In collaboration with Helsinki Youth Center and Pelastakaa Lapset association we organized the Create and Thinker workshop (Kreaa & tuunaa mobiilisovellus in Finnish). The key objective of the workshop was to engage young people (age 13 to 25) in generating ideas for a new mobile services for Netari.fi (an online youth center). Our task was to help these organizations and the digital service provider in charge of development, to engage young people as key stakeholders in the design and development process of the new service. The workshop helped nurturing and pushing collaboration to reassure that the design ideas met the youngsters’ needs and were contextually relevant.
During the workshop participants were developing personas, ideas and scenarios of new service and application concepts. The results were presented and documented in a form of paper prototypes and picture collages. Participants application ideas varied from a virtual wardrobe to scout map and a service for enhance learning.
Our design approach at Suo&Co is to actively involve stakeholders during the design process to ensure that participants are committed and excited to contribute. In these participatory design processes motivation cannot be given for granted.