Research papers

Master’s thesis

This thesis explores the implementation of kindness in the public sector through the adaptation of the Service Design process. Traditionally, public service delivery has been predominantly focused on economic efficiency and effectiveness, often neglecting the human component of the individuals involved. This thesis aims to expand the rational approach by incorporating emotional states to better address citizen needs. By conducting an extensive literature review, kindness emerges as a promising concept for transforming public systems and processes towards a more citizen-centred approach, particularly in enhancing human-to-human interactions within these services.

Drawing upon Research through Design and the IDEO 3I methodology, this research develops tools for Service Designers to analyse kindness in public services, explore opportunities for its integration, and create concrete approaches for fostering relational services. Through qualitative research encompassing surveys and expert interviews, kindness is explored interdisciplinarily and in depth to establish a strong foundation for building the pillars of kindness in public services. By employing ideation workshops and testing with Service Designers, a toolkit is developed that aims to integrate the highly versatile and subjective concept of kindness into their practices. The thesis presents three distinct tools that broaden the scope of Service Design, shifting the focus from the design of service functions to the manner in which they are performed through the lens of kindness. The use of these tools within Service Design processes ultimately aims to enhance the connection between service users and providers, fostering a solid foundation of trust between citizens and government. This endeavor strives to initiate the transition from a rational to a relational public service approach, with Service Design acting as a catalyst for effective and user-centered public service development.

By intertwining kindness and Service Design, this work serves as a initial effort, stimulating broader discussions and inspiring future research in these areas.

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Short paper

The practice of co-design has been increasingly recognised in recent years as the ultimate design practice to not only meet real human needs, but create more sustainable, inclusive, and democratic outcomes. Although this practice is often portrayed as highly desirable, the difference between the context of origin and today's conditions is frequently neglected. This essay explores the challenges that participation entails in a globalised society.

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Paper

This essay will discuss the integration of artificial intelligence in design processes in relation to creativity and analyse possible implications for designers. It will be argued to what extent AI can be creative with different definitions of the term and whether it can thus liberate designers from parts of their creativity. Furthermore, the design tasks that can be performed by AI are explored in order to determine the extent to which AI democratises creative skills.

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Bachelor’s thesis

The rise of voice assistants increases the impact on the user and their environment. Even though this technology has many advantages and quickly takes root in day-to-day life, possible negative impacts need to be identified and impeded. This thesis aims to determine potential adverse consequences of voice assistants on society, to develop a solution approach. Specifically, it investigates whether the current product market reinforces gender stereotypes, excludes non-binary individuals, and fosters abusive language in human-human interactions.

In this context, the four leading voice assistants Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, Cortana are used representatively for the voice user interface market to analyse them in relation to the hypotheses. To test the thesis that voice assistants affect society adversely, the assumptions are investigated through scientific research. The results show verification of two out of three hypotheses: gender stereotypes are reinforced, and non-binary individuals are excluded. The following research question arises from the findings: How can design practices prevent negative repercussions for society in interactions with voice assistants in the future?

To answer this question, a Cultural Probe was distributed to eight users, who were asked to answer questions and perform different tasks about their perception of the personal, conversational assistant. Furthermore, expert interviews were conducted to gain more profound knowledge and discuss different opinions on the topic. Both methods resulted in the following relevant results: anthropomorphic design enhances anthropomorphisation, which triggers stereotypical thinking and the use of abusive language, as the user projects human-like attributes to the voice assistant persona. Anthropomorphic design leads to the dichotomous gendering of the product, which intensifies the social exclusion of non-binary individuals. A design application was developed based on these findings, which focuses on misbehavioural prevention and gender inclusiveness. Using design principles, an inclusive design process is developed, which is then applied to voice user interface design to create a proactive and gender-sensitive virtual persona. The persona is degendered to represent a neutral robotic entity interacting socially responsible with abusive user language to prevent the aforementioned issues.

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