Co-designing an SMS service for London’s homeless people: Considerations for designers engaging with a vulnerable user group
Ohyoon Kwon, Annemiek van Boeijen · 2012
This paper reports the challenges of designers developing an SMS service for and with a vulnerable user group; homeless people; and their supporting agencies in London. It also describes the deployed methods in the design process. Co-design activities were performed with homeless people in and outside their living environments such as streets; a hostel and a day centre. The first author engaged with them as an insider (volunteer) or an outsider (designer or facilitator). This paper highlights how co-design activities in the inside and outside environments of a vulnerable user group affect the engagement of this group. Furthermore; the paper discusses ethical issues and the different roles (insider-outsider; volunteer-professional) designers are confronted with in this particular situation. We finally recommend designers to allow participants to share ownership of the project and carefully consider their capabilities of engagement.