Browsing by Author "Berg, Emma"
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
- Results Per Page
- Sort Options
- Fishing lessons - Capabilities approach in the design process for public work and daytime activity services for disabled people
School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Master's thesis(2018) Berg, EmmaIn this thesis I study the relevance and impact of a normative ethical theory, capabilities approach, in a service design case project. My work includes a service design case for the public sector, and an autoethnographic study of the design case from the perspective of capabilities approach. In this thesis I use fishing as an analogy to understand capabilities approach and summarize my learnings of the approach in the context of my service design case. I present that service design is increasingly used in designing public services. I argue that ethics are mostly implicit but relevant in the context of service design in the public sector. I introduce capabilities approach and discuss its’ connections to design and relevance and implications for my case. In my autoethnographic study I introduce capabilities approach as a framework to reflect upon during the case design process to understand if and how it can inform the design process. The practical goal in the case is to produce user initiated ideas into Helsinki city’s public work and daytime activity services for disabled people, with service design. The design research finds that service users could not truly participate in the idea creation for the services though law required it. The design case outcome, the Our Favourite Ideas (Meidän Suosikki-ideat) design game addresses how disabled service users in the public services can participate in the creation of new service content ideas, make choices, and voice opinions. The main result of the autoethnographic study of the case is that capabilities approach could inform most of the explicit documented decisions in the case design process. It impacted the case process by making communication more meaningful and more explicit on ethics, questioning the way the designer approached users through the identification of needs and contributing to the assessment of a just design process in the services. Capabilities approach impacted the design outcome by informing the choice of design game as a method, the aims of the game and the way I presented the game. This thesis finds capabilities approach informative and relevant in the design of the work and daytime activity services, when used together with Finnish legislation in reflective design practice. My results imply that designers should acknowledge and make explicit our ethical standings, be reflective and aware of the legislation governing work in the design of public services. Follow-up research can include similar more extensive studies with stricter planning, studying group settings and the political aspects of design for public services.