Eszter Hegymegi and Holly Turpin
How can the evaluation of services in the homeless sector be used as a tool in designing for hopeful futures? This study engages with transition design (Irwin, 2018) by using methods for service design and social innovation, including co-design and digital storytelling, to reflect on present practice and service provider’s needs, aspirations and concerns. Transition design creates a practice “where speculative, long-term visions of sustainable lifestyles fundamentally challenge existing paradigms and serve to inspire and inform the design of short- and mid-term solutions” (Irwin, 2015, p.231).
This study was conducted by Eszter Hegymegi and Holly Turpin, two doctoral researchers in the Loughborough University HOME (Harnessing Opportunities for Meaningful Environments) Centre for Doctoral Training. HOME is a collection of PhD projects aiming to approach homelessness in a creative way and from multiple perspectives. The CDT uses a transdisciplinary approach and a creative lens to build empathy and understanding from new, under-represented perspectives and under-researched contexts.
The study focused on drop-in services, examining the influence of location, surroundings, client demand and awareness. By combining service and co-design methodologies with immersive digital storytelling, the project aimed to enhance the evaluation of support services, ensuring that they fit within the workload of the triage workers while providing meaningful data on the organisational level.
In the two parts of the study, complementary but differing creative methods were used to explore new ideas, perspectives, and feedback. The initial workshop focused on co-designing the approach and relevant questions of data collection with the triage workers, utilising an analysis-question builder (Lewrick et al., 2020, p.111), a service design technique. The findings from this study can potentially contribute to optimising homelessness support services through innovative and participatory approaches. In the second workshop immersive digital stories were created by the participants through the use of creative mapping, story circle activities and storyboarding. Participants were encouraged to reflect on the locations of the triage drop-in sessions and express some of their experiences through audio and 360-degree storytelling. The aim of this was practically to create an anecdotal, experimental and speculative evaluation of the service.
We discuss the successes and limitations of the approach taken, the results of the study and how they will be used, and the implications of this study in its immediate context, as well as how it could inform further studies.
KEYWORDS: service design, evaluation, co-creation, codesign, digital storytelling, immersive, transition design, speculative, collaboration