Designing for wellbeing

lack knowledge about the opportunities, objectives and challenges of design.
On the other hand, designers face challenges in giving proper attention
to the conventions of the public sector 1 . We will discuss these challenges
through focusing on the following:
• framing the design challenge,
• understanding concept design as a decision-making tool, and
• utilising concept design for promoting discussion.
We will illustrate these with insights and results from a student project,
Rethinking Villa Breda, which was conducted in collaboration with the City
of Kauniainen. The project focused on public services provided especially
for seniors – but not, however, restricted to them. We applied a co-design
approach to combine the visions and skills of design students, city representatives,
service users, and wellbeing and health stakeholders. The students
exercised and developed their co-design skills and the application of
empathic design tools. Empathy is especially meaningful in design contexts
that look at individuals’ wellbeing as a personal experience. Furthermore
the seniors’ daily lives differ from those of the students, and in order to
better understand what wellbeing means to different people, empathic
understanding – the ability to look at the world from other people’s perspectives
– becomes essential 2 .
Framing problems by co-design
The first task in design is problem finding and/or framing. When we work
with complex service-product systems, identifying the right problem
demands a multidisciplinary and collaborative approach that might be
a long-lasting effort.
1 Hakio, K. & Mattelmäki T. (2011). Design adventures in the public sector. In Proceedings of Designing
pleasurable products and interfaces DPPI2011, (Eds.) Cautela, Deserti, Rizzo, Zurlo, 475-482
2 Koskinen, I., Battarbee, K. & Mattelmäki, T. (Eds.) (2003). Empathic Design. Finland: IT Press.
58 · Co-design with the public sector