Projektdetaljer
Beskrivelse
The Danish minister of Business said back in 2006 that he ‘hoped user-driven innovation would be one of Denmark’s major competitive advantages in the future’. During 2009 - 2011 the Danish Business and Building Authority supported at number of private – public partnerships that promised to identify the needs of the current users and to incorporate these needs into the user-friendly healthcare and welfare solutions of the future.
The Scandinavian participatory design tradition has very strong roots in the Danish design communities and hence it seems understandable that the Danish authorities supports projects where the users are involved as active participants in the design process of innovative hospitals, training facilities and healthcare services.
The “trouble” about identifying the needs of the users is, however, that when asked directly, the users often have a hard time expressing what their needs are or will be in the future. Thus, in some situations, anthropologists are invited into the early stages of a design process for them to study the users, their practice and their everyday life, in order to gain knowledge about users values and ‘needs’. But how does it affect the design process whether user are actively involved in design activities or given voice through anthropologists’ or designers’ configuration and translations of the users knowledge and everyday practice? And how is this knowledge translated into the innovation process and hence into the final solutions (if indeed that is what happens)?
These aspects are possible further highlighted in the context and network of a public-private partnership setting due to the complexity of balancing the diverse interests and political agendas of the involved partners including companies, governments, public institutions and design consultants.
The elements of user configuration and translation of knowledge does also apply to another ‘context’ than the Danish healthcare and welfare setting, namely in the developing countries and the new global emerging markets. Despite different actor constellations, the challenges are the same; e.g. understand how knowledge about the lives, values and needs of the poor people living for only a few dollars a per day is represented and configured by NGOs or international consultants in the communication between local governmental institutions or/and Danish companies. How is this knowledge translated into new development programs or new products, systems and services and what is “lost” in the translation? This is further complicated by situations where the international consultants and the locals do not even speak the same language – both literally and figuratively speaking.
The Scandinavian participatory design tradition has very strong roots in the Danish design communities and hence it seems understandable that the Danish authorities supports projects where the users are involved as active participants in the design process of innovative hospitals, training facilities and healthcare services.
The “trouble” about identifying the needs of the users is, however, that when asked directly, the users often have a hard time expressing what their needs are or will be in the future. Thus, in some situations, anthropologists are invited into the early stages of a design process for them to study the users, their practice and their everyday life, in order to gain knowledge about users values and ‘needs’. But how does it affect the design process whether user are actively involved in design activities or given voice through anthropologists’ or designers’ configuration and translations of the users knowledge and everyday practice? And how is this knowledge translated into the innovation process and hence into the final solutions (if indeed that is what happens)?
These aspects are possible further highlighted in the context and network of a public-private partnership setting due to the complexity of balancing the diverse interests and political agendas of the involved partners including companies, governments, public institutions and design consultants.
The elements of user configuration and translation of knowledge does also apply to another ‘context’ than the Danish healthcare and welfare setting, namely in the developing countries and the new global emerging markets. Despite different actor constellations, the challenges are the same; e.g. understand how knowledge about the lives, values and needs of the poor people living for only a few dollars a per day is represented and configured by NGOs or international consultants in the communication between local governmental institutions or/and Danish companies. How is this knowledge translated into new development programs or new products, systems and services and what is “lost” in the translation? This is further complicated by situations where the international consultants and the locals do not even speak the same language – both literally and figuratively speaking.
| Status | Afsluttet |
|---|---|
| Effektiv start/slut dato | 01/04/2013 → 01/04/2016 |