User-centred design is a widely acknowledged practice. Much attention has been paid to the methods, tools and processes on how to conduct design research and field studies with and about ‘users’ and existing or possible ‘contexts of use’. The underlying driver is that the design team will be better at designing if they have an empathic understanding of the people to design with and for. Currently, more effort is invested in engaging various stakeholders in collaborative design activities that nurture an attitude of human-centredness as a strategy. Empathic design approaches are essential in such strategies as they value subjective and experiential perspectives in design. The objective of this paper is to illustrate and discuss different kinds of formats that can be used to work with representations of field research findings and insights in ways that can be open-ended. Being open-ended means that they can allow and inspire new individual interpretations for various participants in the collaborative design processes, which include users, designers and other stakeholders. What is argued for here is the value of incompleteness of field study outcomes as it invites sense-making through making new interpretations which lead to empathic understanding and engagement. Rather than communicating the final results, design in supporting collaboration is applied in a process of exploring what it is that will create value for specific people.

Our inner, invisible dimension consisting of our values, mental models and worldviews, has been identified as a significant leverage point for transformational change, as it brings to life our actions. Accordingly, the inner dimension of sustainability has a major role in transitioning towards desirable and sustainable futures. This paper focuses on exploring what kind of methods and competences are needed to access and work with the inner dimension as part of collaborative design practices aiming for sustainable and deep change. Thus, a lesser researched, alternative perspective to design discourse, the awareness-based co-creation approach is highlighted as a potential and emerging direction for design for sustainability. By thinking across: (1) literature findings of the concept of inner dimension of sustainability; (2) existing knowledge of awareness-based transformation approaches and (3) results of an experimental case study done in the context of nature tourism, it was recognized that more examples are needed on how to enable, promote and capture participants’ transformative experiences. Finally, the argument is made that awareness-based competencies should be considered as essential future skills and competences of design for sustainability.

This paper portrays cross-organizational collaboration in service networks as a new challenging context for service design. The paper reflects on the role of cross-organizational service networks in a Finnish municipality-initiated research and development project. The project sought to develop new practices for supporting independent living for the elderly involving diverse organizations across public, private and third sectors. The intent was to apply collaborative and customer-centred service development. For this paper, interviews were reviewed from 16 project participants to find out how they perceived cross-organizational collaboration and the role of service design in this project. From these findings, we identified barriers to collaborations that originated in tensions between different organizations and structural and situational barriers that sometimes could be traced to specific mindsets on an organizational level. Based on the insights from these interviews, we explain how service desi...

The paper is based on an ongoing research that aims at studying how storytelling approaches can be applied in designing public customer journeys and service environments. It first introduces briefly how storytelling has been applied in designing service experiences then introduces the research project Spice and its context and approach. Finally; the paper describes and reflects upon an example case and; how storytelling has been applied in gathering and creating stories as well as creating concept ideas.

The damaged and fragmented world is calling for care, hope, and imaginative ways of nurturing dialogues. We need alternative pathways, reflexivity and collective engagements to meet this need. Designers and other creative practitioners are increasingly applying experimental, relational, experiential and participatory approaches to facilitate collaboration, social change and imaginative world-making. Such approaches build on understandings that go beyond rational thinking and involve emotional and personal aspects. To advance these practices with arguments for their relevance, and to develop collective reflexivity, we need ways to talk of and evaluate the relationalities we seek to enact. In this workshop, we engage with this challenging practice by introducing evaluation dimensions, and reflect on how they address relationality in design research projects and design practices. The workshop activities draw from research findings of the EU-funded CreaTures project that explored how creative practices can stimulate action towards socially and ecologically sustainable futures.