Sensitive Service Design: a learning approach to foster gender perspectives Nowadays, a gendered gaze evaluates our surroundings and raises the bar with which we measure and hold accountable cultural representations and productions. Gender-based norms get drawn and inscribed into design solutions beyond the visual language, this addresses the need for active gender awareness and positioning when designing experiences.
The development of this thesis promoted the design of a learning experience, crafted as a workshop that draws nearer gender-sensitive perspectives when designing services. Learning is stimulated by reflecting on everyday design activities and its potential implications on gender.
The workshop as an outcome is validated as a speculation platform; It functions as a reflexive instance from which designers outline what a gender-sensitive approach means in their particular context. The ultimate goal is to create spaces that enable conversations and allow crafting the skills needed to encourage designers to work with these categories continuously and iterative. The continuity of this project is supported as a replicable service, and design relevant gender knowledge exchange showcased online (www.sensitive-servicedesign.net). In the process of learning participants and facilitators of the workshop create new knowledge and leverage the agency of service designers to nudge positive change and equality.
Abigail Schreider
