Purpose In their ambition to create citizen participation, public organisations need to change, becoming more open, citizen-centric, and collaborative. This involves designing services and policies in dialogue with citizens, not merely for them. Design methods are increasingly entering the public domain. This study aims to investigate how civil servants perceive and enact design thinking in relation to citizen participation. Design/methodology/approach We conducted a field intervention in which design experts, municipal practitioners, and researchers co-developed and implemented an introduction to design thinking. Findings We identify tensions and role conflicts that constrain the use of design methods. Based on how the civil servants perceive their roles and how they anticipate them in the future, we conceptualise them as role reconfigurations. The four role reconfigurations are: from effective to explorative, from process-coherent to fail-fast, from administrator to innovator, and from expert to facilitator. Originality/value These findings highlight conditions for integrating design-driven approaches in public governance. These role reconfigurations show how civil servants can adopt new positions in a changing governance landscape shaped by design practice and citizen involvement. They also underscore that the sustainable implementation of design thinking requires method training but also institutional support for new mindsets, responsibilities, and relational work.

In an era marked by overlapping crises, including climate change, democratic erosion, digital disruption, and socioeconomic inequality, municipalities increasingly serve as frontline actors in shaping adaptive and inclusive urban futures. This article examines how Futures Bazaar, a participatory futuring method, can develop future literacy and resilience within municipal governance. Drawing on survey data from a multi‐case study involving 13 Swedish municipalities, based primarily on responses from organisers coordinating the events across municipalities, and complemented by an in‐depth survey of participants from one workshop, this study analyses how Futures Bazaar workshops engage civil servants, policymakers, and citizens in co‐creating tangible future scenarios to address locally defined societal challenges. Framed within theories of participatory design, co‐creation, and strategic foresight, the article explores how futures are imagined and negotiated in municipal contexts, and how this reshapes the agency of local actors in future‐making. The findings show that Futures Bazaar functions as a temporary yet transformative space for challenging institutional path dependencies and stimulating systemic thinking. Through playfulness, prototyping, and dialogue, the method helped unlock participants’ imagination, enabling them to move beyond existing constraints. However, the study also identifies critical frictions, such as organisational inertia, limited policy integration, and the exclusion of marginalised voices that constrain the method’s long‐term impact. By investigating how municipalities can navigate challenges through design‐led speculative engagement, this study contributes to a broader understanding of urban planning as both a technical, imaginative, and democratic practice. It argues that participatory futuring tools like the Futures Bazaar can help realign urban governance toward more anticipatory, inclusive, and situated future‐making practices, provided they are supported by institutional commitment and structural anchoring.

This study explores the potential of Minecraft as a game-based platform to engage youth, and particularly NEET youth, in urban planning discussions. Methodology: An exploratory qualitative case study was done in collaboration with a Swedish municipality, using observations of modded Minecraft play sessions, interviews, and ethnographic data from an internship program. Findings: Our data collection led us to identify four themes: (i) Minecraft Enables, the game supports visualization of planning ideas; (Ii) Minecraft Skills Enable, familiarity with the game facilitates participation; (iii) Preferences and Norms, personal ideals shape design choices; and (iv) Understanding Needs, limited awareness of urban functions constrains meaningful engagement. Originality: Unlike prior studies focusing on children or general youth, this research examines NEET youth as a hard-to-reach group and positions Minecraft as a boundary object for participatory planning rather than a formal planning tool. Contribution: This study contributes insight into the use of Minecraft in participatory planning with NEET youth, a rarely studied group in serious games literature and game-based approaches.

The inclusion of less represented voices in spatial planning is increasingly important, especially regarding how practitioners engage young people, that is a social group long been marginalised in city-making. This paper examines the potential of Photovoice as a tool for gathering insights into places that youth value or dislike. In collaboration with a Swedish municipality, nine young people participated over three weeks in an activity that led to a public exhibition. This study discusses how methods centred on visualisations of the city can strengthen participatory planning, amplifying youth voices, and integrating both the aesthetic and representational value of photos into change-making processes.

Privacy notices aim to inform users about a company's handling of personal data. In this study, privacy notices refer to documents detailing an organization's data handling and protection practices that users must actively seek out, as opposed to push-based banners or pop-ups. This distinction clarifies that the focus is on interactive engagement with privacy information, not mere acceptance of cookies. However, privacy notices are often lengthy, jargon-filled documents that fail to engage users and empower them to exercise their rights. This exploratory study investigates how privacy notices can be designed to enhance user understanding and action regarding their privacy rights. The study focuses on the design of privacy notices using a designed fictional online healthcare provider influenced by present online services. Two prototypes were developed, one representing the current standard format of privacy notices, the other incorporating user-centred design principles. The prototypes were evaluated through user testing and a group interview. The study draws on the principles of user-centred design, emphasizing the importance of addressing users' cognitive, emotional, and physical needs. The analysis was also informed by use qualities in digital design, specifically focusing on the qualities of seductivity, relevance, usefulness, efficiency, and transparency. The results highlight the importance of providing multiple media of information, such as text and video, to cater to diverse user preferences and situations. The participants appreciated a clear navigation and layered information structure, which allowed them to quickly access relevant information. The inclusion of actionable choices, facilitated by a dedicated act page with pre-formatted forms, was perceived as empowering and increased user trust in the company. The study shows that user-centred design principles can significantly improve the effectiveness of privacy notices. By prioritizing clarity, accessibility, and user empowerment, privacy notices can move beyond mere legal compliance and become tools that foster trust and enable users to actively manage their personal data.

This study explores the role of young people in urban planning through the lens of procedural justice, focusing on their engagement and participation in research seeking to further youth use and perception of public space. Conducted in Huddinge Municipality, Sweden, the research involved youth as co-researchers in participatory mapping exercises to document their spatial preferences and experiences. Findings highlight the importance of inclusive urban planning that recognizes young people as legitimate stakeholders. Liked spaces were often those that supported social interaction, physical activity, and autonomy, while disliked spaces in the municipality were those the young respondents associate with fear and feelings of discomfort. This study casts a perspective on the need for planning practices that accommodate diverse youth perspectives and promote equitable access to public spaces. Despite challenges in institutional uptake, the research demonstrates the potential of youth participatory methods to inform our understanding and practice for advancing towards more just and responsive urban governance. This work contributes to ongoing debates on spatial justice and the inclusion of marginalized groups in urban decision-making.

Abstract Drawing on a case study of media technology, this article addresses theory–practice conflict in an educational work setting. This conflict is expressed in employment contracts and career opportunities and in how professional identity is made. We demonstrate how ideas about practical and theoretical knowledge are negotiated in the academic career system, as well as made on different organisational levels and at intersections with multiple factors such as gender and precarious work conditions. The study is based on a collective memory-work and content analysis of policy documents and communication material. Our results highlight a dissonance between symbolic discourse about practice-based education, as highlighted in external communications, and the academic career system in which theoretical knowledge is more highly valued, as demonstrated in teachers’ positions and assignments.

Internet and increased datafication, signify a new era for civic society. Social media, fundraising tools, digital petitions, social media analytics, greatly facilitate the ability to activate, organize and raise public opinion. At the same time, the technology entails algorithmic surveillance and risks of being exposed to threats and hatred. For people at risk, undocumented refugees or people with protected identity, the lack of digital infrastructures also means great difficulties. While research points to these opportunities and risks, there is lack of research on how civic society deals with the increased datafication, and what methods, tools, and strategies are used on the field. The purpose of this workshop is therefore to gather researchers who investigate the impact of digitalization on civil society, both for established NGOs and informal activism.

Drawing on a case study of media technology, this article addresses theory-practice conflict in an educational work setting. This conflict is expressed in employment contracts and career opportunities and in how professional identity is made. We demonstrate how ideas about practical and theoretical knowledge are negotiated in the academic career system, as well as made on different organisational levels and at intersections with multiple factors such as gender and precarious work conditions. The study is based on a collective memory-work and content analysis of policy documents and communication material. Our results highlight a dissonance between symbolic discourse about practice-based education, as highlighted in external communications, and the academic career system in which theoretical knowledge is more highly valued, as demonstrated in teachers' positions and assignments.

This article reports on a study where we used a novel method to work with university students at a media technology and design programme to innovate on questions related to futuring in an educational context. Participating students used creative methods, paper crafting and design methods to "hack" the university campus in a post-COVID-19 scenario. This study situates hackathon as a design method that can be used to foster problem-solving and critical thinking skills in the context of current challenges. The students were asked to identify possible challenges in a post-COVID-19 return on campus and consider solutions to these challenges. They were tasked to shape their solutions in the form of a "sustainable artefact" meant to facilitate a smoother, safer, and welcoming return to campus life. In this study we reflect on how they engaged critically with the campus green and built infrastructure and how have they considered changes that would make their return to campus life a positive experience. Through the analysis of students' assignments, we demonstrate how this method allowed for space in finding one's own voice, how the design material supported students' work on future design, and how aspects of future design are helping students finding a way of acting upon current calls to re-work our cities.

Intergenerational justice (IGJ) has long been utilized in academic contexts such as philosophy and political theory. However, IGJ has increasingly become politicized. That is, it has been translated into more tangible ideas and discourses for public scrutiny, contestation, and action. This politicization is strongly represented by youth activism, which has utilized the concept to demand urgent political action and to defend the right to be included and represented in decision-making processes, particularly regarding climate change-related issues. The central topic of discussion in this perspective article is the strategic identification of youth inclusion with IGJ, and specifically the risks involved in accepting this identification. In this article we focus on urban environmental planning and argue that it is important to separate the practice of youth inclusion and the concept of IGJ to address these concerns and explore alternative strategies for incorporating IGJ in urban environmental planning. We then proceed to explore potential urban environmental planning approaches that are more intergenerationally just and conclude by critically reflecting on how the current political economy enables or hinders a more intergenerationally just approach to urban environmental planning.

In spatial planning of urban areas, there is a need for new methods for meaningful inclusion of less represented voices as those of young people. This study focuses on how participatory design, design fiction and sound design can be combined to engage youth in urban planning processes. This is investigated by developing and testing a method called participatory sound fiction. The method was tested with a group of young residents in a suburban area in Sweden. Sound fictions of the suburb in 2170 were created and discussed among the youth participants. The results show that through discussions and speculations about the future, important insights were revealed about the youths’ reality, which can be of value in spatial planning processes as well as in understandings of how the youth experiences their living area. Furthermore, the study found that sound can broaden youths’ perspective on their immediate environment, that participatory sound fiction has the potential to engage youths, and that youths prefer to discuss the present to feel that their voices are being heard.

This paper draws on data from an interview study with children engaged in a leisure time design lab situated in a socioeconomically vulnerable neighborhood. The study accounts for how the children involved in the design activities make sense of their experiences of participating in the design lab. Some perspectives on the relationship between design and empowerment are discussed and three empowering functions of the activities are identified that serve to empower the children in different ways: 1) The creative laboratory – How the activities allow for exploration and experimentation of both new identities and of new possible futures. 2) Community participation – How the design lab enables participation in the local community and reflections on what it means to be a citizen. 3) Playful apprenticeship – How the lab builds a peer-culture where children are continuously addressed and presented as equal colleagues in the lab, both in internal and external settings.

Appears in: EDULEARN20 Proceedings Publication year: 2020Page: 7779ISBN: 978-84-09-17979-4ISSN: 2340-1117doi: 10.21125/edulearn.2020.1962Conference name: 12th International Conference on Education and New Learning TechnologiesDates: 6-7 July, 2020Location: Online Conference

Digital competence is increasingly added as a subject in school curricula, which places new demands on teachers to not only teach in the use of digital tools but also to use such in their teaching practice. This in turn requires teachers to learn these tools and then to find meaningful ways of using them in their everyday teaching. The FICTION project investigates how teachers currently use digital tools as teaching aids, but also aims to develop guidelines for what type of tools are most useful and how to best acquire the requisite skills in using these tools. The Swedish partners of FICTION have meet three times with the teachers in a local primary school, exploring what problems they meet using digital tools, the possibilities using digital tools in their occupation, their need for skill development and how they have applied several digital tools, suggested by the participating researchers, in their teaching. The focus group interviews indicate that teachers' attitudes influence both what they feel to be useful tools and how to best use them in the classroom. But we have also uncovered a need to study how teachers prepare themselves for the use of these tools.

In this workshop we aim to find the current best practices for professional development of educators, what knowledge teachers need and how it is best imparted. The participants share their experien ...

This article draws on data from a participatory design project developing services for online youth counselling. It investigates the outcomes and contingencies of participation for stakeholders and how they make sense of their experiences of participating in a design project. The findings show how counsellors involved in a design process develop new skills and knowledge as their roles and work practices change over time. The study is longitudinal, and addresses temporal aspects of participation, and in particular what happens when design efforts come to an end. It is found that a participatory design project that fails with respect to its explicitly stated goals may still have positive secondary outcomes due to engagement and process of situated learning among the participants.

The present study examines a set of discussions among professional counselors in the area of youth counseling, as they participate in the development and design of an online video-mediated communication platform. With an overarching interest in how participatory design is performed through conversations, the analysis focuses on analogical reasoning through which the envisaged system is anchored to existing technologies and work practices. Three forms of analogical reasoning are identified: formulating design alternatives; challenging problem formulations; and telling stories. In various ways, these forms of analogical reasoning inform the ongoing design decision-making process, where the hypothetical technology and its organizational and work-related implications are evaluated. The study contributes to how analogical reasoning is done in interaction, and places the findings in the context of participatory design and studies of design reasoning.

This study examines how possibilities for agency are designed into online youth counselling services, as well as how such possibilities are addressed by young prospective users during the design of the services. The data are drawn both from the design of a national website for youth clinics in Sweden and from a design project developing e-services for local youth clinics in a Swedish municipality. The agency of young users is here treated as a key concern for understanding how user empowerment is accomplished through the design of websites and e-services. Using combined research materials (i.e. two websites and focus group meetings), this study demonstrates how design features may both facilitate and restrict young people’s involvement and control over sensitive and private issues. In addition, we demonstrate how the designed possibilities for empowerment may allow young users to critically approach and effectively use such services.