Designing for wellbeing

Overall, the partners were happy with the results of the projects, or positively
surprised at the very least. Many of the partners described the collaboration
with designers as giving their job a new and different viewpoint
– the kind of angle that one does not necessarily think to adopt during the
everyday tasks of the job.
“When I start writing a notification letter for a scheduled appointment, I’ll
write in the five most important things and nothing more… When we started
thinking about these letters with the designers, they started immediately
thinking about the tone of the letter. What kinds of secondary messages
does it send? How does the letter look and what things are emphasised?
We only think about getting the information into the letter, and not how
the reader will pay attention to the information.”
– Nurse in an internal medicine clinic, Helsinki
“When, I finally saw the finished concepts, after the initial nervousness
I was really impressed by them… They didn’t manifest my fears about
clichés, which people who don’t understand child protection services and
who are outsiders to the field attach to the field and to children. Personally,
I was the most touched by Jokke Katajamäki’s sound installation; it was
so moving that I started to cry.”
– Expert in family and social services, Espoo
“I think it’s great that both us and the designers have opened up our respective
worlds. Now we will need this sort of breaking of boundaries in all sorts of
different situations. Questioning the currently used model leads to progress.”
– Architect, social services, Espoo.
“I did like many of the concepts… They didn’t contain much that was new
and wonderful, but they brought up what kinds of things are on the surface
nowadays. I loved the concept about promoting silence and renovating
31 · The cities on design