermore, this thesis gathered insight into nurses’ organizational journeys, needs, and desires that can be leveraged by the organization to enhance nursing careers and retention. Nineteen nurses at HUS Brain Center were interviewed. The interview data was transcribed and coded. The abductive analysis enabled the researcher to synthesize the interview findings into four motivational themes supporting the long careers of nurses. Moreover, the work community and environment were significant contributors to nurse motivation. Furthermore, the research described the multilayerdness and complexity of nurse motivation. In addition to finding four motivational themes and the importance of a healthy and supportive work community, the gathered data and empathic understanding of the nurses’ experiences are also communicated through personas and journey maps. The motivational themes, personas, and journey maps generated in this thesis can be leveraged to design organizational journeys that contribute to retaining nurses and alleviating the nurse shortage in Finland. The outcome and findings uncover a solid foundation for developing future guidelines and tools to promote nurse retention and facilitate and enhance nurses’ achievement of fulfilling careers, consequently retaining nurses.
Let’s talk about periods: Tackling stigma-driven mental models through a multi-actor approach to improve menstrual education
(2020) Feio Ponces Maia Ramalhão, Maria
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Master's thesis
The menstrual cycle is a stigmatised topic, rooted in a complex system of interconnected actors and channels (e.g., social support, media, education). Exposure to menstrual stigma begins in childhood, suppressing or limiting the menstrual cycle from open conversations. The child’s main sources of information (i.e., parents, teachers and peers) hold mental models of menstrual cycle, shaped by their own context, that are blocking knowledge from flowing. Due to this, menstrual education merely grasps a biological explanation and rarely refers to the experience of having a period (e.g., how it affects daily lives), which has serious mental and physical health consequences. Through service design’s multi-actor approach, this thesis proposes to expose the status quo of menstrual education, in order to improve it in southern Finland. This approach enables the achievement of better solutions for common goals by gathering the different actors’ viewpoints. Thus, this project included mothers, teachers and young menstruators, embedded and participant in southern Finland’s households and schools, and captured their insights through semi-structured interviews and design probes, with a total of 12 informants. The data was analyzed both through affinity diagrams and further on with dyadic and network visualizations. At a first stage, I uncovered the status quo of the menstrual education in Finland, confirming it is a silent taboo, and exposes each educator’s stigmadriven mental model, which dictate how they act, individually and as a network. This revealed the barriers for education, being most of them a consequence of the held mental models (e.g., avoidance of the topic, as they were raised doing so). The lack of educational input invites children to resort to reserved sources, such as internet or peers, often resulting in transmission of rumours that paint the period as scary and hurtful. Consequently, stressful and anxious feelings rise in pre-menstruators, that only cease when they first menstruate and face reality. At a second stage, this thesis rethinks and idealizes the menstrual education system. The understanding of the menstrual cycle’s status quo helped clarify where to take action to reach improvements. Thus, I redefined each actors’ role and solution spaces to ensure an holistically better experience to youngsters, soon to be menstruators. As an extension of this, I filled in the solution spaces by proposing a service that aims to deconstruct mental models, empower actors with knowledge and stimulate discussions, through the suitable channels. This thesis extends knowledge on mental models, by exploring their roots and implications, understanding that growing up and being ducated in a context of silent towards menstrual cycle leads to unacknowledged, stigmadriven actions even years later. In parallel, it demonstrates the relevance of service design’s multi-actor perspective in designing for complex systems by showcasing an improved menstrual education scenario and service, achieved through the different actors’ involvement.
Tapestries of trust: A design-driven enquiry to understand trust between migrants and civil servants in Finnish municipalities
(2023) Sekar, Bhuvana
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Master's thesis
In the contemporary, globalized world, migration and technological trends shapes modern societies, impacting Finland with an influx of migrants and diverse perspectives. To facilitate effective integration and accessible digital public services, developing an understanding of trust between civil servants and migrants becomes vital amid opportunities and challenges. Structured within the Trust-M research, the thesis aims to address two key research questions. Firstly, it investigates how trust is understood within the interactions between civil servants and migrants in Finnish municipalities, specifically in the City of Espoo. Secondly, it explores how this understanding of trust can inform the design and development of AI-based public sector services. A set of findings emerged from the multi-method qualitative research approach conducted, comprising two key phases: (1) an exploratory research phase consisting of interviews, participant-led mind mapping, ethnographic fieldwork, empathy workshops, and (2) the speculation and validation phase consisting of co-speculative workshops. The first research question results in seven key findings, shedding light on (1) the external and context-based factors affecting trust, (2) the elusive and dynamic nature of trust, (3) the negotiation of trust through social dialogue, (4) the role of human-centric services, (5) the impact of mediators and partnerships, (6) diverse subjective "Trust capacity" among migrants, and (7) trust as a multi-faceted and plural phenomenon. These findings culminate in the development of a comprehensive framework of trust, visualizing its nuances at individual, collective, and communal levels. Addressing the second research question, the study presents six principles intended for Hello Espoo to cultivate trust in existing services and navigate trust complexities in digital contexts, especially when AI is involved. These principles, developed through collaboration with a diverse set of stakeholders, emphasize inclusivity, active engagement, well-being, empowerment, transparency, and continuous improvement. In conclusion, this thesis recognizes trust as a complex and multidimensional concept, particularly in the context of migrant-civil servant dynamics in Espoo. By unraveling the intricate tapestry of trust and offering principled guidelines, this research contributes to a nuanced understanding of this phenomenon. The presented framework and principles serve as a compass, guiding the development of equitable, transparent, and empathetic AI-based solutions.